A Critical Review of the Validity of Ego Development Theory and Its Measurement

Loevinger's (1976) theory of ego development represents an important and original approach to understanding personality development. More than 20 years have elapsed since the last substantial critical review of the validity of the theory and its measurement (Loevinger, 1979). Our article provid...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of personality assessment Vol. 77; no. 3; pp. 541 - 567
Main Authors Gilmore, John Manners, Durkin, Kevin
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Philadelphia, PA Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc 01.12.2001
Taylor & Francis
Subjects
Biological and medical sciences
Ego
Ego development
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Intelligence
Measures
Personal Construct Theory
Personality
Personality Development
Personality. Affectivity
Predictive Value of Tests
Psychoanalytic Theory
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Psychometrics
Psychotherapy
Reproducibility of Results
Reviews
Human
Measurement
Construct validity
Theoretical model
Discriminant validity
Critical study
Psychometrics
Personality development
Personality
Developmental stage
Review
Ego
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Summary:Loevinger's (1976) theory of ego development represents an important and original approach to understanding personality development. More than 20 years have elapsed since the last substantial critical review of the validity of the theory and its measurement (Loevinger, 1979). Our article provides an updated critical review of the theory by reviewing the considerable body of research that has accumulated over the past 20 years. This review addresses the construct, predictive, and discriminant validity of ego development theory and the Washington University Sentence Completion Test (WUSCT; Loevinger & Wessler, 1970; Loevinger, Wessler, & Redmore, 1970) as its measurement. We conclude that there is substantial empirical support for the conceptual soundness of ego development theory and the WUSCT.
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ISSN:0022-3891
1532-7752
DOI:10.1207/S15327752JPA7703_12