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What is the difference between Behavior Consulting and Counseling? It is kind of like looking at the difference between secular and faith based counseling. In fact, there was no differentiation between secular and faith based counseling and behavioral coaching until the 1800’s. Up until that point all three fell into the pervue of the church. The clergy took on the daunting task of bringing hope, counsel and guidance to those who were in need. Medical doctors took on the physical domain and the two didn’t disparage one another.

I. Faith Based Counseling and Secular Counseling.

In the early history of the Church, the Church itself was solely responsible for the counseling of people. As society grew the perception developed that the Christian Community was no longer qualified to counsel its people. As a result, the secular community has all but taken over the responsibility of counseling and behavior modification.

II. Contrasting Faith Based and Secular Counseling

A. Secular Counselor = Agent of the State = Insurance Coverage May Apply

Precepts

1. Everyone has problems; you must learn to live with it. These strategies may help.
2. Human behavior is based on millions of years of evolution. You must continue to evolve emotionally.
3. Self is most important; as long as you do not infringe upon the self of others do what you need to be happy.
4. The problems of self can often be traced to the behaviors of others.

B. Faith Based = Agent of the Church = Fees are often a sliding scale and insurance coverage may not apply.

Precepts

1. Cast off your sins; Christ, the perfect sacrifice has paid the price.

2. God created each of us with a specific temperament. Fighteing your temperament creates disharomony in your sense of well being.

3. God is most important. True happiness is accessible through our proper duty to Him.

4. Face (confess) and accept the consequences (repent) of your actions.

III. Faith based view.

God created us with three areas of need (Inclusion, Control, and Affection) which we may meet through His service.

Inclusion

The need to initiate and maintain surface relationships.

The need to be approached by others for surface relationships.

Control

The need to be in control of relationships with others.

The need for others to control our relationships and behaviors.

Affection

The need to establish love and affection relationships with others.

The need to receive love and affection from others.

IV. The Five Temperament Types. Faith based view.

1. The Melancholy - Forever examining their own shortcomings.

2. The Choleric - Confident and task oriented.

3. The Sanguine - Extremely socially active.

4. The Supine - Quintessential servant ever placing the needs of others first.

5. The Plegmatic - Extremely deliberate perfectionist.

V. So What?

Temperament is an extremely important factor to consider when:

1. Finding compatible career.

2. Finding hobbies that bring the most satisfaction.

3. Making decisions and undertaking responsibilities.

4. Choosing your level of dependence or independence.

5. Charting our spiritual development.

6. Choosing and understanding our mate.

Given the understated nature of the those with a supine temperament it seems odd to consider them in relation to the topic of Social Media. However, Tori Deaux and I have decided it might be an excercise that could provide some insight to start with the Supine and work our way through the temperaments and their potential relationships to social media.

It seems good to start with an overview of the Supine temperament followed by the elements of social media that best relate to that temperament.

The Supine is motivated by an intense desire to make a valued contribution to a purpose greater than themselves. Unfortunately, their sense of self worth is so underestimated that they rarely feel their contribution is great enough. As a result, they are often exploited by those who continually call upon them to do, or give more because of their notoriety for never refusing a good cause.

The Supine also feels compelled or driven to appear to others to be humble. They wish it known that they serve a greater purpose and yearn for this drive to be accepted by others who they rely on as to defend their actions from a cold and incomprehensibly (to them) selfish world. Counter intuitively, they will also sacrifice themselves to protect those they percieve as vulnerable or weak.

More than anything else the Supine craves recognition for their service. It is as though their contribution is only valuable when validated by someone else. They constantly seek out opportunities to serve and you will often find them as the most caring, dependable yet behind the scenes worker in an organization.

Their greatest weaknesses are their own insecurities. When left unchecked these insecurities can cause them to become manipulative, weak willed, indecisive, resentful and down right sinister.

They have very little need to initiate association or socialization, but have a high need to be approached by many people for association and socialization.

They have very little desire to control over the lives of others, desire a great deal of control over their lives by others.

They express very little outward affection for others, but desires others to express a great deal of love and affection toward them.

Simply put social media is a network of individuals which depend upon interactions between people of common interest via an electronic medium.

Social media platforms (facebook, link-in, etc) strive to create opportunities for users to make connections by structuring opportunities for interaction. The speed and variety of opportunities network are far greater in an electronic medium than face to face interactions tend to allow.

