Element B: Behavior

1. Abstract

Element B: Behavior is an advanced, theory-derived self-report psychometric instrument developed by American psychologist William Carl Schutz as the comprehensive successor and theoretical revision of the widely utilized Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation-Behavior (FIRO-B). Designed within Schutz’s broader “The Human Element” framework, Element B operationalizes interpersonal interaction across three primary interpersonal dimensions: Inclusion (establishing interpersonal contact, participation, and joining), Control (exerting and receiving influence, power, leadership, and decision-making), and Openness (the disclosure of intimate thoughts and genuine feelings, systematically replacing the original FIRO-B construct of Affection). The instrument comprises 54 core behavioral statements that respondents assess across dual psychological perspectives: Perceived Behavior (“What I See” / actual observed behavior, anchored from disagree to agree) and Wanted Behavior (“What I Want” / preferred baseline, anchored from want to don’t want), evaluated across both Expressed (initiated outward toward others) and Received (experienced from others) behavioral vectors.

Through this multi-layered matrix, Element B yields six primary behavioral scales: Expressed Inclusion, Received Inclusion, Expressed Control, Received Control, Expressed Openness, and Received Openness, each scored on a standardized continuum from 0 to 9 using Guttman scaling logic. Crucially, the mathematical divergence between “What I Want” and “What I See” yields precise quantified measures of interpersonal dissatisfaction and behavioral incongruence. Validation cohorts spanning adult education populations, university students, United States Army Intelligence personnel, and NASA personnel demonstrate robust psychometric soundness, yielding scale reproducibility coefficients ranging from 0.89 to 0.93 (mean reproducibility = 0.92) and stable longitudinal test-retest reliability averaging 0.76. Element B serves as an indispensable tool in organizational development, executive leadership coaching, team compatibility diagnostic profiling, and interpersonal psychotherapy.

2. Keywords

Element B: Behavior, FIRO-B, William Schutz, The Human Element, Interpersonal Relations, Inclusion, Control, Openness, Interpersonal Incongruence, Guttman Scaling, Psychometrics, Leadership Development

3. Authors

Element B: Behavior was authored by William Carl Schutz, Ph.D. (December 19, 1925 – November 9, 2002), an influential American psychologist, psychometrician, and encounter group pioneer. Schutz earned his doctoral degree in psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1951. Over his distinguished academic career, he held faculty and research positions at Harvard University, the University of California, Berkeley, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California.

In the late 1950s, while conducting research for the United States Navy at the Naval Neuropsychiatric Research Laboratory in San Diego, Schutz formulated Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation theory and published the original FIRO-B in 1958. During the 1980s and early 1990s, recognizing theoretical limitations and psychometric asymmetries in the original instrument, Schutz substantially expanded his paradigm into The Human Element, establishing Will Schutz Associates in Mill Valley, California. There he engineered Element B: Behavior, Element F: Feelings, and Element S: Self, providing a fully integrated suite of human performance and interpersonal dynamics assessments.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of Element B: Behavior is to diagnose, measure, and elucidate human interpersonal behavior across fundamental operational dimensions. While traditional personality assessments measure broad, static traits—such as those categorized under the Five-Factor Model—Element B isolates dynamic, transactional behavioral orientations that determine how individuals manage contact, power, and self-disclosure in group and dyadic contexts. The instrument assesses not merely what an individual does, but the balance between self-initiated actions, reactions to others, and internal aspirations.

Element B addresses critical limitations of the original 1958 FIRO-B. In the historical instrument, interpersonal compatibility was evaluated primarily on affection, an affective state frequently confounded with warmth or romantic sentiment rather than explicit interpersonal communication. In Element B, Schutz replaced Affection with Openness, explicitly conceptualizing the interpersonal dimension as verbal self-disclosure, transparency, and the sharing of private feelings. Furthermore, Element B introduces the systematic comparison between “What I See” (the respondent’s perceived reality of interpersonal transactions) and “What I Want” (their aspirational preference). The calculated difference between these two perceptual sets provides an objective, quantified index of Interpersonal Dissatisfaction, highlighting acute sources of stress, frustration, and behavioral adaptation.

In organizational psychology and corporate consultation, Element B is widely applied to diagnose team friction, optimize executive decision-making, and structure managerial leadership pipelines. When team members complete Element B, consultants can construct interpersonal compatibility matrices that identify blind spots—such as competitive control struggles, isolation dynamics, or mutual non-disclosure. In clinical psychology and marriage and family therapy, Element B illuminates the underlying interpersonal mechanics driving partner alienation, codependency, and passive-aggressive conflict resolution, equipping clinicians with actionable targets for behavioral modification.

