Firo-B's Dissociation from Two Central Dimensions of Interpersonal Behavior

Abstract

Each addressing interpersonal behavior's central features, three questionnaires were administered to 64 participants in 11 small personal development groups. Individuals rated their own and each other's within-group behavior twice, near group Hours 23 and 43, on separate scales of acceptance of others and self. They made similar ratings on the Interpersonal Behavior Inventory after groups' Hour 50 termination. Near Hour 33, they made self-ratings only on the Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientations-Behavior (FIRO-B). Factor analyses of all correlations among the pertinent 6 peer- and 12 self-based measures yielded two salient factors, labeled acceptance of others and acceptance of self, each encompassing ratings from both self and pooled group peers. Also found were two exclusively self-based factors, one composed of four or five FIRO-B scales, the other of solo indices of the FIRO-B and Interpersonal Behavior Inventory. These findings challenge FIRO-B's usefulness for assessing the interpersonal domain's principal dimensions.