Social Instinct Panels
Jun 18, 2023
In 2021 The Art of Growth assembled panels of all 27 Subtypes.
Here are the Social Panels:
Instincts Introduction Episode
Integrating the instincts Episode
Social Instinct Key Features
READING/ INTERPRETING: Our ability to read body language, facial expressions, and energy of others to interpret others in order to find allies and care for the herd. This is the capacity to communicate and adapt in social environments. They read the intentions of others to organize social structures and care for the network of relationships.
BONDING/ AFFILIATING: Ability to co-create with others, make others feel like partners, and establish mutual support structures for each other. This energy bonds people together and creates win/win solutions with an "us" first intuition. Natural curiosity for meeting with people.
CONTRIBUTION TO OTHERS: Involvement and participation in altruism because value comes from contribution to the group or community. This instinct leans toward serving the greater good with a mission to help others with their gifts. They are intelligent on where to put their energies with others.
What are the Instincts
From a psychological perspective, instincts refer to innate, automatic, and unconscious patterns of behavior that are biologically and environmentally formed in humans and other animals. These instincts are essential for survival and play a crucial role in guiding our responses to various situations. They are often deeply rooted in our evolutionary history and have developed over time to aid in the adaptation and preservation of our species.
The instincts add a layer of clarity to the difference between people of the same Enneagram type. When examining instincts through the lens of the Enneagram, a personality system structured into nine different types, we can see how instincts play a vital role in shaping the expression of each type's core motivations and creates nuance to the behavior of the type. The Enneagram adopted the three fundamental instinctual variants: Self-Preservation, Social, and Sexual (also known as One-to-One).
Terms
Enneagram Type: One of the nine points where you fixate as your primary personality structure. Other adaptations and integrations are filtered through the core type.
Instinct: Your dominant instinct is the strongest of the three instincts in your personality structure. Your instinctual stack is the order in which your instincts fall with your dominant at the top and your resisted or repressed instinct at the bottom.
Subtype: The combination of your dominant instinct with primary Enneagram type. ie Social 9 or SO9.
Update: What We Have Learned in the Last 5 Years of Studying the Instincts
Since these 2021 panels, our research has continued through more panels, coaching, and assessment data. We now see the description above as the developmental version of the instinct. It describes how the instinct shows up in our personal lives: reading people, bonding with them, and contributing to the groups we belong to.
The Teamer Instinct (SO)
We also call this the Teamer instinct. In our book, Hunters, Farmers, and Teamers, we describe it as what happens when this instinct grows up and goes to work.
The Teamer is concerned with how the whole is affected, whether that whole is a team, a community, or a network. At work, this energy goes toward cohesion and collaboration. Teamers ask how a decision lands on everyone involved, and they look for the place where their contribution helps the group move forward. Their engagement with a group always serves a purpose.
The classic name, Social, can make this instinct sound like being outgoing or wanting to be around people. A Teamer may prefer more time with groups or more time alone. What defines the instinct is where the attention goes: toward the good of the whole.
Beyond the Subtype
Our instinct work started with the subtypes. On our panels, people who shared a subtype had a lot in common. As we listened, we heard the differences grow between people with the same dominant instinct and a different secondary instinct. That led us to look at the full instinct stack.
Each of the three instincts can sit first, second, or third, which creates six stacks. Combined with the nine Enneagram types, that gives us 54 distinct type expressions. We see your instinct stack and your Enneagram type as carrying roughly equal weight.
We have also learned that the instinct at the bottom of the stack is not always repressed. For some people it is neglected. For others it is resisted, avoided, or worried about a lot.
Find Your Stack
- Take the free Instinct Stack test: instinctstack.com
- Instincts class: Enroll here
- Enneagram class: Enroll here
- Read the book: Hunters, Farmers, and Teamers: Harness Human Instincts to Elevate Impact