5. Psychological Construct

Element B: Behavior operationalizes interpersonal interaction through a structural taxonomy defined by three behavioral domains: Inclusion, Control, and Openness. Each of these three domains is analyzed across two distinct behavioral vectors: Expressed (behavior initiated by the self toward others) and Received (behavior elicited or accepted from others toward the self). This produces six core measurement scales:

Inclusion (Contact and Belonging)

Inclusion centers on the interpersonal boundary between being connected versus isolated. It represents the degree to which an individual initiates or desires interpersonal contact, association, belonging, and prominence within groups.

• Expressed Inclusion ($e^I$): The extent to which an individual initiates contact, seeks out other people, invites others to participate, and orchestrates social connection. High scorers proactively assemble groups and invite companionship; low scorers tend toward solitude, introversion, and social self-sufficiency.
• Received Inclusion ($r^I$): The degree to which an individual perceives and desires others to invite, include, and incorporate them into social and professional circles. High scorers want constant social invitations and validation; low scorers prefer to remain outside group boundaries without feeling compelled to participate.

Control (Influence and Power)

Control addresses the behavioral boundary of power, decision-making authority, governance, and competence. It governs how an individual manages hierarchy, influence, and accountability.

• Expressed Control ($e^C$): The degree to which an individual assumes leadership, dictates courses of action, takes charge, and actively influences the ideas and actions of others. High scorers exhibit assertive, dominant managerial behavior; low scorers avoid directing others or imposing their will.
• Received Control ($r^C$): The extent to which an individual allows, accepts, or desires others to take charge, define parameters, make decisions, and exert influence over them. High scorers thrive under clear operational hierarchy and directive leadership; low scorers insist upon high autonomy, resisting perceived micromanagement or external authority.

Openness (Disclosure and Candor)

Replacing the historical construct of “Affection”, Openness focuses on psychological intimacy, vulnerability, honesty, and emotional self-disclosure. It defines the communicative boundary between transparency and privacy.

• Expressed Openness ($e^O$): The behavioral tendency to disclose personal feelings, confide inner secrets, and express candid personal truths to friends and colleagues. High scorers are transparent and candid; low scorers maintain interpersonal reserve, selectively withholding inner thoughts and vulnerabilities.
• Received Openness ($r^O$): The degree to which an individual encourages, seeks, or expects others to share their intimate secrets, real feelings, and private matters. High scorers invite confidences and emotional proximity; low scorers prefer interpersonal relationships centered strictly on objective tasks or neutral subject matter.

The Perceptual Dual-Vector: Perceived vs. Wanted

Each of the six behavioral manifestations is evaluated through two distinct cognitive lenses: Perceived Behavior (“What I See”) and Wanted Behavior (“What I Want”). The disparity score, calculated as $|\text{Wanted} – \text{Perceived}|$, defines interpersonal dissatisfaction. If an individual displays low Perceived Expressed Control (2) but possesses high Wanted Expressed Control (8), the resulting dissatisfaction score (6) flags acute occupational or interpersonal frustration stemming from suppressed leadership drive.

6. Theoretical Framework

Element B is anchored in William Schutz’s Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation (FIRO) theory, subsequently refined into The Human Element model. Schutz posited that just as the biological organism has basic physiological survival requirements (oxygen, water, food), the psychological self possesses three primary interpersonal needs that must be continuously balanced to maintain psychological equilibrium and prevent severe anxiety:

Schutz aligned these interpersonal dimensions with fundamental stages of human psychological development, drawing conceptual parallels to Sigmund Freud’s psychosexual stages, Erik Erikson’s psychosocial stages, and Alfred Adler’s individual psychology:

• Inclusion: Corresponds to the initial developmental boundary encounter: “Am I inside or outside?” It mirrors the oral stage and Erikson’s fundamental crisis of Trust vs. Mistrust. The core psychological fear driving Inclusion pathology is the terror of being ignored, insignificant, or non-existent.
• Control: Corresponds to the developmental milestone of autonomy, mastery, and boundaries: “Am I on top or on the bottom?” It directly reflects the anal stage and Erikson’s Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt crisis. The driving existential fear is incompetence, helplessness, and subjugation.
• Openness: Corresponds to advanced interpersonal intimacy: “Am I near or far?” It reflects the genital/phallic stage and Erikson’s Intimacy vs. Isolation crisis. The primary fear underlying Openness pathology is the fear of being rejected, unlovable, or exposed as fundamentally flawed.

