The Instinctual Variants

A concept well-known in the Enneagram community is the instinctual variants, widely debated in their respective roles within the human personality. The three instincts are the Self-Preservation instinct (sp), the Sexual instinct (sx), and the Social instinct (so), and each hold distinct purposes that shape our motivations and consequent actions.

The instinctual variants (or the instincts) are the biological drives motivating us to secure vital resources to our individual survival, as well as the survival of the human race. The instincts fall in a specific order (or stacking) which dictates which resources are of utmost importance, so not everyone’s personality emphasizes the same needs.

Self-Preservation

The Self-Preservation instinct aims to meet the need of physical survival and longevity. This instinct draws the personality’s attention to the physical world, ensuring the human body is sufficiently fed, watered, comfortable, safe, and equipped to handle anything that might threaten its continuation of health. It motivates us to manage our physical world in a way that ensures we don’t lose all our money, time, or sense of security. At some level, the Self-Preservation instinct is the psyche’s dashboard, tracking RPMs and remaining gasoline, ensuring nothing becomes completely depleted or overused. Self-Preservation sets limits and walls around the personality, ensuring that too much energy is not robbed from the personality and that dangers to the psyche’s stability are kept out. David Gray paralleled this instinct to the element of earth* – it holds a solid, grounding quality in every context.

When someone is dominant in Self-Preservation (sp-dom), their personality is unknowingly obsessed with managing and gathering resources to stabilize itself. This doesn’t mean that all sp-doms are great at handling their energy and resources, but their attention automatically and habitually returns to the “dashboard” – they are too often unconsciously checking the state of energy expenditure occurring. Self-Preservation gives to the personality an awareness of what makes things last, and sp-doms are often fixated on how the systems and infrastructure in their world will affect the sustainability of the things they seek. Self-Preservation builds stability, and for sp-doms, creating a sustainable environment with stabilizing rhythms is paramount, even at the expense of their Sexual and Social needs.

When this instinct is secondary, the personality has a more natural and unstressed relationship to its function. Self-Preservation in the supporting position adds a rooting quality to the dominant instinct. For people who are sx/sp, Self-Preservation unconsciously seeks to make the chemical intensity sought by the Sexual instinct lasting and singular. For people who are so/sp, Self-Preservation creates sustainable tenets of interaction that protect community and allow for long-term relationships.

When this instinct is last, Self-Preservation represents a threat to the psyche’s dominant need – either the Sexual or Social instinct. Sp-blinds neglect their physical needs, fail to manage their practical responsibilities, and have colorful but unsustainable relationships. As the blind instinct, Self-Preservation’s rooting quality is demonized and dangerous, symbolic of an overly fixed way of being that is boring, selfish, and stubborn. Sp-blinds are far too open to interaction, because their personality lacks the gate that holds energy in and measures its use.

Sexual

The Sexual instinct creates the continuation of the human race (as well as other races) by means of attraction and arousal. Its function and manifestation within humans is complex and nuanced, but behaviorally trackable. This instinct utilizes “mating rituals” (be they subtle or overt within humans) to allow for transformation of genetic code into new, living material. The Sexual instinct plays a vital role in this process, bringing attention within the psyche to what arouses the self and what does not, functioning as a “compass” of sorts, magnetically pulled toward the strongest attractor in its environment. It tunes into a field of chemical reactions, sensing what potential energy exists within an environment and provoking it to destruction and consequent recreation. There is a necessary duality within Sexual instinct in order to instigate procreation: the roles of the hunter and the prey, the need to take its object of desire as well as to be taken by it — both are part of Sexual’s makeup. The Sexual instinct is the psyche’s need to obey the unnameable impulses and tugs that come from the most (subjectively) magnetic force nearby. This instinct opens the personality to whatever lights up or arouses the psyche, drawing it into the attractor, causing the death of the old for the promise of the new. Gray connected this instinct to the elements of fire and water – the meeting of the masculine, dominating force with its opposite, the feminine, receptive force.

