A Complete Beginner Guide to Social Style Personality Test

Since we were young, we've been told that everyone is different. Everyone has a unique attitude, physical traits, struggles, and skills. We also all have different ways of getting along with people. Social styles affect how we get along with others and work together, approach new ideas or projects, and what we may need from others to do our jobs well and feel comfortable.

In the early 1950s, psychologists David Merrill and Roger Reid developed the Social Styles Model. It is based on patterns of communication that describe how people talk based on two factors: boldness and attentiveness. It sorts people into four groups: analytical, driving, expressive, and friendly.

The four social styles grid can help improve work relationships, teamwork, and the general success of a team. They help you learn more about your social style, how others act, and, most importantly, how to adjust it to work well with others. Getting to know our social styles can help us at work and help us work better with our coworkers.

What are the four types of social styles?

The four social styles are social or mental traits that help us figure out who we are. Even though the social styles model doesn't define use, it is important because it shows everyone has a strong or default personality style.

How Social Styles Affect Business

Using social styles helps workers and managers interact more effectively and successfully with customers, employees, and other partners. Strong speakers can learn to use their natural social style to get the most done at work. Also, workers who know about social styles can adjust to social situations better, ensuring they use the right communication style in the right scenario.

The benefits of knowing the four personality types

When managers and employees know about the four social styles, they can learn to spot them in customers, peers, and bosses. This will help your staff talk to each other better at work and in social situations, leading to better work and personal interactions.

How to Understand the Four Quadrant Model

As shown previously, the basic four-quadrant model helps organize and map social traits in two directions. Introverts are on the left side of the horizontal axis, and extroverts are on the right. The thinker is at the top of the vertical axes, and the feeler is at the bottom. People often say introverts are less aggressive, quiet, thoughtful, and slow to choose.

On the contrary, extroverts are said to be confident, talk a lot, and make decisions quickly. Feelers are good with people, happy, and focused on their feelings. On the other hand, thinkers are less interested in what other people say and are more focused on facts and analysis.

The Driver: charge, decisive, and fast-paced

The driver is an extrovert-thinker. People with this personality type are usually described as strong, independent, honest, direct, practical, and effective. The driver personality type focuses on getting things done by overcoming hurdles and problems. Drivers are focused on the job, like to be in charge, and need tasks to do well.

How to tell if someone has a Driver Social Style:

Figure out what they want.
Have little trouble saying what they think about anything that matters to them.
Concentrate on the current instead of the past or the future.
Don't care much about how people feel or how relationships work.
Come across as stern, serious, or critical because they don't pay much attention to their relationships.
Try to take charge of or control events.
Be careful about how you use and handle time.

A driver's strengths include being persistent, determined, competitive, decided, and optimistic. On the other hand, a driver can seem domineering, insensitive, careless, aggressive, judgmental, and unwilling to forgive.

Strategies for talking to people who are like the driver:

Honor their time.
Keep to the facts
Stick to your word.
Prove your skills.
Make them trust you.
Let them take the lead (listen more and talk less).

The Expressive Style: Passionate and emotional

A person with an open nature is an extrovert-feeler. People in this field are often said to be charming, energetic, convincing, attractive, and able to think on their feet. This personality type focuses on using style, charm, and words to persuade or change the minds of others. People with outgoing personalities tend to be people-oriented and often want to be famous, get noticed, and be the center of attention.

How to identify people with expressive personality traits:

Focus on the future with natural ideas and a willingness to speak up on the spot.
Make quick choices based on your feelings and thoughts.
Come across as friendly and welcoming, but also as someone who wants to be noticed and involved in relationships.
Act in fun, exciting, foolish, and too emotional ways.
Having a tendency to act based on views, hunches, and gut feelings instead of facts and data
Use talks and discussions to get people excited and hopeful.
Use time in a disorganized way.

Compassion, having a warm nature, and being generous are all examples of expressive social skills. Social flaws could include being careless, disorganized, useless, emotional, impulsive, or easy to manipulate.

Strategies for addressing expressive people:

Make them laugh.
Listen to what they have to say.
Think about the big picture.
Recognize what they've done.
Make the talk more fun.
Make a connection instead of just a deal.