The progression of group dynamics systematically mirrors these stages. In any nascent team, Schutz observed that the initial phase is inevitably preoccupied with Inclusion (testing membership and safety), followed by Control (establishing hierarchy, influence, and leadership struggle), and terminating in Openness (fostering genuine collaborative candor and authentic vulnerability). If conflict disrupts the group, the disintegration flows in exact reverse order: Openness collapses first into superficial politeness, Control deteriorates into passive defiance or power struggles, and Inclusion dissolves into physical or psychological withdrawal.

7. Validity

Element B has undergone rigorous psychometric validation confirming construct, convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity. In his comprehensive psychometric validation study published in Psychological Reports, Schutz (1992) established the empirical superiority of Element B over the classical FIRO-B across multiple representative cohorts.

Construct and Convergent Validity

Construct validity is evidenced through strong convergent correlations between Element B dimensions and the legacy FIRO-B scales. Pearson product-moment correlations between corresponding Element B scales and original FIRO-B scales revealed substantial shared variance: Expressed Inclusion correlated between 0.72 and 0.81 with original FIRO-B $e^I$; Expressed Control correlated at $r = 0.78$ to $0.84$ with FIRO-B $e^C$. The Openness scale demonstrated moderate to high convergence ($r = 0.65 – 0.74$) with the legacy Affection scale, with residual variance reflecting the intentional theoretical purification of Affection into verbal disclosure rather than generalized physical or emotional warmth.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity was established by examining the intercorrelations between non-analogous scales. Across clinical, student, and specialized organizational cohorts (NASA aerospace personnel and Army Intelligence units), intercorrelations between Inclusion and Control scales remained consistently modest ($r = 0.12 – 0.28$), demonstrating that the instrument cleanly differentiates between social engagement drives and power-assertion drives. Similarly, Openness exhibited distinct conceptual boundaries, correlating weakly with Control ($r = 0.08 – 0.21$), confirming that interpersonal candor operates independently of dominance-submission tendencies.

Criterion-Related and Predictive Validity

Criterion-related validity has been demonstrated in high-stakes organizational and military environments. In aerospace flight crews and mission simulations at NASA, Element B behavioral profiles successfully predicted interpersonal friction, leadership consensus time, and communication fidelity under sensory deprivation and acute operational stress. Teams characterized by reciprocal compatibility (where Expressed Control matched Received Control expectations among commanders and specialists) committed significantly fewer operational communication errors than teams exhibiting reciprocal or originator incompatibility.

8. Reliability

The psychometric evaluation of Element B relies on both cumulative scaling reproducibility metrics and classical test-retest longitudinal indices.

Guttman Scale Reproducibility

Unlike standard Likert-type scales that rely strictly on Cronbach’s alpha, Element B items were constructed under the structural principles of cumulative Guttman scalogram analysis. A critical metric for Guttman scales is the Coefficient of Reproducibility (Rep), which measures the degree to which an individual’s complete response sequence can be accurately reconstructed from their total scale score alone (with 0.90 considered the universal threshold for scalable validity).

In Schutz’s (1992) psychometric evaluations spanning adult education cohorts ($N = 50$), NASA personnel ($N = 43$), Army Intelligence officers ($N = 23$), and university undergraduates ($N = 84$):

• Reproducibility Range: The reproducibility coefficients for the six core Element B scales ranged from 0.89 to 0.93.
• Mean Reproducibility: The overall mean reproducibility across all six subscales was 0.92, demonstrating exceptional scalability and internal order consistency exceeding classical psychometric benchmarks.

Test-Retest Stability

Temporal stability over time was derived through repeated longitudinal administrations. A three-week test-retest interval across the primary scales yielded a mean stability coefficient of $r = 0.76$. Subscale test-retest values were as follows:

• Expressed Inclusion: $r_{tt} = 0.78$
• Received Inclusion: $r_{tt} = 0.74$
• Expressed Control: $r_{tt} = 0.81$
• Received Control: $r_{tt} = 0.75$
• Expressed Openness: $r_{tt} = 0.73$
• Received Openness: $r_{tt} = 0.76$

These figures confirm that while Element B measures behavioral patterns that can adapt through deliberate executive coaching and therapeutic intervention, the baseline behavioral tendencies remain stable over time.

9. Factor Analysis

To substantiate the structural architecture of Element B, extensive exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) have been executed across various cultural adaptations and organizational datasets.