Social media operates outside the parameters of time and geographic location. You may participate in social media networks by adding comments or even editing the core content itself as is the case with wikipedia. Social media may take the form of text, graphics, audio, or video. Or indeed, formats may be mixed. Typically, social media is available via feeds, subscriptions, feed readers, and other publishers which trawl sources to create mashups such as Lifehacker.

The broad spectrum of topics and purposes create many niches and opportunities for the Supine to find ways to make a visible contribution to a greater mission.

Additionally, Internet marketing is another realm of Social Media. In such context the phrase refers to a collective group of web properties that are driven by users. Blogs, video sharing sites and other mission specific media sites are seen by the Supine as prime areas to contribute to a greater purpose.

A greater synergistic opportunity exists for the Supine who is able to locate the Social Media format that has a greater mission in which they may emotionally invest.

Original article in the series.

I’ve worked on several projects that have been connected in some way to Dr. Ghungsho Zhang. Most of the work has taken the form of his identification of a trend indicated in a numerical analysis and my development of a program to enhance or accommodate for that trend. For example, Dr. Zhang unidentified an over representation of males in discipline referrals and special education referrals in North Carolina. As a result, I developed a series of trainings for teachers which explored how male and female students have natural conduct differences that cannot be addressed in the same ways.

What does that have to do with temperament and social media?

Just this, just because something can be easily measured doesn’t mean it is important. For example, it was easy to measure the cycles of the moon (sunspots, comet proximity, tides, favorite ice cream flavors, etc) when incidents of misbehavior occur but that doesn’t mean the two are connected in any real way.

Again, so what?

That brings us to the numbers of Social Media. It is easy to measure (or at least estimate) the number of users of social media but without knowing the underlying temperament of those measured we will not understand the nature of their use of the medium.

Here are some of the numbers based on a study conducted by Raplief .

Bebo 5,806,867 members
” Bebo is a social media network where friends share their lives and explore great entertainment.”

Blackplanet 1,201,687 members
” BlackPlanet.com is your place to meet and connect with African Americans around the country.”

Classmates 3,051,761 members
“Find a friend or high school alumni from more than 40 million members in over 200000 affiliations at Classmates.com.”

Facebook 5,920,236 members
“An online directory that connects people through social networks at colleges.”

Flickr 2,068,097 members
“Flickr is almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world.”

Flixter 17,647,399 members
” Flixster is a community for movie fans of all shapes and sizes.”

Friendster 5,260,380 members
“Friendster is focused on helping people stay in touch with friends and discover new people and things that are important to them.”

Hi5 14,679,615 members
“hi5 helps its members stay connected with friends, family and others that are important to them in a simple, fun and safe online environment.”

LinkedIn 841,209 members
“Our mission is to help you be more effective in your daily work and open doors to opportunities using the professional relationships you already have.”

Multiply 1,354,647 members
“Multiply gives you an easy way to share all kinds of digital media, including photos, blogs, videos, music and more, all in one convenient place: your own personal web site.”

MySpace 31,845,954 members
“Create a community on MySpace and you can share photos, journals and interests with your growing network of mutual friends!”

MyYearbook 2,449,251 members
Offers quizzes and a weblog section, as well as videos and free content from CliffsNotes.”

Perfspot 1,159,539 members
“Secure your personal privacy. Find old friends. Have unlimited uploads and much more. For more information, visit us online”

Ringo 9,770,151 members
“Photo and Video Sharing Made Easy”  As you can see Social Media evolves and devolves FAST! Between the time I drafted this article in June and July 6 Ringo went off-line.

Tickle 6,481,601 members
“Tickle is the leading interpersonal media company, providing self-discovery, and social networking services to more than 17 million active members in its community worldwide.”

In each provider the lion’s share of the users are between the ages of 17 and 35. With the major exception being LinkedIn which has is greatest percentage (nearly 25%) of members in the 35-44 year old age bracket.

Still, so what? If you don’t know how these people are using social media to help meet their needs for control, inclusion and affection you really don’t know what is going on here.

Tori Deaux and I are going to try and use this series of articles to explore that concept.

Original article in the series.

flikr image

Social Media is a current hot topic just about everywhere. People are scrambling to “join the conversations” on the various services, but also finding themselves frustrated (see Tori’s article “Why I suck at social media…” )

One aspect of that widespread frustration can be explained through personality temperaments (for an overview, check out this interactive graphic from MindTweaks, or this text overview here on Elemental Truths)

Each temperament and combination of has a different approach to technology, different needs when it comes to socialization.

