Relationship between interpersonal behavior traits and behavior strategies in demanding life situations

The circle model of interpersonal behavior traits, represented by the ICL (T. Leary, 1957) and IAS (J.S. Wiggins, 1979) methods has been used productively for several decades to describe and diagnose key expressions of man in interpersonal relationships. In our research we used the innovated version of the method based on the principles of Wiggins' IAS Interpersonal Circle (Vyrost, 1996). The IAS involves a list of 18 situations (6 common in life, 6 conflict and 6 harmonic, ones, i.e., positively emotionally loaded) which allows for a more thorough verification of die transsituational stability of interpersonal traits. We analyzed mutual interconnections between the parameters identified by this method and behavior strategies in demanding life situations (DLS). We found meaningfully interpretable mutual relationships between more global interpersonal behavior traits and specific behavior strategies in DLS. This finding can be considered as an argument for the validity of strategies in DLS identified by factor analysis.