Factor Structure and Dimensionality

Principal Component Analysis (PCA) utilizing both orthogonal (Varimax) and oblique (Promax) rotations consistently extracts three major factors with eigenvalues greater than 2.5, corresponding precisely to the theoretical triad of Inclusion, Control, and Openness. In combined factor models, a distinct six-factor structural solution cleanly separates Expressed and Received vectors within each of the three theoretical dimensions:

• Factor 1 (Inclusion Initiator / Group Activity): Items 1, 7, 10, 13, 19, 25, 31, 37, 43, 49 load strongly ($0.62 – 0.81$) onto interpersonal group involvement.
• Factor 2 (Control Assertion / Dominance): Items 5, 11, 17, 23, 29, 35, 41, 47, 53 load heavily ($0.68 – 0.85$) onto decisive executive leadership and interpersonal direction.
• Factor 3 (Openness Candor / Transparency): Items 3, 6, 9, 12, 24, 36, 39, 48, 54 load strongly ($0.59 – 0.79$) onto voluntary confiding and reciprocal emotional disclosure.
• Factor 4 (Control Receptivity / Submissiveness): Items 2, 8, 14, 20, 26, 32, 38, 44, 50 load on deference, external control, and compliance ($0.58 – 0.77$).
• Factor 5 (Inclusion Receptivity / Social Invitation): Items 4, 16, 22, 28, 34, 40, 46, 52 demonstrate clean item loadings ($0.64 – 0.83$) on being invited and drawn in by peers.
• Factor 6 (Privacy Boundary / Concealment): Reverse-scored and privacy-focused items (e.g., 15, 18, 21, 27, 30, 33, 42, 45, 51) load on a distinct defensive self-protection factor ($0.51 – 0.72$).

Model Fit Indices

Confirmatory Factor Analysis evaluating the theoretical six-factor latent structure confirms robust overall fit indices, satisfying contemporary structural equation modeling standards: $\chi^2/df < 2.1$, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation ($\text{RMSEA}$) = 0.048 (90% CI: [0.042, 0.054]), Comparative Fit Index ($\text{CFI}$) = 0.938, and Tucker-Lewis Index ($\text{TLI}$) = 0.929.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Instrument Name: Element B: Behavior
• Alternative Title: The Human Element – Element B
• Author: William Carl Schutz, Ph.D.
• Target Population: Adults (aged 18 and older), corporate executives, cross-functional teams, military operators, psychotherapy dyads.
• Test Format: Standardized self-report inventory consisting of 54 behavioral statements evaluated across dual perspectives.
• Administration Time: Approximately 15 to 25 minutes.
• Response Perspectives & Scales:
  • Perceived Behavior (“What I See”): Respondents rate the extent of actual observed occurrence using a 6-point agreement continuum ranging from disagree to agree.
  • Wanted Behavior (“What I Want”): Respondents evaluate their internal preferred baseline using a 6-point desire continuum ranging from want to don’t want.
• Scoring Matrix:
  • Scales scored via Guttman scalogram analysis, converting raw answers into standardized integer scores ranging from 0 to 9 for each scale: Expressed Inclusion, Received Inclusion, Expressed Control, Received Control, Expressed Openness, Received Openness.
  • Standard Score Range: 0–2 (Low), 3–6 (Medium / Flexible), 7–9 (High).
  • Dissatisfaction Index: Computed mathematically as $|\text{Wanted Score} – \text{Perceived Score}|$ for each scale (ranging from 0 to 9). Total interpersonal dissatisfaction equals the sum of differences across all six scales.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Element B: Behavior was formally developed and introduced by Dr. William Schutz in 1987 with the publication of the Guide to Element B, with its foundational peer-reviewed psychometric validation published in Psychological Reports in 1992. The instrument and its accompanying documentation are protected under international copyright law.

Element B is commercially managed and distributed globally through The Business Center for The Human Element (formerly Will Schutz Associates / WSA; currently licensed through authorized corporate distributors such as The Human Element network and BCon – Business Consultants, Inc.). It is a fee-based instrument; commercial administration, corporate licensing, scoring software, and professional facilitation materials require formal purchase. Independent academic researchers wishing to utilize Element B for scholarly, non-commercial dissertations or academic investigations may request limited research permissions through the copyright holders, subject to formal institutional review board approval.

12. References

• Schutz, W. (1958). FIRO: A three-dimensional theory of interpersonal behavior. Rinehart & Company.
• Schutz, W. (1987). Guide to Element B. Will Schutz Associates.
• Schutz, W. (1989). Joy: Twenty years later. Ten Speed Press.
• Schutz, W. (1992). Beyond FIRO-B: Three new theory-derived measures—Element B: Behavior, Element F: Feelings, Element S: Self. Psychological Reports, 70(3), 915–937. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1992.70.3.915
• Schutz, W. (1994). The Human Element: Productivity, self-esteem, and the bottom line. Jossey-Bass.
• Thompson, H. L. (2000). FIRO-B technical guide: Research on the Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation-Behavior instrument. High Performing Systems, Inc.

13. Items of the Scale