Gregarious-Intimate
The focus of this facet is on the breadth and depth of one's connections to others.
Gregarious
People at this pole enjoy friendships and associations with a variety of people. The number of relationships and their heterogeneity are both important in their social life. Such relationships are typically enjoyed in group settings, where group interaction is likely, rather than in one-on-one dialogue. Variety in relationships is highly valued because of the diverse interactions involved and the wide range of activities made possible. Being popular and known by a wide circle of people provides Gregarious individuals with the meaningful foundation needed to develop their personal identity. It is from the broad expanse of such networks and the popularity they offer that a sense of personhood occurs. Gregarious people also value the freshness and adventure of making new friends and the chance to connect with others who have larger social networks. They like opportunities to expand their circle of friends and acquaintances through meeting new people. They also see their friendship networks as a way of opening doors to new and bigger horizons of experience. If they want or need to change jobs, they have a readily available network of people with whom they can connect, and they are able to make the most of their contacts. Being cut off from this network is stressful in two ways: It prevents them from knowing the latest news about the many people with whom they interact, and it leaves a void in their sense of self. This void cannot be filled even by frequent contact with their closer friends. Through contacts with many different people, people at this pole develop the social dexterity to respond to diverse expectations without compromising their own identities. They are able to juggle several different people-oriented tasks at once without compromising their performance of any of them. Maintaining connections with a variety of people also gives them a heightened sensitivity to the subtleties of communication. They are apt to pick up on nuances of meaning that may be overlooked by people with fewer social contacts. In large group settings they are aware of the flow of the group's mood or sentiment. However, they may not always be sensitive to the opinions of emotional states of more reserved group members. In smaller groups, where they have more time and opportunity to connect with most people, they can be quite attuned to involving quieter people, who may have unique viewpoints or needs.
Finally, Gregarious people can respond rapidly in social contexts that involve a series of quick exchanges with others. They are comfortable with the lively give-and-take of social mingling that occurs in large groups. In group meetings where they know most of the people, their contributions may carry more weight than those of their Intimate counterparts. One reason is the broad awareness of group sentiments that they acquire by touching base with many people. In doing so, they get a good sense of what views, proposals, or compromises may be acceptable to the majority of group members.
Intimate
People at this pole are most at ease in social exchanges with others whom they know well. They find social mingling and quick chitchat with a large number of people unappealing, if not something to be avoided. They prefer lengthy one-on-one conversations with few interruptions. For them, conversation cannot occur in a group. Rather, it involves a back-and-forth exchange with one person where together they spiral deeper into a topic. They don't like people changing the subject or intruding other topics into the discussion. Their preference for deep, intimate exchange may lead them to avoid large group situations where they don't know anyone. When they are in a large group, they try to find others who prefer one-on-one exchanges. In a large, freely mingling group, they may spend an entire evening talking to one or a few friends with whom a private, exclusive, and well-known connection can be maintained.
People at the Intimate pole greatly prefer a limited range of friendships. They feel comfortable sharing the more personal aspects of their lives with very few people. A Gregarious person might share such details with a much broader circle. For the Intimate person, both the information itself and the sharing of it are reserved for only certain people. For this reason, the Intimate person's friendships entail a significant amount of trust, tend to develop slowly, and require a fair amount of time to maintain. The time commitment is great enough, in fact, that Intimate people feel they simply do not have the time or energy to maintain a large number of true friendships.
Intimate people also tend to be involved in a more selective set of interests and activities than are their Gregarious counterparts. They enjoy concentrating their energy on specific interests that they can explore in depth over fairly long periods of time. They dislike being involved in so many activities that they are unable to give each of them the extended attention they feel is needed, appropriate, and satisfying. Cursory involvement may make the work meaningless or make them feel uncomfortable about not being able to do a better job.
For people at this pole, the intimacy involved in sharing secluded parts of oneself with a trusted friend is much more highly valued than is popularity. The shared parts of the Intimate person constitute the real "who I am." An Intimate person who lacks deep friendships is as important to the Intimate person as being popular and having a wide social circle is to the Gregarious person. However, it may be more difficult for the one seeking intimacy to satisfy this need. In group discussions, the views and comments of Intimate people may involve a fairly in-depth consideration of both the topic and their associations to it. Consequently, when the exchange involves a rapid series of remarks by different people, the Intimate person's lengthier processing may delay his or her comments and observations. As a result, a valuable contribution may remain unspoken because of the dynamics of a larger group.
In social contexts, people at the Intimate pole seek out experiences they believe they are more likely to enjoy. They prefer environments with intimate interactions, and they may not value opportunities for networking. Their comfort, interests, and satisfaction lie in intimate connections with others. They want to focus on the substance of their own and their friends' inner lives. In focusing at that level, they may be more adept at picking up nuances of meaning from intimate friends than they are at recognizing the nuances of group dynamics.
Active-Reflective
The focus of this facet is on how a person engages with his or her general environment for entertainment, socializing, and learning.
Active
People at this pole like to be actively engaged with their environment, especially when this means energetic face-to-face interactions with others. They prefer active involvement over passive viewing and find parties more entertaining than watching a performance. They like to be actively and socially engaged rather than detached and removed from the action. Active people may lean toward pursuits that permit them to actively engage with the world. They may also prefer work and activities there they can contribute by speaking rather than writing. They are comfortable meeting strangers and often take the lead and do much of the talking in social interactions. They also tend to learn better by doing, listening, and questioning than by independent study or reading, and they like to communicate by speaking to people face-to-face. Participation is the means by which they come to know themselves, the world, and how self and world are dynamically connected.
Reflective
People at this pole seek out and enjoy entertainment that evokes visual, intellectual, or mental responses. They prefer this over participation in an activity and, in fact, such evocation may actually be the way they participate. They enjoy the interaction of their own mental responses with creative, artistic, intellectual, or cultural works. They participate just as fully as Active people, but with different kinds of activities that can be enjoyed internally rather than externally. For Reflective people, the meaning of things arises from their active mental engagement with them. Physical or verbal interaction with their environment is often unnecessary. Consequently, they tend to learn best from written material that they can read on their own. In this way, their learning can be structured by the (possibly lengthy) mental associations they make to the material. A group process that interrupts their internal dialogue is not an effective way for Reflective people to learn or an enjoyable way for them to use leisure time. They communicate with others most comfortably through writing and reading. Meeting and interacting with strangers can be uncomfortable and they are likely to let others keep a conversation going in social situations.