VARIABLES:
Drivers: Be Perfect, Be Strong, Hurry Up, Please Others, Try Hard
Driver Six: Take it
Phases - six personality types: Reactors and emotions, Workaholics and thoughts, Persisters and opinions, Promoters and actions, Rebels and reactions, and Dreamers and inactions
DOMAINS:
Business, Industry, Education, Leadership, Management, Psychiatry, Social Psychology
Contributors: Patricia McKenna
DEVELOPERS
Taibi Kahler (1975); Keith Tudor (2008)
Business site: Kahler Communications Inc. and its research page
Publications by Kahler appear in the journal of The International Transactional Analysis Association. Eric Berne (Transactional Analysis and Research Instruments and Key Ideas) and Claude Steiner figure strongly in Kahler's work.
BACKGROUND
Kahler (1975) "identified five common drivers that motivate us, and which can be at the root of dysfunctional behaviors. These are commonly framed as the Transactional Analysis drivers, although they can be used stand-alone. -- Be Perfect, Be Strong, Hurry Up, Please Others, Try Hard.
Any of these can be rooted in early admonishment from teachers and parents who are seeking to help the child become socially functional, but perhaps do not offer sufficient guidance and praise for adequate behavior, thus leaving the child over-doing things. In reasonable quantities, these drivers are effective in creating functioning and successful adults. When people do not know when to stop, then dysfunctional behavior can set in, causing stress and consequent further coping."
Components of Kahler's work include:
In the 1999 Addendum Kahler writes:
"In 1972 I conducted a research project (Kahler, 1982) correlating drivers, ego states, psychological needs, life positions, rackets, script injunctions, scripts, roles, games, and myths. I administered the Kahler Transactional Analysis Script Checklist, which I had created for my dissertation (Kahler, 1972), to 1,200 people. With completed responses by 982, six of the ten Drivers (five from Child and five from the Parent) were selected as the most experienced: Please you, Try hard for you, Be strong for you, Be perfect for you, Be strong for you, Be perfect for you, Be strong for me, and Be perfect for me. Although this study did not demonstrate significant correlations between these six major groupings of driver (types) and expected item responses, there were significant correlations among non-driver related item responses constituting a natural loading on six clusters. For example, there was a strong correlation between and among, -CP, frustration, NIGYSOB, I'm OK - You're Not OK, Don't have fun, and the Until script. The mutually exclusive and significant factor loadings strongly suggested that six patterns were representing at least 95% of the negative behaviors, as identified by these T.A. terms. I had shared many of these correlations with a good friend and colleague, Dr. Paul Ware, who had read Shapiro's work (Shapiro, 1972) and later postulated six adaptations (Ware, 1983). We both seemed to be on the same track, from differing directions.
I started teaching and writing about the six patterns and their correlations, calling them Overreactors, Workaholics, Doubters, Manipulators, Disapprovers, and Daydreamers, adding a seventh to identify some of the clinically unaccounted for population, and called this adaptation Cyclers (Kahler, 1979).
With my role at NASA in 1978 in the selection and placement of the astronauts, came an obvious need for more efficient ways of interviewing hundreds of candidates. The timing was perfect. Although I had not focused any more on clinical or miniscript applications, I had looked and thought a great deal about the positive behavior patterns of these primary six adaptations, and I began calling them personality types. It was time for more research.
For several years, I had been looking at personality structure as a layering of these six (positive) personality types. I trained a group of Parent Educators in Florida over a period of twenty years. They in turn taught about ten thousand parents (an average of 500 parents of two through five-year olds in ten Lab Schools each year) how to assess personality structure, connect with their children, motivate them, and deal with their negative behaviors. We hypothesized that this ordering of these six personality types within an individual was mostly “set” by age seven. Subsequent test-retest research (Stansbury, 1990) has substantiated that personality structure remains consistent over time.
In about 1978 I made perhaps the most important theoretical discovery of my life, including the miniscript. I called it “phases”. This research also tested for what had been observed in the perceptions of each of the six personality types. This was a consistent and logical outgrowth from Paul Ware's model (Ware, 1983) of expanding Berne's feeling, thinking and behaving designations. I renamed “feelings” to “emotions”. I observed the singularity “thoughts” to be a mixture of thoughts and opinion). And I observed “behaving” divided into action, reaction, and inaction. Results indeed indicated significant correlations between Reactors and emotions, Workaholics and thoughts, Persisters and opinions, Promoters and actions, Rebels and reactions, and Dreamers and inactions."
Chekosky (2000) discusses the Process Communication Model in the context of classroom learning -
"The Process Communication Model, developed by Taibi Kahler and other child psychology experts, helps educators understand what motivates kids to learn. School psychologists and teachers can take that information and develop strategies to help kids achieve their learning goals while minimizing negative behavior in the classroom. The model ... identifies six basic personality types, phrases you may hear them utter and strategies you can employ to help them learn. There is some overlap. But the defining characteristics of a child's personality are usually easily recognizable, says Joe Pauley, vice president of Kahler Communications and facilitator of the training sessions for educators."
"Process Communication is built on the hypothesis that if you identify a child's personality type, then you can unlock his learning style. Understanding how the child learns gives you insight into his behavior patterns. That way, you and the child's education team can create a personalized communication plan to enhance the child's learning environment and minimize disruptive behavior."
Chevalier (2005) incorporates elements of Kahler's drivers into working with crises in organizations.
Gilbert (1999) In research on Educators, uses the Process Communication Model (PCM) and makes reference to the Personality Pattern Inventory (PPI) and Interaction span:
"Using Kahler's (1982) Process Communication Model (PCM) to identify personality types and preferences, Gilbert (1994) reported a relationship between the interaction energy and performance (grades) of students. This relationship was a comparison of student personality type and teacher-designated grades. If one interprets a grade (criterion-referenced performance) as the ability of the student to meet the teacher's expectations, it is not surprising that those most like the teacher will fare particularly well.
