Overview of the social instinct
The newest instinctual drive in organisms, the social instinct is our relational drive. It motivates us to create relationships and care for the well-being of others. It includes our desire to positively enhance the lives of those we care for.
When this drive is active in us, we’re interested and curious about people beyond what they can be or do for us. The social drive is what helps us to assess who is and who isn’t a worthy friend, ally or partner, without losing sight of the humanity of those we are in conflict with.
The origin of the social instinct is the creation of the family unit. The social instinct is what makes us seek to represent ourselves in appearance, personal style and body language in a way that’s congruent with our social identity.
Names given to this instinct
Relations (Ichazo), Social (Naranjo), the Navigating domain (Mario Sikora).
Names given to social subtypes (Hudson’s)
Eight: Gusto and Comraderie; Nine: One Happy Family; One: the Crusader; Two: Unconscious Ambition; Three: Prestige; Four: the Outsider; Five: the Specialist; Six: Engaging Support; Seven: Missing Out.
You can read descriptions of the social subtypes below.
General characteristics of social types
Social types – general characteristics
Intensely aware that people are innately connected, rendering them sensitive to a wide range of interpersonal forces between themselves and others.
Attuned to the emotional atmosphere of their social milieu and the needs, agendas and states of others.
Motivated to develop gifts and capacities that contribute to others.
Especially capable in recognising the talents, gifts and contributions of others; better at seeing the values and gifts of others than their own.
Characteristically require a greater deal more interaction and involvement in others’ lives.
When balanced, can care for others and exhibit selflessness in another’s real need. Can become preoccupation with what others are thinking and feeling about them.
Often highly discerning and selective about who they connect with, yet willing to set aside certain prejudices in order to find common ground.
Awareness of attention towards others persists even when heartbroken or let down, and deeply cynical that anything good can come from relationships.
Find it easier to mobilise others than to find their own aim or individual path through life.
Characteristics are from John Luckovich’s book, the Instinctual Drives and the Enneagram.
Zones of the social instinct
Russ Hudson has identified three zones (or sub-domains) to the social instinct:
- Reading people and situations
- Connecting
- Participation
He has broken down the categories further as follows:
Zones of the social instinct
Zone 1: Reading people and situations
Reading facial expressions/body language/tone of voice/moods.
Reading between the lines.
Interest in others/attunement/tuning in.
Empathy/concern.
Adapting to cures/adjusting behaviour.
Zone 2: Connecting
Creating relationships: engaging others.
Sustaining relationships: maintaining connections and knowing when to end them.
Communication—speaking and listening.
Cooperation/reciprocity.
Play/shared enjoyment/celebration.
Zone 3: Participation
Getting involved or not: what do I participate in?
Need to contribute: something beyond my own needs.
Enrolling: getting others interested and involved in what I am passionate about.
Part of something bigger/sense of place.
Belonging and welcoming.
In most cases, you would expect social subtypes, or those for whom social is second in their instinct sequence, to give themselves high scores for these areas, and self-preservation ‘blind’ or repressed individuals to give themselves low scores.
How it looks when social is present, dominant, ‘blind’/repressed
Those of us who are dominant or repressed/blind in self-preservation experience similar challenges. See the table below.
Present, dominant, blind characteristics
Present
Reading people: We easily pick-up cues from others and can read facial expressions and body language. We can read between the lines of what others are saying and we adapt accordingly. Helps us to navigate relationships and be good parents/caregivers. Helps us adapt and respond to what we detect in others.
Creating and maintaining connections: Work at relationships and strive for reciprocity. Helps us in our ability to engage others, and to strengthen connections when it serves our purposes or desires. We value communication.
Participation and contribution: Passionate about what we contribute to others. Participation also brings a sense of belonging: that we are welcomed and that what we are doing matters. Participation does not mean joining everything or always wanting to be around people. we could be introverts and love solitude but still have a strong drive to contribute. instinct helps us discern what we participate in, helps us realize what is not right for us. At its best, is the drive that keeps us contributing to the human journey and creating a meaningful life for self and others.