When in the dominant position of the psyche, the Sexual instinct brings an obsessive attention to the world of attraction, constantly seeking to provoke its environment and be provoked in turn. Where others use their sexual self-expression for sexual contexts, someone dominant in this instinct (sx-dom) will function as a peacock with his colorful feathers on display all day, automatically advertising their most distinctive and interesting qualities without knowing they are doing so. With great nuance for both their “taking” and “taken” parts, Sexual types often have an androgynous presentation, combining the masculine with the feminine. The human need to be ahead of sexual competition comes from this instinct, and sx-doms will obsess about being the most attractive object to their desired partners. This arousal response goes beyond the need for a partner; sx-doms are unconsciously seeking the juice, the magic in all things they do. If it seems to be absent, they unconsciously seek to awaken it through their provocative behavior. Because this instinct is opening itself selectively to the things that turn it on, there is an intense, leaning-in quality for sx-doms, like they might at any moment pounce upon the object of their desire, or fully give themselves to it. They are at risk of becoming enslaved to whatever or whomever excites them. Sexual types have an abstract stickiness to them, leaving their “scent” everywhere they go, bringing chaos, newness, and disruption with them. 

When secondary, the Sexual instinct adds personalization and chemistry to the supplication of the dominant instinct’s needs. Sexual in the playground position uses the personality’s sexual display as a tool to acquire either the Self-Preservation or Social resources demanded by the psyche. For those who are sp/sx, their attractions and displays are used to ensure a more stable, reliable, and rooted way of living. For people with so/sx as their stacking, their sexual flavor is used to provoke and enrich their relationships, interactions, and communities. There’s a distinct playfulness in the self-expression of those who have Sexual as a secondary instinct, because the psyche has low stakes in having this need met for its own sake, but they utilize it regularly.

In the blindspot, the sparks and color of the Sexual instinct are buried deep within the psyche, representing a disruptive and frightening chaos that endangers their stability in Self-Preservation or their coregulatory relationships in Social. Sx-blinds still have a distinct flavor, but their access to it is limited by the psyche’s implicit belief that fully expressing themselves – stripping themselves bare in favor of transformation and discovery – will destroy the life they know. This means that many sx-blinds fear change, or at the very least fear fully giving into their chemical impulses and magnetic attractions. 

Social

Utilized for building connections, relationships, and groups, the Social instinct meets our need for emotional coregulation and care. Humans can’t survive without each other, and Social motivates us to find safe others with whom we can share our lives, consequently giving us reason to contribute to a broader world. This instinct provides for us a lens to see other people not just as objects in our field of view, but as actual people with lives as distinct, complex, and meaningful as our own. Through Social, we see others and understand that they come from a specific background, context, and culture that has formed their role in the world. With this added sense of context, we have the ability to guess at what motivates others, as well as what position they hold in relation to others in their environment. This awareness of role, hierarchy, and position allows subcultures to protect their tribe – meaning Social tells us who belongs with us, as well as who doesn’t. Gray correlated the Social instinct with the element of air – its qualities are open, available, and elevated, having a broad scope of vision to see other players flying nearby with their own intentions and directions.

For those dominant in the Social instinct (so-dom), the personality takes the need to be connected to a higher caliber, bringing too much attention to one’s position, influence, and purpose relative to others. So-doms have an enhanced (but sometimes debilitating) awareness of who “fits” where, and they automatically seek to identify the lines between groups and individuals. Social types can be obsessive with ensuring their relationships are functioning well, having sufficient common ground and emotional connectedness. Being so-dom doesn’t make someone necessarily extraverted, but it does mean their attention will habitually be on the world of humans and their relationships to each other, as well as to what role they themselves play in it. 

When secondary, Social serves a “higher” purpose, meaning it only provides relationships and context as a means of fulfilling the needs of the dominant instinct. For those who are sp/so, the Social world secures a tribe and community to acquire their desired rooted and practical safety – relationships offer greater stability. For those with sx/so as their stacking, Social is the arena of people which the Sexual instinct scans in order to find and provoke arousal. This stacking is the most socially disruptive, because the Social instinct’s awareness of people is only an opportunity for the Sexual instinct to cause turmoil by differentiating its own flavor.

In the blindspot, Social represents a blurry and threatening “other” whose interpersonal demands are perceived as confusing and unnecessary. So-blinds may know themselves as a human animal, but they automatically devalue their own need to be a person with specific characteristics and culture that can be perceived by others. Social blinds struggle to identify the implicit “rules” behind interpersonal engagements, so while they do still need connection, they often don’t know how to “do the dance” in order to achieve it. The interactional availability of Social’s air stands as a diluting force to the so-blind’s specific Self-Preservation habits and Sexual flavor.

*This page references David Gray’s connection of the instincts to the four classical elements. Visit David’s website to learn more.