The PCM (Kahler, 1982) was generated from a clinical model. It has been used with more than half a million people on four continents - in business, industry, and now, education. PCM asserts that individuals are composites of six personality types and places each type in one of four quadrants on an assessing matrix. (The two axes of the matrix describe continua from Involved to Withdrawn and Intrinsically - to Extrinsically-motivated.) It was hypothesized for this research that teacher types tend to be more Intrinsically-motivated, spanning the full range from Involved to Withdrawn. Poor-performing (at-risk) students fall into the quadrant which describes them mostly as Involved and Extrinsically motivated. Those types that had the weakest correlations need playful contact (Rebels) or incidence (Promoters) to stay energized and prefer to interact with others like themselves. Their main preferred intake mode is kinesthetic - provided on a limited basis by most teachers.
Kahler (1988), using Berne's Transactional Analysis as an underpinning for an organizational parable, described the six personality types of his PCM: Reactors, Workaholics, Persisters, Dreamers, Rebels, and Promoters. None is better or worse, more or less acceptable, more or less intelligent. Kahler likened personality structure to a six-storey condominium, where the first floor represents a foundation ("Base") - strongest personality type- and where each of the remaining floors is represented by the other personality types; there are also below-ground places where distress patterns are experienced. This generated order of personality types is set at about age seven years, and the ability to move to these different "floors" of one's personality is measurable and predictable. Each personality type has different sets of behaviors, perceptions, and motivators that influence how one learns and how one teaches. Most students and professional educators limit how they process reality by utilizing only one or two of the six available floors of their personality structure.
As one moves higher in one's personality, each successive floor is more sparsely "furnished" - that is, one has less psychological energy. Even though one can move throughout the structure and access any of the floors (personality types), there are two important concepts to keep in mind - (1) one will stay on the floor where motivation is the strongest until the need at that floor is met, and (2) one will only be able to move to other floors insofar as there is sufficient energy. What this means in education is that teachers have to get their own needs met before they can attend to the needs of others - students and colleagues. If a teacher needs recognition for work or acceptance of convictions, he (most people who need these things are male) will not be able to provide the playful contact needed to motivate those who need that contact until they can move to that floor in his structure. Also, if that floor is not well-furnished, he will not be able to stay there very long and will drop into something more familiar, inviting those with whom he is interacting to come with him.
One of the more interesting categories generated from the Kahler PPI is Interaction span - the amount of relative energy (on a scale of 100) one has to deal with other personality types.
Educators have high levels of energy to interact with Reactors, Workaholics, and Persisters. They also have a commensurately low amount of energy to interact with Dreamers, Rebels, and Promoters. What this means in practical terms is that those students who are most like them will thrive, and those least like them will flounder. These data continue to support the relationship between the interaction energy and performance (grades) of students (Gilbert, 1994).
What these data also show is that the respondent educators may have difficulty moving to another form of teaching to accommodate the needs of learners who may prefer alternate forms. Since three personality types (Dreamers, Rebels, and Promoters) are more externally-motivated and educators are more internally-motivated, likely miscommunication may be the order of the day in classrooms where this mismatch occurs."
Gilbert (2005) using Kahler's 'base personalities' to examine listening effectiveness of educators finds:
"Most students prefer visual input – through normal development or instructional reinforcement – yet, most teachers provide information to be taken in by listening. This mismatch can confound the learning process. To determine how well teachers listen and what their teaching/learning preferences might be, more than 200 educators provided data about listening effectiveness and personality preferences. The data showed that those individuals who are more logical and thought-oriented listened more effectively overall and veteran educators listened better than student teachers (most likely attributable to their longer experience). The implications are that teachers who overuse the auditory mode might be creating an environment where some students will get into distress and seek negative ways to get their needs met. The major finding was that educators who are strong in thought orientation tended to be the better listeners. Regardless of the personal orientation of teachers, the precursor to student learning is the teacher’s ability to connect with them personally."
Hay (1993) incorporates Kahler's work into Leadership research referring to the 'Leadership Styles Quadrant' (1979).
Klein (1985) discussed the commonalities of the miniscript drivers.
Tudor (2008) introduces the 'sixth driver', which he calls "Take it"
"a negative driver message ... considered to support the development of narcissism ... This contribution to the literature is placed in the context of transactional analysis as a social psychology and a radical psychiatry." Tudor claims to be responding to "Gellert's (1975) point that there are more than five drivers" and adds that "The addition of a sixth driver has an impact on a number of interrelated theories and models within transactional analysis, in particular, driver messages (Kahler with Capers, 1974) and personality adaptations (Joines & Stewart, 2002; Ware, 1983)." Tudor argues for the necessity of this sixth driver "in order to explain certain seeking and aggressive relational dynamics in and between human beings on personal and wider, social/political levels. .... Just as awareness and understanding helps the individual, so too the social psychological analysis of the social, political, and economic consequences of the 'Take it' driver message may help the social awareness of individuals, groups, peoples, and even nations to resist oppression and to commit to cooperation."
Tudor and Widdowson (2008) challenge
"The authors offer a critique of the process model as articulated by Kahler ... and the theory of personality adaptations as articulated by Kahler with Capers, Kahler, Ware, and Joines & Stewart. Specifically, they take issue with Joines and Stewart's assertion that narcissism cannot be considered to be a personality adaptation and argue for a consistent conceptualization of personality that encompasses narcissistic and borderline adaptations."
Relationship to Other Theories:
Attribution Theory could relate to Kahler's Drives with respect to 'transactional analysis'
REFERENCES ~ Coding Spreadsheet - Web View