Dominant/distorted
Reading people: Anxieties and self-defeating behaviors, over-concern about others-fearing exclusion or being devalued. May reject our own knowing to please others.
Creating and maintaining connections: Deteriorate into codependent behaviors and anxious attempts to ingratiate ourselves with others.
Participation and contribution: Constant anxieties about belonging, creating in and out groups, and narcissistic needs to be important.
Blind
Reading people: We may stereotype its energy as exhausting small talk and aimless hanging out.
Creating and maintaining connections: We don’t see a point in connecting.
Participation and contribution: We may perceive ourselves as independent or that nothing we do matters.
Points to note:
- Being present in the social instinct means attending to these life areas in healthy, non-neurotic, relaxed ways. It is knowing there is a need and meeting it without excess thought.
- Being fearful about social is a pointer towards the social instinct being on overdrive.
- Being apathetic, negative or judgmental towards others who honor this instinct may indicate a repressed relationship with this instinct.
- Rarely are we effective across all three of the areas – even when the instinct is dominant or secondary.
Social blind characteristics
We develop our habituated stances with the instincts at least partly in response to events and situations in the early nurturing environment.
When you get a clear picture of how you relate to each instinct, often it paints a story/evokes memories of when the instinct priority may have been established.
Related to this idea is the idea that we hold deeply unconscious beliefs about the meaning of this instinct. You may unconsciously believe that by expressing social (by being too available and dispersed):
- it will create scarcity and harm by undermining my resources. This belief is associated with self-preservation/sexual types.
- you won’t be attractive and will be sexually overlooked. This belief is associated with sexual/self-preservation types.
Social blind types – general characteristics
Operate from a vague notion of the social architecture of interpersonal and group situations alike, so making efforts to connect or trying to participate in a social scene can seem taxing and lacking any clear benefit.
Engaging in the social sphere felt as a distinction dissolving ocean, and to open up to it would be to whitewash one’s uniqueness and focussed attention on personal interests.
There is the assumption that others will require an excessive compromise on boundaries, personal traits and identity.
Trying to keep up with what others and thinking and feeling feels like a fruitless expenditure of energy and is quickly dropped.
Often fail to put in the effort necessary to be involved in the lives of those they care for, leading to the deterioration of their relationships.
Give up on themselves as they can give up on others and assume the same in return.
Are mostly unconscious about their social fears and disappointments except in specific moments when their desire to connect arises.
Generally pretty comfortable with a good deal more isolation and non-interaction.
Underdeveloped relations style undermines aims of the other instincts.
Lack of being bound by social constraints, expectations or the need to anticipate how to remain on good social footing can be enviable to those with more social instinct.
Erase themselves and their contributions simply not seeing that they make an impact or have an impact to make.
Complete obliviousness to how benefiting others increases personal satisfaction.
Blind to how gifts, insight and understanding benefit others and fail to see how loved ones need them to show up.
Narcissism around autonomy including delusions about own self-reliance and of being self-made. Take others for granted out of a failure to recognise how much others actually do for them and accommodate their preferences.
Generally have the suspicion and cynicism around interpersonal gatherings, with a distaste for “everyone gets along with one another” idealism, underneath which is hidden heartbreak and assumption that others don’t value their presence.
Characteristics are from John Luckovich’s book, the Instinctual Drives and the Enneagram.
Development of social
There isn’t a single human that doesn’t need to attend on or develop social at some point in their lives. That includes social dominant people.
Developmental opportunities are more likely than not for dominants and blinds. For social types, there may be an issue that is caused by the passion of your type in one of the self-preservation zones. For social blinds, there may be multiple issues caused by neglect in the social zones.
Actualised social instinct
Russ Hudson describes this as true service in the world. John Lucovich describes it thus: “the immediacy of the awake social instinct brings us into true relationships, where we not only experience nourishment in contributing our values and care, we also feel a larger presence that we are inextricably a part of.”
