Intertype Relationship: Benefit

General Description of Benefit Relations

Benefit, or request, is an asymmetric relation in which the type with the higher status is called the benefactor (or request transmitter) and the type with the lower status is called the beneficiary (or request recipient). There is usually some kind of initial attraction going on, though not always mutual (the beneficiary will usually admire the benefactor's abilities from a distance), but after a while the benefactor realizes that he is supporting the beneficiary without receiving anything in return, and starts to criticize the beneficiary for not holding up his end of the relationship (and so issues a "request"). Meanwhile the beneficiary is irritated that the benefactor feels he has the right to interfere in and try to mold the beneficiary's behavior. If too close a distance is maintained both parties will ultimately feel unfulfilled.

If this relation occurs in a work setting, the beneficiary will strive to help out the benefactor, and to comply with his expectations. If the benefactor doesn't offer the beneficiary some praise for his efforts, the beneficiary will feel inadequate - rather similarly as the supervisee in a supervision relationship. However, a supervisor will take more of a clear leadership role, dominating the exchange, whereas the beneficiary feels no obligation to the benefactor to hang around once his contributions have been slighted. The complementation between the beneficiary's first function and the benefactor's second function also makes for a more caring and less competitive relationship than supervision (in fact all relations of repulsion have a greater element of competition in them).

Clubs
Temperaments
Romance Styles
Subtypes
Types
Model A
Functions
Dichotomies
Information Elements
Intertype Relationships
Quadras