INTERPERSONAL BEHAVIOR*

* Condensed and adapted from W. C. Schutz: “Interpersonal Underworld”, Harvard Business Review, July-August, 1958.

In order to deal with interpersonal behavior it is necessary to have an understanding of the general principles of interpersonal behavior, since formulas for handling specific situations are of limited value at best. The following theory is by no means the only one extent in psychological literature, but it is offered as a possible framework for understanding interpersonal problems.

INTERPERSONAL NEEDS

The basis for evolving this theory of interpersonal behavior is the individual’s fundamental interpersonal relations orientation or, to abbreviate, FIRO. The basic assumption of this approach is that people need people. Every human being, because he lives in a society, must establish an equilibrium between himself and his human environment just as he must establish an equilibrium between himself and the physical world. This social nature of man gives rise to certain interpersonal needs, which he must satisfy to some degree while avoiding threat to himself. Although each individual has different intensities of needs and different mechanisms for handling them, people have the same basic needs.

People have three basic interpersonal needs in common:

The Need for Inclusion

This is the need to maintain a satisfactory relation between the self and other people with respect to interaction or belonging-ness. Some people like to be with other people all the time; they want to belong to organizations, to interact, to mingle. Other people seek much less contact; they prefer to be alone, to interact minimally to stay out of groups, to maintain privacy.

If a continuum were to be drawn between these two extremes, every person could be placed at a point (or region) at which he feels most comfortable. Thus to a certain degree each individual is trying to belong to a group, but he is also trying to maintain a certain amount of privacy. From this point of view, he wishes to a degree, to have people initiate interaction toward him through invitations and the like, and also wishes to some degree that people would leave him alone. For each dimension these two aspects may be distinguished: (1) the behavior he initiates towards others, his expressed behavior; and (2) the behavior he prefers others to express toward him, his wanted behavior. This distinction will prove valuable in the discussion of compatibility.

The Need for Control

This is the need to maintain a satisfactory relation between oneself and other people with regard to power and influence. In other words, every individual has a need to control his situation to some degree, so that his environment can be predictable for him. Ordinarily this amounts to controlling other people, because other people are the main agents, which threaten him and create an unpredictable and uncontrollable situation. This need for control varies from those who want to control their entire environment, including all the people around them, to those who what to control on one in any situation, no matter how appropriate controlling them would be. Here, again, everyone varies as to the degree to which he wants to control others. In addition, everyone varies with respect to the degree to which he wants to be controlled and are dependent on others for making decisions for them to those who want to be controlled under no conditions.

The Need for Affection

This is the need to maintain a satisfactory relation between the self and other people with regard to love and affection. In the business setting this need is seldom made overt. It takes the form of friendship. In essence, affection is a relationship between two people, only a dyadic relationship. At one extreme individuals like their personal relationships to be quite impersonal and distant – perhaps friendly but not close and intimate.

Again, between these two extremes everyone has a level of intimacy, which is most comfortable for him. From the other side, each individual prefers that others make overtures to him in a way that indicates a certain degree of closeness.

To clarify that various orientations in these three areas, Exhibit-I presents the extreme positions taken in each of the dimensions. Everyone fits somewhere between these two extremes, most of them in the middle.

INTERPERSONAL COMPATIBILITY

This theory of interpersonal relations can be very useful to business-men in determining the compatibility of the members of a group. It at the outset we can choose a group of people who can work together harmoniously we shall go far toward avoiding situations where a group’s efforts are wasted in interpersonal conflicts.

Our theoretical framework is designed to handle this problem. Suppose we consider in more detail the two aspects for each of the three interpersonal dimensions. One aspect is what we do with relation to other people; let use call this “e” for expressed behavior. The second is what we want from other people, how we want them to act towards us; let us call this “w” for wanted behavior. Then we can use “e” and “w” to try to find out how people will relate to each other in the inclusion dimension (“I”), the control dimension (“C”), and the affection dimension (“A”), as shown schematically in Exhibit-II.

As the Table suggests, two people would be likely to get along well with each other when one person’s behavior matches another person’s. The matching or compatibility is based on two principles which are best expressed by the well-known maxims that “Birds of a feather flock together”, and “opposites attract”. It must be made clear here, that compatibility is not necessarily an indication of how happy people are with each other or how well integrated each personality is. Two happy people may be incompatible with each other because their needs clash with each other’s. On the other hand, two unhappy people may find in each other a way of coping with their unhappiness.

There are three different kinds of compatibility which, can be understood from the strength of a person’s interpersonal needs in the expressed and wanted dimensions of inclusion, control and affection.

Reciprocal Compatibility

This is an index of whether person A’s expressed behavior matches what person B wants and, at the same time, whether B’s expressed behavior matches what A wants. For instance, if A has a high expressed inclusion and low wanted inclusion, while B has low expressed inclusion but high wanted inclusion, then A’s and B’s behaviors in the inclusion area are reciprocally compatible.

Originator Compatibility

This is an index of the extent to which each person is willing to initiate a relationship. If both persons want to initiate (high expressed behavior) but neither wants to be drawn into the relationship (low wanted behavior), there will be competitive incompatibility. For instance, two autocrat-rebels are likely to be incompatible with each other. Incompatibility would also exist when neither is willing to initiate (low expressed behavior) and both wish to be drawn into the relationship. This is known as apathetic incompatibility. For instance, two abdicrat-submissives or two under-social social-complaints would be apathetically incompatible.

Interchange Compatibility

This refers to the extent to which two people are both involved in an area of interpersonal relations. If one person is interested in an area of interaction (high expressed plus wanted behavior) and the other person is also similarly interested, the two are likely to get along in situations where such compatibility is relevant.

APPLICATION OF THE THEORY

The Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation Theory presented in this note is useful in helping individuals gain an awareness of their own needs in situations requiring interpersonal contacts. Such an awareness would enable individuals understand their reactions to other people. In addition, if people understand the needs of others and realize that others share similar needs as their own, they may be more tolerant of others’ behavior. Since everyone has these needs, everyone tries to get the same thing from other people, even though each may use different adaptive patterns for achieving his ends.

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