The Four Tendencies: The Indispensable Personality Profiles That Reveal How to Make Your Life Better (and Other People's Lives Better, Too)

REBEL/Questioners concentrate more on fulfilling their own desires than on resisting outer expectations; the Rebel spirit of resistance remains strong, but they’re more focused on doing what they want than on defying other people. REBEL/Questioners have less trouble with resisting their own expectations for themselves; as one REBEL/Questioner remar

Upholders value self-command and performance • Questioners value justification and purpose • Obligers value teamwork and duty • Rebels value freedom and self-identity

‘If you respond now, you can choose where you sit, so you can sit with your friends. If you wait, those tables will fill up, and we’ll assign you a seat with strangers. Let us know when you decide your plans.’ ” Information, consequences, choice. Without lectures or micro-management or rescue.

Another Rebel said, “I’m writing a book, and I’m going to write the whole thing before I try to get a book contract, because the minute I have an editor and a deadline, I won’t want to write.”

One parent of a Rebel explained, “The best way to wrangle the Rebel child is to give the kid the information to make a decision, present the issue as a question that he alone can answer, and let him make a decision and act without telling you. Let him make a decision without an audience. Audiences = expectations. If he thinks you’re not watching, h

In a nutshell, to influence someone to follow a certain course, it’s helpful to remember: • Upholders want to know what should be done • Questioners want justifications • Obligers need accountability • Rebels want freedom to do something their own way

And whatever our Tendency, we share a desire for autonomy. We prefer to be asked rather than ordered to do something, and if our feeling of being controlled by others becomes too strong, it can trigger “reactance,” a resistance to something that’s experienced as a threat to our freedom or our ability to choose.

The Four Tendencies explain why we act and why we don’t act.

Rebels resist just about anything they perceive to be an attempt at control—something as simple as a ringing telephone, a party invitation, or a standing meeting.