Extroverts are happy to seek out new friends and contacts, while introverts are more hesitant, preferring to just observe, or to let others come to them.Some temperaments are quick to embrace change, while others prefer more familiar, consistent, and proven technologies. Privacy is also a personality driven issue, as some temperaments need to feel safe and protected, in order to participate in a social environment, while others would be happy with their own posse of cyber paparazzi. Also important is the level of control people have over their use of the service, including visibility, profiles, spam, and so on. We all use the services for different reasons, too - many of them related to temperaments: find customers, build a network of new friends, stay in touch with existing friends, share and inspire creativity, get and provide answers to questions, or just be generally social with strangers.

The frustration appears because most of the latest, greatest social technologies only address the needs of *some* of the temperament types, and make others distinctly uncomfortable, or even anxious. So being successful at social media means knowing which services are best suited to our individual personality, and how to participate comfortably even on services that aren’t well suited to our specific temperaments - otherwise, we run the risk of losing touch with our existing social circles made up of a variety of personalities, and winding up only with friends and contacts in a limited range of temperament - which is not a good thing. The best and most effective social groups (for any purpose) are made up of a variety of personality types.

It’s worth noting that while the older forms of social media (message boards, chat rooms, and instant messaging services) didn’t provide the networking or portability benefits of Web2.0 applications like Facebook, Twitter and Flickr, they did better provide a comfortable space for *all* of the personality types. Hopefully the new services will resolve the conflicts in time - meanwhile, we’ll have to find our own solutions.

So over the next week Reg and I will be exploring the topic of temperament and social media, considering the pros and cons of each service for each personality, from Supine to Melancholy, as well as offering advice on how the various personalities can best use the services for our advantage. We’ll be posting a series of interlinked articles addressing the issue on MindTweaks and Elemental Truths, but you’ll also be able to come back here, and find a listing of all of the links.

We’re hoping the result will be fun, useful, creative, productive, and reduce frustration levels. And *that* should cover just about all of the personality types!

This is a checklist I (Reg) came up with that will give you a fair overview of what YOUR TEMPERAMENT might be.

Other articles in this series.

• Temperaments and Social Media - ET
• Interactive Temperament Graphic -MT
• Social Media and The 5 Temperaments - MT
• In Social Media Measurable Doesn’t Equal Important - ET
• Supines and Social Media - ET
• Surviving Social Media:The Supine Struggle - MT
• Sanguines and Social Media - ET
• The Social Butterfly Meets Social Technology: The Challenges for Sanguines - MT
• Melancholies and Social Media - ET
• In Search of Intimacy: The Melancholy and Social Media - MT
• Phlegmatics and Social Media - ET
• Qietly Participatory: The Phlegmatic and Social Media - MT
• Cholerics and Social Media - ET
• Control and Conquer!: The Choleric and Social Media - MT

Open Source social media platforms we won’t address in depth (in no particular order). By the way, open source just means that you can read the programming code, change the code, modify the code and redistribute the code, usually free of charge.

• spree
• iSocial
• Mahara
• Yogurt
• VMukti
• The PeopleAggregator
• Appleseed
• Mugshot Project
• GetBoo
• Akarru
• Scuttle
• SemanticScuttle
• AROUNDMe
• Clonesumating
• BeWelcome Rox
• ICEcore
• Memephage
• InteractOLE
• Elgg
• CommunityNews
• OpenPNE
• MonkeyChow
• NewsCloud
• Feed Me Links
• WorldSpace
• Social Networking POC
• Zoints
• earth-life-simulation
• PHPizabi
• OzcodeOzcode
• TallStreet
• Jamss
• Dolphin
• Ospo
• AstroSPACES
• FlightFeather
• SNOSS
• OpenSocialNetwork
• S3B
• Facelift

1. Find a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed.

2. Read the entire test before you mark any marks.least like you. Be objective.

3. Before each word in each column enter a number from 1-5.

• Five being most like you.

• One being least like you.

• Be objective.

4. Solicit two friends to complete the profile rating you in the same way.

5. AFTER marking your responses continue to the scoring key.

Choleric Phlegmatic Melancholy Sanguine Supine

Self ­­­_______ _______ _______ _______ _______

Friend ­­­­­_______ _______ _______ _______ _______

Friend _______ _______ _______ _______ _______

Grading Instructions:

Add only the 3-5 numbers which occur in each column (omit the 1’s and 2’s). Place the totals on the indicated lines.

