(d) Ego development. Many scholars (see Erik-
son, 1950; Loevinger, 1970; White, 1959) have
reasoned that there is a general kind of competence
which develops with age and to a higher level in
some people than in others. Costa (197la) re-
cently has developed a Thematic Apperception Test
code for ego development which appears to have
many of the aspects sought in the new measurement direction proposed here. The thought character-
istics sampled represent criterion behavior in the
sense that at Stage 1, for example, the person is
thinking at a passive conformist level, whereas at
Stage 4, he represents people in his stories as
taking initiative on behalf of others (a more de-
veloped competency). The score on this measure
predicts very well which junior or high school stu-
dents will be perceived by their teachers as more
competent (even when correlations with intelligence
and grade performance are removed), and further-
more a special kind of education in junior high
school moves students up the ego development scale
significantly. That is, training designed to develop
a sense of initiative produced results that were
reflected sensitively in this score. Pupils and
teachers can collaborate in increasing this kind of
thinking which ought to prepare students for com-
petent action in many spheres of life.