Instinct and type combinations
A note about contradictions with type
For certain types, the social focus appears to contradict the passion of the Enneagram type. Building on the work of her teacher Claudio Naranjo, Beatrice Chestnut calls this situation ‘countertype’.
At the end of the day, however, the instincts and the passions are a measure of two different things. Also, there can be unexpected aspects or traits with all the 27 instinct/type combinations.
The best application of the theory of countertype is just to bear in mind that it can be difficult for certain self-preservation subtypes to identify their core type from the prevalent descriptions. Otherwise, paying too much attention to any contradictions (or allowing for too many) isn’t helpful.
The subtype pattern
Beatrice Chestnut and Uranio Paes have identified some key interventions to do to that counteract or work with the preoccupations of the social subtypes. They are not exhaustive.
Social subtype deconstructors (from CP Enneagram Academy, Providing Effective Enneagram Solutions Workshop)
Type Eight
Hold yourself back from taking action to protect or support others
Allow yourself to be protected and cared for by others while not doing anything for them
Don’t react when you feel betrayed or insulted by an ally or a friend
Type Nine
Allow yourself to feel sadness and loneliness
Consciously experience being left out or forgotten by others
Focus on yourself as an individual – do things only for yourself
Be inside a group without doing anything
Do more for self and less for others
Verbalise needs in the group
Type One
Be publicly imperfect
Do things the wrong way
Do things according to other people’s right ways
Allow yourself to be taught by others
Type Twos
Make yourself unimportant or anonymous
Show incompetence and fragility
Be out of control
Give over control to others
Confess to manipulation
Type Three
Do things that will make you unpopular in an obvious way
Emphasise your weakness in public
Experience ostracism
Act shy
Be led by others whilst remaining passive
Play a game you will lose at
Do something you will fail at
Type Four
Don’t complain about anything
Be very well and happy
Visualise everything going well
Talk about all the good things happening in your life
Own and emphasis all of your positive qualities
Type Five
Look stupid/arrogant
Ask stupid questions in public
Say ‘I don’t know’ even when you know
Admit to all the things you really don’t know
Speak about superficial things
Talk about personal things to people outside of your special group
Type Six
Be irresponsible and lazy
Trust your instinct and impulses more than your intellect
Confront authority recklessly
Maintain uncertainty about social issues
Break the rules of your chosen authority
Type Seven
Be more selfish
Focus more on yourself than others or groups
Make yourself unavailable for others
Ask for help and for more things for self
Allow yourself to feel pain and discomfort without escaping or making it better
How the passion manifests for social types
To read the three versions of a single type, you can do that on the type-specific pages.
Note that when we move along our connection points, we ‘keep the same instinct’ (and instinctual stacking). So if you hold questions about your type, read the social versions of the connection points as well. As a reminder:
- If you are a type Eight, that is types Two and Five
- For type Nines, that is types Three and Six
- If you are a type One, that is types Seven and Four
- For type Twos, that is types Four and Eight
- If you are a type Three, that is types Six and Nine
- For type Fours, that is type One and Two
- If you are a type Five, that is types Eight and Seven
- For type Sixes, that is types Nine and Three
- If you are a type Seven, that is types Five and One
How the passion shows up up in social types
Type Eight: Looks for the experience of essential power through relationships and having a strong influence.
Type Nine: Seeking to experience essential harmony through their relationships and their contributions to others.
Type One: Looks to essential integrity in relationships, causes and vocation.
Type Two: Seeks to experience essential love in their relationships, vocation and sense of belonging.
Type Three: Looks to experience essential value in their relationships and vocation, particularly with those people with whom they experience belonging.
Type Four: Seeks to experience essential depth in their relationships, creative offerings and social roles.
Type Five: Looks to experience essential insight in and through their relationships, interests and contributions.
Type Six: Wants to experience essential truth in their relationships, contributions and causes.
Type Seven: Wants to experience essential freedom through their relationships and vocation.
