It Takes All Kinds: The Tribe Constellation

This is going to seem kind of obvious once I describe this, but I think that this is an idea worth exploring.  Groups of people will tend to have a variety of different personality types that will break down along specific lines that best suit a tribe format.  I am using Dunbar’s number which puts the optimal tribal size at between 100 and 230 with the optimal size of about 150.   I theorize that the collective consciousness pushes people into groups that create a personality mix that provides the group with the greatest stability and adaptability.  I will call this The Tribe Constellation.  A tribe constellation is the emergent property of the mixing of different personality types to create a cohesive tribe; it is an example of a systemic constellation.

I suspect that consciousness not only tends to form along these lines, but that it does so with almost unerring consistency.  I say that because it is so very common to have children born with different personalities.  Consciousness is trying to form tribes even at the family level.

To show the personality mix, I’m going to use the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator, which breaks down personality into several categories.  It’s not perfect, but it’s useful.  The statistical breakdown is not exact and has a possible error plus or minus about a 2%.

MBTI^® Statistics

M – Males, F – Females, T – Totals

Breakdown by Type
ISTJ M – 16.4% F – 6.9% T – 11.6%	ISFJ M – 8.1% F – 19.4% T – 13.8%	INFJ M – 1.3% F – 1.6% T – 1.46%	INTJ M – 3.3% F – 0.8% T – 2.1%
ISTP M – 8.5% F – 2.4% T – 5.4%	ISFP M – 7.6% F – 9.9% T – 8.8%	INFP M – 4.1% F – 4.6 T – 4.4%	INTP M – 4.8% F – 1.8% T – 3.3%
ESTP M – 5.6% F – 3.0% T – 4.3%	ESFP M – 6.9% F – 10.1% T – 8.5%	ENFP M – 6.4% F – 9.7% T – 8.1%	ENTP M – 4.0% F – 2.4% T – 3.2%
ESTJ M – 11.2% F – 6.3% T – 8.7%	ESFJ M – 7.5% F – 16.9% T – 12.3%	ENFJ M – 1.6% F – 3.3% T – 2.5%	ENTJ M – 2.7% F – 0.9% T – 1.8%

These are the very loosely defined characteristics of these personality types:

ISTJ = The Duty Fulfiller	ESTJ = The Guardian	INTJ = The Scientist	ENTJ = The Executive
ISFJ = The Nurturer	ESFJ = The Caregiver	INFJ = The Protector	ENFJ = The Giver
ISTP = The Mechanic	ESTP= The Doer	INTP= The Thinker	ENTP = The Visionary
ISFP = The Artist	ESFP =  The Performer	INFP = The Idealist	ENFP = The Inspirer

And here they are from the most common, (top) to the least common (bottom)

• ISFJ:  The Nurturer 13.8%  (Value harmony and cooperation)
• ESFJ:  The Caregiver 12.3%  (value security and stability)
• ISTJ:  The Duty Fulfiller 11.6%  (value honesty and integrity)

The three most common personality types, which comprise 37.7% of the population, are unambitious, conforming people who contribute unity to a tribal society.  I don’t mean to imply that unambitious is a bad trait implying laziness.  These people simply value other aspects of their lives more than ambition. Conformity, in this case means that they are comfortable working within a structure that helps them accomplish their goals.

• ISFP:  The Artist 8.8%  (action oriented, practical)
• ESTJ: The Guardian 8.7% (action oriented,  logical -left brain- detail oriented)
• ESFP:  The Performer 8.5%  (action oriented, inspiration -right brain- short term oriented)
• ENFP:  The Inspirer 8.1%  (action oriented, inspiration -right brain -long term oriented)

Another 34.1% are the action oriented crowd who generally get along with other people and plan and initiate normal activities.  These two groups, less than half of the available personality types,  make up 71.8% of the tribe and it is intuitively easy to see how these personalities, when combined form the backbone of a stable, and adaptable tribe.  There is a wide spread of personality types, sometimes with subtle differences that together provide the larger group with an impressive mix problems solving capabilities.  There are a combination of short term thinkers, long term thinkers, logical thinkers and creative thinkers.  Most situations are covered by someone who is adapted to handle them.  The most important thing to take away from this is that all these personality types are incomplete as individuals.  Together though, they form a formidable unit.  And that’s not even everyone.

