Interpersonal compatibility

{{{SocPsy}}

Interpersonal compatibility is a concept that describes the long-term interaction between two or more individuals in terms of the ease and comfort of communication.

Existing concepts
Although various concepts of interpersonal compatibility have existed from ancient times (see e.g. Plato's Lysis), no general theory of interpersonal compatibility has been proposed in psychology. Existing concepts are contradictory in many details, beginning with the central point -- whether compatibility is caused by matching psychological parameters or by their complementarity. At the same time, the idea of interpersonal compatibility is extremely popular in non-scientific and anti-scientific circles e.g. Astrological compatibility).

Among existing psychological tools for studying and/or measuring interpersonal compatibility, the following are noteworthy:
 * a test of interpersonal compatibility proposed by Timothy Leary
 * a three-factor hypothesis by William Schutz (further developed into FIRO-B questionnaire)
 * Hans Jurgen Eysenck's hypothesis on compatibility between temperaments
 * Social psychological research on similarity of interests and attitudes
 * hypothesis of compatibility between personality attitudes by Russell Ackoff and Frederick Edmund Emery,
 * DMO tool by Lyudmila Sobchik (DMO stands for Interpersonal relations diagnostics, диагностика межличностных отношений)

Socionics has proposed a theory of intertype relationships between psychological types based on a modified version of C.G. Jung's theory of psychological types. Communication between types is described using the concept of information metabolism proposed by Antoni Kępiński. However, socionic theory is somewhat controversial because of a lack of experimental data (although socionic data are much more representative than e.g. those of Ackoff and Emery).

Alternative hypotheses of intertype relationships were later proposed by adherents of MBTI (D. Keirsey's hypothesis of compatibility between Keirsey temperaments, an intertype relationships chart by Joe Butt and Marina Margaret Heiss , LoveTypes by Alexander Avila and some other theories  ) Neither of these hypotheses is commonly accepted in the Myers-Briggs type theory. MBTI in Russia is often confused with socionics, although the 16 types in these theories are described differently and do not correlate exactly.

Controversy
The following problems may be reasons for the absence of a theory of psychological compatibility:
 * lack of generally accepted criteria for measuring compatibility ('degrees of compatibility')
 * the terms compatibility and matching, although not identical, are often confused in common speech
 * the field's unclear status in social science (the problem may belong to social psychology, sociology, personality psychology etc.)
 * different psychological theories propose different parameters of personality, but only few of them are generally accepted among psychologists (e.g. cognitive styles); still, even generally accepted criteria may be irrelevant to interpersonal compatibility
 * some, if not all personality parameters (even genetically determined ones), may change over time and/or due to interpersonal interaction
 * the non-traditional view of psychological dependency, which is not considered drug dependency, but rather a need (unilateral or mutual) for somebody else's psychological support that one cannot or can hardly provide by him/herself.