Explanation of Concepts

SDI Description
Four Premises or Relationship Awareness
SDI Reliability and Validity
Terms We Use

SDI Description

Strength: Strength Deployment Inventory helps people identify their personal strengths in relating to others under two conditions: 1) when everything is going well, or 2) when they are faced with conflict.

Deployment: Defined as moving strategically or to taking a position for effective actions.  The SDI suggests ways that one’s personal strengths may be strategically used to improve relationships with others.

Inventory: SDI is not a test where answers are “right” or “wrong”.  It is an inventory for taking stock of motivational values (the basis for how you feel and act in different situations). It is a self-discovery tool.

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Four Premises of Relationship Awareness

Relationship Awareness Theory is a theory of interpersonal relationships rather than a theory of intrapsychic relationships (although the theory promises to bring a new view to the phenomenon we call personality).

First Premise

The first major premise of the theory is that behaviour traits are not conditioned responses or reinforced behaviours, as B.F. Skinner would imply, nor are they primary personality factors as Raymond Cattell stated (1971).  The theory assumed, as does Tolman’s theory, that behaviour traits arise from purposive strivings for gratification mediated by concepts or hypotheses as to how to obtain those gratifications (Tolman, 1967).  Put in simplest terms, behaviour traits are the consistencies in our behaviour that stem from the consistencies in what we find gratifying in interpersonal relationships and the consistencies in our beliefs or concepts as to how to interact with other people in order to achieve those gratifications.

As we become increasingly aware of the gratifications we are seeking from others, and examine our beliefs and concepts as to the best way to achieve those gratifications, we open ourselves to feedback on the effectiveness of the behaviour in which we engage, with the result that old patterns of behaviour may be readily modified or even abandoned for more effective behaviour patterns.

As we become increasingly aware of the gratifications that others are seeking from us, their behaviour becomes more understandable to us and opens new avenues for the achievement of mutual gratification and the avoidance of Unwarranted Conflict that may arise when one person presumes that another person equally shares his beliefs and motivations.

Relationship Awareness Theory avoids the unspoken assumption underlying so many approaches to understanding human behaviour; that the world impinges upon the individual in a more or less uniform and undifferentiated manner so that, if one is able to assess an individual’s “primary personality factor,” one is able to predict, within the error of measurement, the pattern of the individual’s behaviour in most, if not all, situations.  Relationship Awareness Theory holds this assumption, so often left unspoken, to be faulty and misleading.

Second Premise

As a second major premise, Relationship Awareness Theory holds that there are, at the very least, two clear, distinguishably different conditions in the stimulus world that affect patterns of behaviour.  One of these conditions exists when we are free to pursue the gratifications we seek from others.  The second condition exists when we are faced with conflict and opposition so that we are not free to pursue our gratification, but must resort to the preservation of our own integrity and self-esteem.  The behaviour traits we exhibit under these two conditions truly differ.  When we are free to pursue our gratifications, we are more or less uniformly predictable, but in the face of continuing conflict and opposition we undergo changes in motivations that link into different bodies of beliefs and concepts that are, in turn, expressed in yet different behaviour traits.  We are predictably uniform in our behaviour when we are free, and we are predictably variable as we meet with obstructing conditions in our stimulus worlds.

Third Premise

The third major premise is directly from Fromm: a personal weakness is no more, nor no less, than the overdoing of a personal strength.  An individual operates from personal “strength” when he behaves in a manner that enhances the probability that an interpersonal interaction will be a mutually productive interaction.  An individual operates from personal weakness when he behaves in a way that decreases the probability that an interpersonal interaction will be a mutually productive interaction.  To act in a trusting manner is a strength; it enhances the probability of mutual productivity. To act in an overly trusting or gullible manner is a weakness; it decreases the probability of mutual productivity and increases the probability of a destructive or, at least, a non-productive outcome for one or even both of the individuals concerned.  The same things can be said for being self-confident and its non-productive form, being overly self-confident or arrogant.  To be cautious is a strength; to be overly cautious or suspicious is a weakness.

When the premise that behaviour traits are purposive strivings for gratification is coupled with the premise that weaknesses are strengths overdone, a new dimension in understanding is open to us as facilitators.  Whether a given individual is operating from his strengths or from his weaknesses, we should be able to assess the gratifications for which he is striving and, as psychotherapists or facilitators, help the individual assess the effectiveness of his beliefs and concepts about how to interact with other people to obtain the gratification he seeks.

