Psychological Knowledge Engagement as Social Moves
Four Types of Thematic Spaces of Knowledge Discovery Canvas and the Territory of Concepts
I have mentioned the theme “Social Moves” in several articles. Kegan’s knowledge enterprise offers me an opportunity to conduct a case study about “Social Moves”.
In July 2023, I finished the “Mental Moves” knowledge project and edited a possible book titled Mental Moves: The Attachance Approach to Ecological Creative Cognition. On August 24, 2023, I started the “Social Moves” knowledge project which uses “Social Territory” as the primary concept.
The term “Social Territory” was inspired by Ping-keung Lui’s term “Social Territory” and his Subjectivist Structuralism which is part of his theoretical sociology.
I have claimed that “Knowledge Center” is a type of Social Territory. You can find more details in Knowledge Engagement: The Creative Course Framework.
I use “Social Territory” in general in the “Social Moves” knowledge project.
If we put “Mental Moves” and “Social Moves” together, we see a new unit of analysis of Social Cognition. While “Social Moves” are about Social Actions, “Mental Moves” are about related Mental Activities.
Social Cognition = Social Moves (Mental Moves)
Both “Mental Moves” and “Social Moves” shared the concept of “Thematic Space”.
In Sept 2023, I used a Psychological Counseling Platform as an example to conduct a case study about “Social Moves”.
The above diagram used the Activity Circle model as the basic model. People’s social life can be understood as moving between different types of Activity Circles. You can find more details in Value Circle #4: From “ARCH” to “Activity Circle”.
What does Kegan’s knowledge enterprise look like from the perspective of “Social Moves”? See the diagram below.
As mentioned in the beginning, Kegan switched between four roles and moved between four different types of thematic spaces of psychological knowledge engagement.
- Theoretical Psychologists — The THEORY thematic space
- Empirical Psychologists — The END thematic space
- Intervenors — The MEANS thematic space
- Actors — The PRACTICE thematic space
These four types of knowledge creators have different perspectives and behavioral patterns because they have different construal levels, practical interests, points of observation, methodological preferences, and expressive conventions (or language habits).
Since the four thematic spaces correspond to four types of roles, moving between these thematic spaces means moving between four social spaces.
This is a perfect example of Social Moves (Mental Moves).
This case study is based on the Knowledge Discovery Canvas. If we use the canvas to analyze Psychological Knowledge Engagement in general, we can use the same model.
In fact, we can also apply the model of “Psychological Counseling Platform” to Kegan’s knowledge enterprise. Minds at Work is a real “Psychological Counseling Platform”.
In this way, the Knowledge Engagement project moves from the theme of “Mental Moves” to the theme of “Social Moves”.
