More About the Personal-Social Dimension

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New - an essay discussing basic problems of world cultures: "The Combative Dominance Syndrome"

The second largest dimension of the motivational system is the personal-social dimension. One might speculate that the personal-social dimension was the second motivation dimension to develop in the phylogenic process. As previously discussed, basic priorities (such as survival) would require the combative dimension to be the first dimension to be developed. However, species that protect their offspring during early development create new possibilities for development and learning. With more emphasis on learning, intelligence can replace "instinct" or genetic "hard wiring" to provide greater versatility for adaptation. Darwinian evolutionary processes would favor species that cultivate learning and intelligence and these factors flourish when social bonding is part of the motivational structure of the species.

The key to the development of the personal-social dimension is the nurturance need. (See Need Defintions). The need to nurture and care for the young during their helpless early development period is a necessity for personal/social bonding. Mammals (through their mammary glands) have developed a greater physiological capacity for nurturing than have other classes. (Birds are also nurturing but are more directly dependent on the environment to provide food for their young and do not care for their young as long as do mammals.) With the nurturance need as its base, the personal-social dimension added a second dimension to the motivational system. Life gets more complicated but better.

If the combative dimension is for making war, the personal-social dimension is for making love. People hold positive attitudes toward the needs in the personal-social area whereas attitudes are negative toward some of the needs (particularly the combative needs) in the impersonal area. The structure of the personal social dimension may be seen and compared to the combative dimension if you click on the Motivation System Target Model.

Among the needs in the personal-social area are five that are active in that difficult to define emotion called love. We find love in the form of nurturance or caring for others; love in the form of affiliation that promotes positive bonding with others; love in the form of gratitude that moves us to express appreciation for the actions and qualities of others; love in the form of succorance that moves us to trust and depend on others; and last but not least, love in the form of sex that moves us to appreciate the physical qualities of others and to share physical pleasures and satisfactions. Maybe that elusive concept we call "LOVE" is the adaptive fusing of all these personal needs plus the enhancing contributions of other personal area needs.

The play need has the strongest (most peripheral) location in the personal-social area. In this dominant location, play can set the tone for personal and social interactions. We can enjoy playing with others - be they babies or old folks. Social occasions are planned to be pleasurable by providing games, food, drink, and entertainment as well as "just visiting" (scientifically termed "affiliating" by sophisticated psychologists). Its peripheral location suggests that play may not be activated as frequently as other personal-social needs that are more centrally located, However, when the play need is active, it livens the occasion and provides us with the restorative relaxation and pleasures of the fantasy and "as if" world.

The sentience need is also located in the personal-social area. Sentience adds sensitivity and a desire for harmony to our personal-social relationships. Our appreciation of beauty draws us together. We all like to share esthetic experiences with others - whether it is the natural beauty of a sunrise or the "artificial" beauty of music, art, or the theater. Total strangers are bonded, at least temporarily, as they respond to the sensory pleasures of a concert or an art display. Esthetic delight comes close to being another form of love.

The abasement need, located in the personal-social area, enables us to be open, honest, and humble in our personal/social relationships. Our closest friends are the ones we can turn to when we need to recognize and admit our faults, shortcomings, mistakes, and general personal dissatisfactions. Abasement and the succorance need combine to motivate us to reveal our problems to others and to seek help from others to resolve our problems.

Now we come to the need that most frequently raises questions as to how it can adaptively fuse with the other personal-social area needs. Autonomy is the need to seek freedom and independence. How can we be free and independent at the same time we seek close personal relationships with others? The answer is: we bond with those we want to bond with. Thus, our personal/social transactions should be on a free and independent basis - not the result of calculation or coercion. We go to a party or fall in love because we desire such experiences - not because we should or ought to do so. Ideally, all our personal relationships should be entered into with freedom, self-determination, and equality. That's how we can be autonomous and personally engaged at the same time.

The impersonal area is where we should go when there is a dispute or disagreement with our loved ones and friends. We should not deny or repress combative feelings when they are seriously aroused in our personal-social relationships. A study of the structure of the impersonal area shows that in addition to the combative needs (aggression, defendance, rejection, dominance) there are rational needs (understanding, order, achievement) distributed throughout the impersonal area. These rational needs moderate combative impulses and enable us to analyze our combative feelings and avoid power struggles by working out rational solutions to our conflicts.

To illustrate the moderating influence of the rational needs over combative needs, take the case of three good friends who decide to share an apartment. Would you be surprised to hear that things did not always go smoothly? After a honeymoon period some questions arose as to who was not doing their share of washing dirty dishes, sweeping floors, and otherwise caring for the maintenance of the apartment. There may also have been some question of late contributions to the rent (the landlord was somewhat combative about this problem). The roommates all realized that they very much valued their friendships. They wisely decided to seek counseling. In the counseling (guided by the PIT motivational structure, of course), they became aware that their problems could not be satisfactorily resolved in the combative dimension if they wished to maintain their friendly relationships. By operating in the impersonal area of the personal dimension, they found they could rationally analyze their problems (understanding need), organize a plan to share the maintenance (order need), and work together to carry out their plan (achievement need). The rent problem was a little more difficult but that was also found to respond effectively to rational analysis, organization, and work (and paying the rent on time). Another happy ending for synchronic motivation analysis.