Fourth Premise

A fourth premise relates to two distinctions that can be made among personality theories.  First, the concepts inherent in some theories are remote and distant from how one experiences one’s self, but the concepts inherent in other theories approximate how one experiences one’s self.  The second distinction is that in some theories the concepts used amount to labels, while in other theories the concepts lead to further self-discovery.

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SDI Reliability and Validity

Read more about reliability and validity (PDF), by Elias H. Porter, Ph.D.

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Terms we Use

Blends
are Motivational Value Systems in which an individual has a relative balance between two of the primary types of values and neither necessarily has dominance over the other.

Borrowed Relating Style
is a style of relating in which the behaviour does not enhance feelings of self-worth but is personally acceptable because it is a tool used in pursuit of a desired goal. For example, a deeply nurturing individual uses a Borrowed Relating Style when disciplining an employee. Administering the discipline may do nothing for the individual’s sense of self-worth but being of help to the employee does a great deal for their sense of self-worth. In a Borrowed Relating Style, one’s behaviour is chosen from outside the Motivational Value System but is still supportive of one’s underlying purpose which hasn’t changed.

Conflict Sequence
is the method of defending one’s Motivational Value System to return to one’s Valued Relating Style. It is the predictable and sequential deployment of strengths when faced with conflict or opposition. Conflict has three progressively serious stages. Conflict can be resolved at any point during the sequence.

Mask or Non-Valued Relating Style
is a style of relating in which a person learns to put on a Mask because it is expected of them or because it may be the only means of survival. It can be a short or long term behaviour pattern. Masks may be required in any area of life, a highly regulated environment, a job, a marriage, etc. It is easy to make an error in identifying another person’s Motivational Value System if the person is using a Borrowed Relating Style or a Mask Relating Style. This, in turn, would then lead to wrong predictions as to how an individual would behave.

Motivational Value System
is a unifying set of motivational values which serve as the basis for judging ourselves and others, for engaging in behaviour that enhances our sense of self-worth and focusing our attention on certain things while ignoring others. The Motivational Value System acts as an internal filter through which life is interpreted and understood. There are seven identifiable Motivational Value Systems. All people want to feel worthwhile about themselves. The preponderance of interactions among people are best understood as strivings by the individuals to achieve or enhance feelings of self-worth.

Personal Strength
is a behaviour trait that is consistent with the person’s Motivational Value System. It is a means to enhance the production of mutual gratification between one’s self and another person without violating the integrity of either person and is therefore considered a strength. Using the appropriate personal strengths at the appropriate time allows mutual affirmation and respects the integrity of both parties.

Personal Weakness
is a Personal Strength which is perceived by others as “overdone.” To be over-trusting or gullible is a weakness; it lessens the likelihood of mutual gratification and is an invitation to resistance or withdrawal by the other party. To be overly self-confident or arrogant is a weakness; it lessens the likelihood of mutual gratification and is an invitation to resistance or withdrawal by the other party. To be over-persevering or stubborn is a weakness; it lessens the likelihood of mutual affirmation and is an invitation to hostility or withdrawal by the second party.

Unwarranted Conflict (or Preventable Conflict)
is a type of conflict that arises when there is a clash of the relating styles of the people involved. Frequently there may already be agreement between the parties about the goal, but one person’s way of achieving the goal threatens the other person’s sense of self-worth. This can also occur when someone either overdoes a strength or is perceived as having overdone a strength.

Valued Relating Style
is the style of relating that a person normally prefers to use. It can be used when the person is neither blocked nor coerced, but is free to act in a way that makes them feel good about themselves. This is the external expression of the Motivational Value System. The Valued Relating Style is the style ordinarily associated with a person as their characteristic style of behaving.

Warranted Conflict
is conflict that arises when the goals or aims of the individuals in question do not agree. This type of conflict is not a function of individual Valued Relating Styles, but rather a disagreement over a particular subject.

Perceptual filter
A perceptual filter influences what we say, hear and pay attention to based on such things as our MVS, culture, perception, language, education, values and context.  These filters make us see things differently to others, draw different conclusions and intake information differently.

Understanding the MVS of others makes it easier to look at things through from other perspectives, or through other “filters”, much like looking through a coloured pair of glasses.

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