Analyzing the Results

Your score summary now contains your feelings as well as the input of your friends. In most cases there will be some variation. However, your dominate temperament should be readily identifiable as the larger score.

These are, of course, very casual views based on the work of Dr. James Arno and some writings of Tim LaHaye. But, they can provide some interesting insight into your underlying temperament.

Temperament Overview

Choleric

Motivation: Power

Needs: To Look Good (Academically), To Be Right, To Be Respected, Approval

Wants: To Hide Insecurities (Tightly), To Please Self, Leadership, Challenging Adventure

Positives: Independent, Have Goals, Know How They Want to Solve a Problem, Decisive, Visionary

Negatives: Cruel, Egotistical, Unemotional, Domineering, Unforgiving

Melancholy

Motivation: Intimacy

Needs: To Be Good (Morally), To Be Understood, To Be Appreciated, Acceptance,

Wants: To Reveal Insecurities, To Please Others, Autonomy, Security

Positives: Gifted, Self Sacrificing, Helpful, Thoughtful, Faithful

Negatives: Moody, Critical, Negative, Resentful, Suspicious

Phlegmatic

Motivation: Peace

Needs: To Feel Good (Inside), To Be Understood, To Be Respected, Acceptance, To Reveal Insecurities

Wants: To Please Others, Protection, Contentment

Positives: Peace Makers, Quiet, High Self Control, Calm in a Crisis, Efficient, Good Listener

Negatives: Unmotivated, Procrastinate, Indecisive, Fearful, Avoider

Sanguine

Motivation: Fun

Needs: To Look Good (Socially), To Be Popular, To Be Praised, Approval

Wants: To Hide Insecurities (Loosely), To Be Noticed, Freedom, Playful Adventure

Positives: Entertaining, Outgoing, Responsive, Warm, Friendly

Negatives: Undependable, Undisciplined, Egotistical, Prone to Exaggeration, Compulsive Talker

Supine

Motivation: Contribution

Needs: To Look Humble, To Serve a Greater Purpose, To Be Accepted, To Protect Weaknesses.

Wants: Recognition for Service, Opportunities to Serve, To Contribute to a Higher Calling, To Be Protected

Positives: Caring, Giving, Gentle, Dependable, Loyal

Negatives: Insecure, Manipulative, Weak Willed, Indecisive, Harbors Ill Will

Free Online Tests

http://www.oneishy.com/personality/personality_test.php

http://www.advisorteam.com/temperament_sorter/register.asp

http://www.olympus.net/personal/athena/

As a Melancholy in inclusion you may find that you prefer to your own thoughts and reflections to more frivolous interactions. You often take comfort in your private and serious nature when those you know are caught up in the  ”drama” of life. In fact, when you don’t purposefully take private time to regenerate you find yourself becoming impatient with others.

You typically approach very few with the aim of association and socialization and, truth be told, would truly prefer like consideration. A well performed task brings you as much satisfaction as many social encounters. And so, you approach people as you would approach the completion of a task. Which is to say, you seek the most efficient way of working with them.

Because of you hands on mentality your mind will rarely let you rest. When a difficulty arises you play it over in your mind in a continuous loop in an effort to find your error or divine a solution.

Your intense drive for perfection in others as well as yourself can be very off putting and can get out of hand if you don’t stay cautious.

What others need to know about you:

• you don’t like your possesions borrowed without your permission
• you don’t appreciate having contrived socialization foisted upon you
• you must have quiet time to recharge
• you take everything people say very personally
• you will use dry, cutting humor to keep those away who come too close

What you must know about yourself:

• you must learn to trust others
• you must learn to express your desires directly

Your phlegmatic/supine tendencies in control make you appear very independent even though you don’t always feel as such. You don’t seek control over others and won’t accept their control over you.

You have a love for “the rules” and can become quite rigid if challenged.

As a melancholy in affection you neither show nor desire public displays of attention. As a result, you don’t often have the opportunity to develop deep relationships. Those you do invest your trust in are invested for life. Even if their behavior doesn’t warrant your continued acceptance you find it difficult to sever long held ties. You are loyal and faithful to a fault, even knowingly allowing yourself to be taken advantage of by those whom you trust.

It is a common misconception that the temperament of a person is simply, Choleric, or Sanguine, or Phlegmatic, or Melancholy, or Supine. In fact, no one (at least no one I’ve ever encountered) is a “Pure Temperament.” People are a blend of temperaments and giving them a label is simply an attempt to put a lens the most dominant element of their temperament.

