Interpersonal Style Type

The chart below is for your use in determining the usual personal interpersonal style type with which you are most comfortable for yourself.  Your usual style falls into one of the four quadrants of the chart below.  As you will see, each quadrant contains two representative from the TATORS and five characteristics from the Interpersonal Elements.  Your task is to choose the combination with which you are most comfortable and with which you most identify personally.  Once you have chosen the combination that best describes you, that quadrant can then be seen as an approximate description of your style, your way of relating within your family.

You will tend to experience most difficulties with those family members whose styles are best described by the quadrant diagonal from yours.  You will have the next level of difficulty with those family members whose styles are best characterized as falling in the same quadrant as yours.  The least difficulty will be experience with family members whose styles are best characterized by the quadrants adjacent to yours.

At the bottom of each quadrant is a short phrase that characterizes the four styles.  “Street Fighters” will have the least difficulty with “Cheerleaders” and “Pacifiers.”  Street Fighters will have more difficulty with other Street Fighters but will experience the highest difficulty trying to deal with “Unanimity Seekers.”

Once you have located your style, determine the styles of other family members.  When you are having difficulties, do not take it personally.  Remember that it is just a matter of style.  Things will go better with dictators if you encourage them to be assertive and give them more opportunities to be decisive.  Be very selective about those points at which you choose to be confrontive, insist on your rights, or have to have things your way.  The idea is not to “roll over and play dead.”  The idea is to find opportunities for the dictator to be decisive, assertive, spontaneous, energetic, and flexible, with ample opportunity for him/her to feel like he/she won the streetfight.  Use the same approach for improving relationships when you are having difficulties with family members who reflect styles from any of the other three quadrants.  As a trade-off, encourage them to create opportunities for you to exercise your style more freely and purposefully.