The Social Instinct
by Veronica Sadler
Long before sentience, before footsteps graced land, in the depths of primordial waters, single cell organisms enacted the fundamental law of the universe, attraction. Particles move towards each other; atoms collide and form constellations, cells join.
Instincts and drives are the basis of our relationship with each other and ourselves, they are forces that the conscious mind and bodies hold and manifest. In the enneagram we categorize three such basic set of instincts (self preservation, social and sexual) and one of these three is the sticking point to one’s sense of Self. This dominant instinct is a religion, our sanctity, obsession, irritation, our hell.
The social instinct is based on the divine nature of the universe in which we find laws of harmony, attraction and autonomy (or say distinction). It’s both the instinct of the group AND the instinct that differentiates one within context of the group. The instinct is the drive which desires connection with others, but this connection has roots in a conceptual Self, the Self reflected through others and in the intangible field of shared existence.
As a social type, I felt isolation profoundly, either relishing or acutely seeking its relief. I was intensely aware of proximity to other people. As with any dominant instinct, my sense of Self was invested in this awareness, the instinctive habit of orientation to the Other, even if this was distasteful or below consciousness for much of my life. Social tends to be a vulnerable instinct but also encompassing because social connectivity is primary to well being in mammals, including highly social animals such as humans. It regulates the nervous system in ways we are only beginning to understand and guides much of our psychological and physical health. Relationships chosen or not, offspring, immediate family and pair bonding are vital to human cognitive development and flourishing.
When the enneagram type coalesces around the dominant instinct, personality is formed in reaction and to manage the drives and subliminal instincts arising from the unconscious and material body with its long genetic history. Social types are then particularly sensitive to aspects of their identity within kinship, familial groups and communities. It’s like they have two sets of eyes, one as themselves and one as this subconscious eye of the Other. This is even more pronounced when the individual is a primary type (3,6,9) or an image type (2,3,4). It’s important to note, however, the social instinct is different from center of intelligence or object relations as the instinct to seek connection supersedes type. It’s our species’ evolutionary heritage.
Connections can be abstracted as orientation to thought systems, institutions or it can be more obvious as biological processes in the bond between mother and child. This lends the social type a lot of diversity, especially when considering core type or other personality factors and temperament. Likewise, what defines a social type is the proclivity to create inner narratives around the social instinct with high definition. This inclination may show up incredibly nuanced in behavior. Examples of mechanisms are weaving social markers into their identity, moving through and behind the instinct, developing attitudes in congruence with others or actively disengaging from them, knowing with...clarity, what proximity personally means to them as a participant within the dance of interdependency. This may include hierarchical understanding, but some social types despise the static utility of this rationale. It rather describes social structures in a hybridized form alongside self preservation as inflexible and rigid. A purer understanding of this instinct is acknowledgment of counterbalance and the ever-changing situation of roles and power.
So, what do social types seek, what characteristics do they exhibit and what’s the best expression and worse of this instinct?
The instinct derives motivation from being apart of a network and optimal functioning in one’s place in the common ecosystem. They seek to belong. There’s almost a spacial quality to this as much of social is biological co-regulation and the physical body benefits from closeness and attunement. Depending on core type, there’s various surface level reactions to this motivation. However, as human connection is increasingly nebulous, social interactions happening in nonphysical spaces, this can show up as associations with cultures and subcultures, political movements or spiritual/religious traditions. They are concerned about their relationships and much of their life is devoted to establishing, maintaining and protecting their connections professionally and intimately or contributing in any way to the lineage of humankind (a link the social type feels on a deep level). They are oftentimes tracking cultural trends, the arts, science and technologies that advance or enriches the species as a whole. They are curiously compelled by civilization itself as the amplified pattern of the root, one to one connection between individuals and its evolution into wide scale systems.
Loneliness is not uncommon for social types, and neither is isolation. Separateness and guardedness can replace communing with another. Along with the responsiveness to social comes its polarity, deadening the nerve. Whether self imposed or not, fear of being ostracized is the wound the social type continually licks. Loss of connection is painful for any type or instinct stacking but to be outside of belonging is the social types of most profound apprehension. Many social types chose to remain isolated than to chance wanting to be accepted, loved or welcomed, to yearn to find true place of authenticity, a role and subsequently be rejected. In lower health, the enneagram type breaks down in management of the instinctual drives and the overwhelming desire and existential terror of the instinct can destabilize the personality. So, the social type can be misanthropic or manipulate connection for their own gain, sabotage authenticity or become obsessed over one aspect of the instinct such as power, place, or reputation. They may narrow their instinct; finally, the least healthy expressions of the instinct are in subversion, compulsion and false control.
Certainly, all the instincts are vital to Love but no type quite humanizes it like the social type. Social types see Love, especially romance as the soul-to-soul tether that enlivens not only the individual but the connection itself as alive and an integral component to relationships. The exchange of strengths, gifts and resources is not only for the Self (as is with Self Preservation) but the Self as belonging to something. This is an emergent dynamism that is created out of the constitutive particulars. No work of great art is met without this energy even if it was made in solitude, as it is observed it becomes more. No love was made without it. No law or governance or telling of history. We perceive it every day and it shapes the reality we live in. Humans construct monuments to what we have collectively achieved. We create TikTok clips, we buy shirts with our favorite band, we rush to our child when they fall, chat around the water cooler, mourn together at funerals. Fashions come and go, like tides of an ocean, opinions shift in popularity, political movements rise from grass roots. As a flight of birds that change direction in a sky ballet, small imperceptible movements trigger large scale actions that impact the entirety.
It’s also as simple and nourishing as this, we seek the one we wish to touch after a difficult day and embrace, heart beats and breath sync.
There is two, there is separateness, but the link binds and the attachment revitalize us, if just for a moment.
This is the social instinct.
