The social instinct motivates us to create relationships and care for the wellbeing of others. It includes our desire to positively enhance the lives of those we care for. When sensitive to the social instinct, 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 anyone we may be in conflict with.
Names given to this instinct
Relations (Ichazo), social (Naranjo), the navigating domain (Mario Sikora).
Names given to social Subtypes (Hudson’s)
Type 8: ‘Gusto and Comraderie’; Type 9: ‘One Happy Family’; Type 1: ‘the Crusader’; Type 2: ‘Unconscious Ambition’; Type 3: ‘Prestige’; Type 4: ‘the Outsider’; Type 5: ‘the Specialist’; Type 6: ‘Engaging Support’; Type 7: ‘Missing Out’.
Zones of the social instinct
Enneagram teacher and developer Russ Hudson has identified three zones to the social instinct: (1) reading people and situations, (2) connecting, and (3) participation. He has broken down the categories further as below.
Zone 1: Reading people and situations
(1) Reading facial expressions/body language/tone of voice/moods, (2) reading between the lines, (3) interest in others/attunement/tuning in, (4) empathy/concern, and (5) adapting to cures/adjusting behaviour.
Zone 2: Connecting
(1) Creating relationships: engaging others, (2) sustaining relationships: maintaining connections and knowing when to end them, (3) communication—speaking and listening, (4) cooperation/reciprocity and (5) play/shared enjoyment/celebration.
Zone 3: Participation
(1) Getting involved or not: what do I participate in?, (2) need to contribute: something beyond my own needs, (3) enrolling: getting others interested and involved in what I am passionate about, (4) part of something bigger/sense of place, (5), 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.
When social is present, dominant, ‘blind’/repressed*
*Characteristics according to Russ Hudson
Note that Heart types (Types 2, 3 and 4) may mistakenly assume that they are social types for reasons which become obvious as you come to know those types. But one-third of these types are blind in the social instinct. As students, we need to develop inner clarity on what is an expression of instinct versus something psychological/emotional. Easier said than done but very possible.
Present
Reading people: We easily pick up cues from others and can read facial expressions and body language. Read between the lines of what others are saying and we adapt accordingly. Helps us to navigate relationships and be good parents/caregivers. Also 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. 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. Helps us discern what we participate in, and 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.
Things to remember
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 all things social is a pointer towards the social instinct being on overdrive. On the other hand, being apathetic, negative or judgmental towards others that appear slavish with this instinct may indicate a repressed relationship with it.
John Luckovich’s work
In 2021, Enneagram teacher John Luckovich published an Enneagram book devoted to the instinctual drives and the Enneagram. The book goes into more depth than elsewhere on the characteristics of people with this drive at the helm, and those who repress it. This can offer further support to anyone in the inner inquiry.
(For an interview with John about a particular teaching from the book, see here).
General characteristics of social dominant types*
*According to Enneagram teacher John Luckovich, from his book, the Instinctual Drives and the Enneagram.
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 preoccupied 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.
General characteristics of social blind/repressed types*
According to Enneagram teacher John Luckovich (from his book, the Instinctual Drives and the Enneagram).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Take others for granted out of a failure to recognise how much others actually do for them and accommodate their preferences.
Generally have suspicion and cynicism around interpersonal gatherings, with a distaste for “everyone gets along with one another” idealism.
Actualised social instinct
Russ Hudson describes this as true service in the world. John Luckovich 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.”