The inferiority avoidance need has a strong peripheral location in the impersonal area of the personal-social dimension (see The Motivation System Target Model). This location indicates that when we are operating in the personal-social area, fear of failure is very far from our thoughts and feelings because it is very incompatible with our personal-social needs. We do not want anxiety about inferiority to rain on our party. However, if we need to move to the impersonal area to deal with conflicts, inferiority avoidance works strongly to motivate us to rationally resolve conflicts and save the relationship. We very much wish to avoid failure in our personal/social relationships. Friendships and marriages that break up are often referred to as "failures". Fear of failure is a strong motivating force for resolving problems that threaten a desired personal relationship.

It may be a little surprising to see that the exhibition need is located in the impersonal area. At social gatherings (and even in intimate personal circumstances) it appears that people are exhibiting their knowledge and observations. However, part of the definition for the exhibition need defines it as the need to exhibit one's talents and abilities. There is a difference between sharing observations and experiences with others and performing to impress an audience. The latter brings to mind a platform or stage with an expert performer and a separate admiring audience. Exhibition is more appropriate in competitive situations than in personal/social relationships. In a personal/social situation, people who "steal the limelight" or who combine the dominance and exhibition needs to control the attention of others, soon change the nature of a personal/social occasion to a competition "who can top this" situation. Such people usually do not get many encores from those who wish to affiliate and relate to each other on a personal-social basis.

Though not strongly situated in the impersonal area, the counteraction need can combine with the rational needs to motivate desires to resolve combative conflicts. Counteraction moves us to recognize our shortcomings and strive to correct them. This motivation can be quite positive and constructive in efforts to rationally work out conflicts that threaten personal relationships. If those who are trying to resolve personal conflicts see others honestly trying to correct their own faults, it should motivate corresponding efforts from all involved and this should have beneficial results.

When the rational needs (understanding, order, achievement are misplaced from the impersonal area to the personal-social area, some subtle but important conflicts may be apparent. We operate in the personal-social area by intuition. Interpersonal relationships are so complex and change so rapidly that it is impossible to choose many of our reactions by rational analytic processes. We have to rely on our memory of similar experiences and our "feelings" to provide us with immediate responses and actions. The use of rational analysis in a social situation is analogous to a tennis player trying to decide how to return a serve by mathematically calculating the velocity, height, angle, spin, etc. of the approaching ball. The tennis player must use experience and perceptual judgment to effectively return the ball. The synchronic activation of both the rational and personal needs results in obsessive grid locks that stifle personal/social interactions. Better to be spontaneous and impulsive (even with a few mistakes) than to be obsessive and compulsive in personal/social situations. However, retrospective analysis of past social events can help improve future performances.

Displacement of the order need to the personal-social area may be associated with desires and attempts to meticulously organize all personal/social situations so there will be no unanticipated happenings. Unanticipated happenings are threatening for obssessive-compulsive people. Displacement of the understanding need to the personal-social area can indicate attempts to carefully study and analyze social situations at the same time one is responding to the ebb and flow of social interactions. As indicated by the tennis analogy, few people can effectively carry out both of these behaviorally opposed types of actions at the same time.

An interesting example of maladaptive fusing of rational needs with personal-social needs comes to mind. Once there was a school teacher who used to bring students' test papers to social parties and grade them in the midst of the festivities. One might say that she definitely had a misplacement of her achievement need to the personal-social area. She justified her unusual behavior by complaining that her never ending work obligations and her dedication to her work made her compulsive actions necessary. It is more likely that social situations made her nervous and this was her mal adaptive way of coping with her anxiety.

Experiences with the displacement of the dominance need from the impersonal area to the personal-social area bring to mind a mother who was relentless in her efforts to control the thoughts and actions of her teen age daughter. She constantly checked the daughter's room and all her belongings and required an accounting of all her activities. She dictated what she wore on all occasions, activities she could engage in, and those with whom she could affiliate. Those who have had recent contacts with teen teenagers will not be surprised to hear that the daughter was not happy with this surveillance. Neither was the father who escaped his wife's supervision only by taking extended business trips. Unfortunately, the mother's domineering behavior caused her to withdraw from family counseling when attention was brought to her controlling actions. Naturally, she ordered the rest of the family to discontinue therapy.

Some important consequences can be expected if the aggression need is displaced from the impersonal to the personal-social area. One man who located aggression in the personal area felt that the way to get close to people was to engage them in criticism and argument. He believed that the sign of a real friendship was the ability to withstand verbal attacks. The family he grew up with was like that. The family members were "always yelling at each other." It may be true that good relationships should be able to withstand strong criticism but the criticism should occur in a rational form in the impersonal area. It came as a surprise to him that others might not share the beliefs and habits of his childhood family and that family life could be more pleasant and rewarding with out so much accusing, blaming, and criticizing (the ABCs of human combative interactions). Displacement of the defendance need from the impersonal to the personal-social area has been known to accompany a belief that any one with whom you develop a close relationship will be constantly looking for your faults and mistakes (often a generalization from early parent-child experiences). Such a belief causes the person to be constantly on guard and prepared to defend against attack.

