Interpersonal Compatibility - Existing Concepts

Existing Concepts

Although various concepts of interpersonal compatibility have existed from ancient times (see, e.g., Plato's Lysis), no general theory of interpersonal compatibility has been proposed in psychology. Existing concepts are contradictory in many details, beginning with the central point—whether compatibility is caused by matching psychological parameters or by their complementarity. At the same time, the idea of interpersonal compatibility is analyzed in non-scientific fields (see, e.g., Astrological compatibility).

Among existing psychological tools for studying and/or measuring interpersonal compatibility, the following are noteworthy:

• A test of interpersonal compatibility proposed by Timothy Leary
• A three-factor hypothesis (inclusion, control, and affection/openness) by William Schutz (further developed into FIRO-B questionnaire)
• Hans Jurgen Eysenck's hypothesis on compatibility between temperaments
• Social psychological research on similarity of interests and attitudes
• Compatibility test pamphlets of the 1930s and early computer dating of the 1950s, developed by George W. Crane
• Hypothesis of compatibility between personality attitudes by Russell Ackoff and Frederick Edmund Emery,
• DMO tool by Lyudmila Sobchik (DMO stands for Interpersonal relations diagnostics, Russian: диагностика межличностных отношений)

Socionics has proposed a theory of intertype relationships between psychological types based on a modified version of C.G. Jung's theory of psychological types. Communication between types is described using the concept of information metabolism proposed by Antoni Kępiński. However, socionic theory is somewhat controversial because of a lack of experimental data (although socionic data are much more representative than, e.g., those of Ackoff and Emery).

Alternative hypotheses of intertype relationships were later proposed by adherents of MBTI (D. Keirsey's hypothesis of compatibility between Keirsey temperaments, an intertype relationships chart by Joe Butt and Marina Margaret Heiss, LoveTypes by Alexander Avila and some other theories). Neither of these hypotheses are commonly accepted in the Myers–Briggs type theory. MBTI in Russia is often confused with socionics, although the 16 types in these theories are described differently and do not correlate exactly.