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In 90 seconds
When two people disagree about a shared decision, it helps to ask what the disagreement concerns. What is acceptable? The future? The division of work? Or how each person understood the situation?
Before We Build calls these four groups of questions levels of compatibility. Values, commitments, and safety form the foundation. For the other three levels, the project investigates whether typologies may help. Their types are hypotheses about perception and experience organization, not personality types. Read more about the reinterpretation of typologies.
How the map works
| Level | What we consider | Core question |
|---|---|---|
| Value-moral foundation | worldview, commitments, conduct, consent, and safety; values, obligations, responsibility, reciprocity, and relationship repair | Which commitments and boundaries should guide our shared undertaking? |
| Strategic | organizing the experience of time and the meaning of one’s life; the proposed model is Temporistics | Where are we going, and how do we connect past, present, and future? |
| Operational | analysis and synthesis in action; the proposed model is Psychosophy | How do we make decisions and act together? |
| Tactical | forming a picture of a situation from information; the proposed model is Socionics | What do we notice, and how do we interpret, communicate, and correct it? |
The first level sets moral commitments and boundaries: it is not a typology. Models at the other levels are used to investigate proposed internal processes.
Example: deciding to move
Two people want to move to another city. One helps an elderly relative: how will that help continue, and which commitments must be honoured? This is a question about the foundation.
How they imagine their future after the move concerns strategy. Who looks for housing, checks costs, and makes decisions concerns joint action. How they tell each other about options and risks, spot mistakes, and clarify information concerns their work with information.
What can be observed
We can see conduct and outcomes, hear commitments and plans, and follow decisions, task allocation, and information exchange. Assigning these observations to four levels helps organize the inquiry. It does not mean that life itself is divided in exactly this way.
What still needs testing
Separating different possible causes of disagreement may help people ask more precise questions. But it has not been established whether typologies accurately describe the proposed processes or can predict outcomes for two people interacting.
What affects several levels at once
Law, money, culture, age, health, trauma, attachment, skills, and unequal power may affect any of these questions. They need to be considered directly, rather than explained through a person’s type.
Limits of the map
The project does not prove that compatibility has exactly four natural layers. Agreement about the future does not guarantee agreement about work or values. No favourable combination justifies coercion or removes a threat to safety.
Questions for conversation
- Which of the four questions are we answering now?
- Are we using one word for several different disagreements?
- What circumstances change our answer?
- Are we asking anyone to sacrifice safety for the shared undertaking?
How to test whether it helps
Compare this map with simpler explanations. Name in advance the outcomes you want to predict and the observable indicators for each level. Then test whether indicators from different levels predict different outcomes, and whether the map adds anything beyond simpler models.
Where to go next
Read how to distinguish the levels. Then explore each one, starting with the value-moral foundation.
For the historical route, read the history of compatibility ideas.