• ISTP:  The Mechanic 5.4% (action oriented, bold, independent, fearless, mechanically inclined)
• INFP: The Idealist 4.4%  (Intuitive, idealist, perfectionist)
• ESTP:  The Doer 4.3%  (Action oriented risk taker, decisive, improvisers)
• INTP:  The Thinker 3.3% (Theorist, intelligent, logical -left brain)
• ENTP:  The Visionary 3.2% (Theorist, intelligent, intuitive -right brain)
• ENFJ:  The Giver 2.5%  (Intuitive psychology skills, selfless)
• INTJ:  The Scientist 2.1% (good at systems, organization, practical application of theory)
• ENTJ:  The Executive 1.8% (leader, long range thinker, quick, decisive)
• INFJ:  The Protector 1.46%  (psychic, artistic, creative, orderly, systematic)

The remaining 28.2% of the personality types are basically the tribe specialists.  Among the specialists there is a kind of round table of thinkers who provide a very wide array of methods to approach problem solving.  A tribe with all the different personality types has at its disposal every possible useful way of thinking so that the group can meet an enormous range of unpredictable challenges.

But it goes deeper than that.  The spread of personality types is set up so that every personality type will have people surrounding them that can relate to their way of thinking.  There is a beautiful blend of intuitive and logical personality types of all different shades.  This is important because logical thinkers do not always relate well to intuitive ideas and vice versa.  Not only do tribes need the right people with the right ideas at the right place and time, but other people within the tribe need to understand and support the idea that the problem solver came up with.  This brings up what I think is an important point:  Tribes constellations only work properly when its members work together and trust one another and it demonstrates the glaring weakness of the autocratic management style where differing ideas are badly managed.

If we think about a traditional small tribe, one thing that stands out is that these are people who have lived together all their lives.  Everyone has had plenty of time to learn about the strengths and weaknesses of the people around them and this creates a knowledge base about who is good at what, which in turn helps the group function at its highest level.  Not every personality type automatically gets along with all the others; close proximity over the course of years, in which people have to learn to get along with one another and blend their talents for the good of the tribe is an important part of the package.

You can see how this would be important, particularly for the outlier personalities.  The scientist cannot improve the tribe’s technology without help and agreement; the executive can’t lead and the protector cannot warn the tribe of danger if no one trusts them or knows who they are.

I have oversimplified the various personality traits as outlined by the MBTI, of course, people are vastly more complicated than simply possessing a few traits, but simplification is necessary in order to get a feel for the overall picture.  If you look more closely at the various traits of the different personality types though, you can see how not only does each and every personality fit in the small tribe and perform a crucial role, but redundancies are built in and most personality types have a great deal of flexibility for adapting to roles for which they’re not perfectly suited.  Attitudes of mutual support can be found throughout most personality types.

For me, seeing all these personality types lined up and seeing them as aspects of a tribe, it becomes clear that a tribe constellation is, in a sense, a conscious entity in its own right.  It is its own thing, -much like a hive of bees or a herd of deer are not just random collections of these creatures-, a tribal constellation stands on its own.  It is an entity with an amazing dynamic complexity.

Given that people were meant to live their lives in this sort of environment, wherein they live with people that they have known all their lives,  it is easy to see the immense stress modern society puts on those personalities that cannot adapt well to our enormous modern societies.  It is likewise easy to see how many modern systems tend to warp the tribal system with the predictably poor results.  Certainly humans are not designed to operate in an every-man-for-himself capitalist system.  We are wired to share resources and work together and it is stressful for us to live in an environment where this is impossible.

The point of looking at tribal constellations is that if we see ourselves in this context, all of our different personalities make sense.  We were always intended to work together; to achieve common goals and to do our bit for the common good.