“Why would you want to do that?”

The simple answer is, it is less cumbersome. It is easier for us all to conceptualize some one as a Melancholic than it is to say he or she is a Pure Melancholy in Inclusion, a Compulsive Melancholy in Control and Melancholy Phlegmatic in Affection. Viewing an individuals as a whole gives you and I the opportunity to understand and interact with them in the most conducive and productive way.

What if someone really is a “Pure” temperament?

A person who had a “pure” temperament would likely fit the symptomatic criteria of an “obsessive.”

Imagine someone who was compulsive about their needs in control, affection and inclusion no matter what the situation or circumstances and you will have a fair view of someone with a “pure” temperament.

Which is the “Best” temperament?

It is my belief that while certain temperament traits are more beneficial in certain circumstances, no single temperament type is best for all situations.

I welcome the view of a complete soul, once conjoined of all the five temperaments that was split-apart into its separate components, which now seeks the path to its former consummate perfection.

Another view I embrace is that of the Messianic ideal, in which all the temperament elements which are perfectly synchronized and blended into the all elements into the exemplification we all seek to attain.

So, what IS a blended temperament?

A blended temperament is what you and I are. We have a definite dominate temperament aspect, but we also have other elements of our temperaments that are experienced as our “comfort levels” in the areas of Control, Inclusion and Affection.

How will this knowledge help you?

This knowledge, like any other, is of little practical value in and of itself. However, when you apply it to your interactions with other people, it is an invaluable tool of understanding and building mutually beneficial relationships. Consider, if you will, how collaboration, cooperation and leadership could be enhanced if each party had a true understanding of the elemental essence of the other person.

Now what?

With the insight you will gain from the upcoming examples you will be more able to work productively and live with others in peaceful coexistance.

Born with the “servants heart” and the undeniable drive to serve others and seek out a purpose greater than themselves, the Supine may on the surface be the easiest person in the world to shop for. This is because no matter how disappointing your gift to them might be they will rather die than let you know it was not absolutely their hearts desire.

The Supine lives by this simple motto: “I will do anything in the world for you as long as you do not mistreat me.”

What gift is appropriate for one such as this?

• Service Award - If you can get their local community to recognize their contribution in a public way, you will have made their millennium.
• Engraved Gifts - Something personalized from Things Remembered will be well received.
• Photo Album - they would be overwhelmed by a memory album recording their service achievements you built yourself at the local Scrapbooking store.

I have just published my first Squidoo lens.

Let me know what you think.

Melding Psychology, Philosophy and Practical Knowledge Into a Scaffold for Success!

I am so often asked for the source of my perspective and advice of personal and professional development and human interaction from those I counsel I think it would be prudent to review the model again here.

I work from the perspective that there are certain foundational needs that every human being experiences. Those needs are the need to receive and give affection; the need to include and be included by others; and the need to control and be controlled by others.

Many of the counseling techniques utilized by psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and behavior specialists are based on these foundational concepts. These same concepts have been standardized and measured for everything from marital computability to career placement.

The odd thing to me is that practitioners of one type of temperament analysis so often decry and denounce practitioners of another type when most are based on the very same seminal philosophies.

The concept of the Temperaments has appeared over and over throughout history from at least 340 B.C. to the present. For centuries the temperaments were categorized into 4 groups based on the different types of body fluids. Many of those are listed in the table below.

All of the following are based on the work of Hipocrates c450 B.C.

and his four ordinal temperament types: Choleric, Phlegmatic,

Sanguine and Melancholic.

Plato c340 B.C.  | Artisan      Guardian    Idealist      Rational
Aristotle c325   | Hedonic      Propietary  Ethical       Dialectical
Galen c190 AD    | Sanguine     Melancholic Choleric      Phlegmatic
Paracelsus 1550  | Changeable   Industrious Inspired      Curious
Adickes 1905     | Innovative   Traditional Doctrinaire   Skeptical
Spranger 1914    | Aesthetic    Economic    Religious     Theoretic
Kretschmer 1920  | Hypomanic    Depressive  Hyperesthetic Anesthetic
Fromm 1947       | Exploitative Hoarding    Receptive     Marketing
Myers 1958       | Probing      Scheduling  Friendly      Tough-minded

It would an unprecedented phenomenon if at least some of this information was not founded in elementally true concepts.