The Amiable Style: Friendly, helpful, and relationship-driven

The friendly attitude fits in the area where the Introvert and Feeler meet. Most of the time, people in this area are said to be steady, helpful, cooperative, polite, patient, and loyal. This personality type puts a lot of emphasis on working with other people to get a job done. Friendly people tend to care about others, want honest praise, and need time.

People are thought to have a friendly manner and seem to:

Please focus on the moment and make sense of their social surroundings based on how they feel and relate to others.
Have a hard time understanding that some people act based on their information or how the situation works, not on their ties with them.
Makes good social connections, works well in teams, and takes on helping roles.
Shares information with friends and talks to them in a clear way.
Prefers to stay in their comfort zone and avoid taking risks and getting into fights with other people.
Avoid making mistakes that could put you at risk or cause problems with other people.
Tending not to use time well

Strengths: Friendly People are usually organized, easy-going, caring, reliable, and sensible. Their flaws include being stubborn, uninspired, protective of themselves, needy, and dependent.

Strategies for approaching individuals in a pleasant social manner

Take care of conflicts.
Learn about them, and let them learn about you.
Think about how they see things.
Use diplomacy to find out what they think, give feedback, and deal with problems in private.
Pay close attention and be polite.

The Analytical Style: Thoughtful, reserved, and slow-paced

The critical personality style is in the region for introverts who like to think independently. People in this field are usually described as reasonable, thorough, organized, wise, careful, and based on rules. People who are analytically stressed working hard to make sure quality and accuracy. People with analytical personalities tend to pay attention to jobs, look for facts and details, and need order to do well.

People who are thought to have an analytical style:

Uses facts, data, measurements, proven examples, and logic to get their point across.
Excellent at finding solutions to problems, making plans, and getting people, work, and organizations in order.
They live according to ideas, rules, and beliefs, even if they don't care or aren't interested.
Pay attention to rules, methods, and systems.
Time well and use it well.

People who work in analytics tend to be perfectionists, idealists, sensitive, self-disciplined, and accurate. Some weaknesses are moody, negative, critical, strict, formal, not social, and not very useful.

Strategies for Working with Someone with an Analytical Style

Spend a lot of time with them.
Talk to people clearly and concisely.
Don't put too much pressure on answers.
Respect the way they think.
Pose straight questions and give direct opinions
Give them room, and don't cross their lines.

Using what you know about social styles can help you have more important conversations with customers, improving their entire experience. You can connect with people in a way that feels normal and easy to them if you know their default social style and change how you talk to them accordingly.

Why do social styles matter to me?

Understanding social styles can help you in many parts of life, such as on a team, in the classroom, and when talking to people.

In a crew

First, if you are part of a group, especially a boss like a manager, you should know about different social styles. Once you know how the people in your group interact with each other, you can make sure your team works well together. For instance, if you know that a particular member of your team likes to talk a lot, you could give them a job that gives them room to be creative.

A classroom

When you know your students' social styles, you can teach in a way that suits them. For example, if a kid likes to be in charge, you could make learning a game and give them a prize if they win. By relating to a person's social style, you make it more likely that they will get interested in learning and keep it up. Social style is a person's way of thinking, which can be used to guess how they will act.

In communication

By knowing social styles, we can recognize them in others and change our own to fit the person we are talking to. For example, if you know someone with a friendly personality, you might pay more attention to how you get along with them. This will not only help you get along better with the person, but it will also make it more likely that they will trust you.

Understanding your own and others' social styles.

As you read about various social styles, you might have thought about your own or looked at the people you work with to see where they fit. You might even see some similarities in how people act in different areas. For example, people who work in human resources tend to be more friendly, while managers may be more driven because of their jobs.

Knowing people's social styles can help you determine which job or part is best for them. When a person works in a job that fits their personality, they are likely to be very productive and good at what they do. It would be helpful to know and understand your social style and that of the people you work with.

Think about how you prefer to work and how you understand things best. You could ask a friend, coworker, or teacher to help you figure this out. This will go a long way towards making good connections, creating tight-knit work settings, and improving communication, all leading to high performance.