The above examples of extreme need displacement refer to impersonal needs dislocated from the impersonal area to the personal-social area. Displacement of personal-social area needs to the impersonal area also occurs and can have equally important consequences. For example, if the autonomy need is displaced from the personal-social area to the impersonal area, the effects may be evident in a lack of independence and spontaneity in personal-social relations. In such cases, the person's relationships tend to reduce their sense of their own identity. They become too identified with others. Such close identity makes it hard for them to be an equal contributor in the formation of a relationship and sometimes they have difficulty in terminating a relationship that they find unrewarding. In its unnatural location in the impersonal area, the autonomy need can work against conflict resolution. Desires to be independent and to not consider the complaints of others do not facilitate compromise and willingness to meet others half way.

Displacement of the play need from the personal-social area to the impersonal area literally takes the pleasure out of personal/social relationships. With the loss of the play need, personal interactions tend to concentrate too much on serious matters and needs such as abasement (discussion of faults and shortcomings) may become more dominant. Depressive reactions become more likely. Since play requires us to assume an "as if" attitude, relationships become more serious and less lightened by imagination. When unnaturally located in the impersonal area, play can sabotage serious efforts to deal with interpersonal problems. Playfulness does not mix well with rational discussion of serious problems.

Displacement of the affiliation need from the personal-social area to the impersonal area is noted more for its absence in the personal-social area than for its unusual presence in the impersonal area. Without the desire to be friendly and sociable, personal/social interactions have a hard time getting established. Relationships that are formed without affiliation motivation may be the product of pressures of convention (one should have friends) or as a result of the efforts of others. The unnatural location of the affiliation need in the impersonal area may make it hard for a person to be objective and impersonal in conflict resolution situations.

If the nurturance need is displaced from its normal personal-social area location to the impersonal area, there may be a significant loss of sympathetic caring and concern in personal/social relationships. Mutual caring is very important for the development of relationships, especially close intimate relationships. In personal interactions, the nurturance and succorance needs play supportive roles. We should be willing to accept help when needed as well as give help when our friends and families need it. In other words, there should be both give and take in personal relationships. When mislocated to the impersonal area, both nurturance and succorance can interfere with objective efforts to resolve conflicts. If the sentience need is mislocated in the impersonal area, there is apt to be a lack of sensitivity and harmony in personal relationships. Displacement of the gratitude need to the impersonal area can result in a lack of appreciation for the acts and qualities of those with whom we are personally involved. Sensitivity, harmony, and appreciation are all important for close bonding. When located in the impersonal area, sentience and gratitude work against objective conflict resolution. The loss of the abasement need from the personal-social area when it is mislocated in the impersonal area, can indicate a lack of openness and frankness in interpersonal relationships. Such honesty is very helpful in establishing the trust needed for personal intimacy. In the impersonal area, the abasement need may induce an inappropriate element of self doubt and self criticism that handicap attempts to work out fair and equitable solutions to problems that arise with friends and loved ones. Abasement in impersonal interactions may work against the assertion of justified complaints.

Mislocation of the sex need from its normal location in the personal-social area to the impersonal area removes sex from the moderating caring aspects of personal area needs. Thus, sex may not be as strongly related to personal commitment and bonding as it should be in intimate personal relationships. This leaves the expression of sex more in the combative and competitive modes than in the personal intimate mode.

The Picture Identification Test (PIT) is a psychological instrument based on the Murray need system. The PIT uses multidimensional scaling to provide an analysis of needs (motives). It indicates needs that are being met or expressed ineffectively. The PIT can be administered to subjects ages twelve and older.

• Motivation Analysis - Theory developed from Picture Identification Test research and from the general systems point of view.
• Essays - Observations and thoughts about motivation, beliefs, values, purpose and meaning.
• Needs (Motives) - Discussion of 22 Murray based needs as they relate to three major motivation dimensions.

For further information about the Picture Identification Test contact
Jay L. Chambers, PhD: ibis@kalexres.kendal.org
160 Kendal Drive Apartment #205
Lexington, Virginia 24450
Phone: 540.462.3874

The Motivation Analysis web site has three sections:

Motivation Analysis: General Systems Point of View | Combative Dimension | Personal Social Dimension | Competitve Dimension | PIT Scores | PIT Publications | PIT Dissertations | Motivation System Target Model | Target Model Reliability | GPA Predications | Need & Cluster Definitions | Links

Essays: Combative Dominance Syndrome (new) | Political Motivation | Mental Sets | Symbolic Thinking, Values, Motivation & Religion | Needs, Values, Philosophy & Religion

Needs (Motives): Abasement | Achievement | Affiliation | Aggression | Autonomy | Blame Avoidance | Counteraction | Defendance | Deference | Dominance | Exhibition | Gratitude | Harm Avoidance | Inferiority Avoidance | Nurturance | Order | Play | Rejection | Sentience | Sex | Succorance | Understanding

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