PAIRING: Behavioral Driver Integration
It occurred to me (much later than I would have expected) that if I wanted to understand how group dynamics were maintained I need to understand the smallest group there is… couples. So this work is summarizes my model on how pair bonds are formed. I have interviewed best friends, newlyweds, work partners, and even have done intentional investigation of meeting a new friend through philosophical dialogue. The result is a model that illustrates some basic understanding of how objective based social bonds are created.
1. Modifying Maslow’s Heirarchy of needs
Abraham Maslow created a preliminary model for explaining human behavioral drive that addresses needs; it begins with Physiological needs like food , moves to Safety & Security (shelter), continues on to Belonging & Love that come from society, follows to Esteem , and ends at Self-Actualizations like pursuing passions.
I felt that this was an inadequate explanation why people fail to satisfy certain lower order needs when higher order needs were not met. For example, the way people can forgo eating when they are lovesick or worry some isn’t consistent with the hierarchy concept. Instead, I represent the needs in a consecutive circle that show a core driver as the priority and other drivers that can exist at the same time as the core drivers, but effect motivation to lesser degrees.
2. People have different drivers at different times
Since these needs can exist simultaneously it stands to reason that the priority of a driver can change throughout the day or in different life stages. For example if you are hungry your physiological needs are priority, but while you are eating, you could begin day dreaming about the success of your professional life. Additionally drivers can change, you could be motivated to get a high paying salary to satisfy your need for safety and security, but along the way come to find that you are very passionate about it, so your reason for staying at the job is different than your reason for initially taking the job.
3. People make pairs because of complimentary drivers
Drawing from my basic understanding of matching theory, in any kind of relationships there will be mutually beneficial relationships, but the frame work for hierarchy of needs a is still a helpful tool for understanding the match types. A working pair could be formed around the shared objective of disrupting an industry, with each members of the pair having different drivers. For one individual may want to make their parent’s proud (belonging & love), the other member of the pair may see it the collaboration as as a way to gain wealth (security). In a romantic pairing the behaviors of dating can be motivate by different drivers also. One person may want someone a life long companion (safety), the other person may be motivated by lust or infatuation (self-actualization).
In either case there is something that satisfies the two motivations and results in a partnership with a common objective, in these cases; to start a company or continue dating.
4. Integration of Motivations Requires Self-Reflection
Whether the pairs are made by conscious decision or based on emotional connection they demand that people be in touch with their drivers in whichever way they can be. If one member of the pair looses the stimulating motivation, then the bond between the two becomes jeopardized. There has to be something that builds interest to stimulate attraction, desirability, and maintain the bond.
5. Integration of Motivations Requires Familarity
I use the term familiarity to mean any degree of understanding between the two people, it could be deep intimacy or empathy, but it could also be a loose social bond of an acquaintance. Rationally, it requires that one member of the pair perceives the other member of the pair as being capable of pairing. An example would be that it would be silly to say that “I am in a relationship WITH a rock.” The more appropriate description would be that “ I have a relationship TO the rock” where the implication of the preposition is that the rock is not engaged with me as well, but it is a unidirectional association because “I” is a subject and “rock” is an object (noun).
This is important because coupling can only be done with two subjects. My illustration shows that subjects view the world in a fashion of “I” and everything else in the universe being some objects and some other subjects. Familiarity is when two subjects recognize each other as such generating co-dependence or interdependence.
6. Integration of Motivations Requires “Consent”
In the model and in the pairs I interview, the bonds were maintained by some degree self-interest that created an opportunity for pairing. There was either a rational conclusion that the bond relationship would help fulfill the person(s) needs or an emotional compulsion that creates feelings of pleasantness that maintain the pair.
In one form or another a consensual partnership was created. This could be a written contract of partnership, unspoken gestures of affection, or simply synchronized action like what you might see in a conversation. Even arguments require consent in that participation in an argument needs at least one sender of information and another to receive it.
*It should be noted that all the bonds I studied were consensual pairs, force and coercion can be used to maintain pairs but they function differently.
7. Each of the individual behavior drivers has a social bond parallel
I found that for each of the drivers that might propel a person to continue in a partnership there was a correlating element of society that could be liked to that driver. This helps me under stand the fundamental roots of social agreements.
Self Actualization -Values & Ethics -What is good/right for the pair
Esteem- Morality & Commitments- The rules that align us to good
Belonging- Communication and Behaviors -The practical elements of partnership
Safety & Security- Norms & Expectations- Reliability that is basis for trust
Physiological needs- Policy and Social Systems- Mechanisms of regulating interaction
Using this model I am working towards depending my understanding of the individual drivers themselves and how they fuel partnership, but also how shifts in these drivers change the experience of partnership and what objectives are best suited for various partnership types.
If each pair represents a community of two, each with its own culture. Then the connections between two people are also existing between larger numbers of people, and those connections shift how the organization feels about itself, and what it is capable of.
Acknowledgements: Alexandra Mary Free, Ladies From Hades, Scott & Carlie, Ellen & Pete,
