ABSTRACT
Over 100 years, Psychologists, Organizational Scientists and Developmental Economists have built models of developmental process – both natural and interventional – that this chapter shows to have been biased by (a) perspectives prevalent in their schools, (b) their own experience, and (c) simplistic five-stage modeling. These models fail the Complexity of human nature resulting in very high failure rates of between 50 and 100% for interventions across each paradigm as well as disillusionment with grand theory, and the subsequent rise of post-modernism, while Systems Theory is shown to have produced little relevant operationalizable modeling. The outcome is particularly onerous for Psychology, because each paradigm has effectively called for the same solution which is Learning – whether as Learning Life, Organization, Economy, Society, etc. – but there has been no model forthcoming from Psychology to assist. Unitary Developmental Theory (UDT) is such a model and is presented as Metatheory to assist across all paradigms. Furthermore, the disillusionment is extending to provoke destructive radicalism in Religion, Politics, Science, etc., and again, the UDT model will leave no doubt regarding the immaturity of such movements and offer guidance to build mature structures of governance in all areas and thereby offer the prospect of building a mature world.
