Who am I?: 16 Basic Desires that Motivate Our Actions Define Our Personalities

by Steven Reiss

Book Overview

What do we want? What makes us tick? From acceptance to vengeance to curiosity, this book explains the 16 basic and universal desires that shape our behavior -- and shows how the ways we prioritize them determines our personalities. Grounded in up-to-date psychological research, this book can help parents comprehend their children's needs and behavior couples understand each other better employers motivate their employees employees become more effective...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0425183408
• ISBN13: 9780425183403
• Release Date: March 2002
• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Essential reading, but repetitive

I have read many books about self help, psychology, and human behavior, and I believe I learned more from this one than from any other book. Reiss's theory is that all human beings are motivated by sixteen basic desires, and your personal prescription for happiness depends on the relative strengths of these desires. He argues that these desires are genetically determined. I believe that the science behind the "Reiss Profile" is sound, unlike the many other similar books that claim to tell you about yourself. The theory of personality originated with William James; Reiss has extended this work and in this book makes his important findings available to the general reader.My only complaint about this book is that it is very wordy, which is so absolutely typical of self-help books. He presents the theory concisely and clearly, then goes on to apply the theory to many different areas of human behavior. This seems excessively detailed and it makes for tiresome reading, so I skimmed much of the second half of the book. At times the book approaches a catalog in unreadability.By all means get the book and answer the questions to determine your own desire profile. I believe you will learn more about yourself, more quickly, than you have ever done before.

A useful exercise for understanding teammates.

Give Dr. Reiss a chance, and he will tune you in to what really turns you on. We each have a distinctive motivational profile, but this book is really about relationships. Learning about what motivates others, and how they differ from us, goes a long way towards building better relationships -- regardless, of whether we're working as part a team or trying to understand our own family. I recommend this book to everyone I can. I also use it in my professional business coaching practice as a tool to help team members know each other better.

The most useful TYPE lexicon

I have read a number of books which attempt to expand on the notion that people are (often irretrievably) unique individuals. I rate these works on their ability to explain real life relationships. Myers-Briggs is mildly useful, but I find Reiss's explanations much more useful in understanding and working with human individuals.

Your Right, and I am Right, Even thou we Do Not Agree

This is a very interesting book on the way we identify what is important to each of us and then how we communicate to each other. The author provides a "model" of how to understand what is important to you based on your drives, etc. Imagine two people arguing over something simple. Now imagine if what each person values is different. One person values color, the other texture. If one person has read the book there is an oppurtunity for this person to identify the difference in communication styles. In other words, you may not be disagreeing with the other person, you are both talking about something different, what is important to you. In other words, there is an oppurtunity to build a bond with better communication.

A Landmark Work in Identifying the Bases of Human Motivation

This book is based on a thorough study of value-based motivation in order to identify the bases of each person's identity and behavior. Because of the methodology used, this work represents a breakthrough in understanding how and why individuals differ. It takes us for the first time beyond the frequently-cited Maslow hierarchy of needs onto a better metric for looking at individual differences.I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in human motivation, how to have better relationships with others, self-understanding, and self-improvement as well as scholars in the field of human behavior. The book is written in a simple, clear style, but also contains the necessary references and rigor to appeal to the scholar. The significance of this book is that it is the first scientific study to successfully challenge the often cited pain-pleasure principle of motivation and Maslow's hierarchy of needs. This study is based on developing a long list of human values, testing those using behavior-based questions asked of individuals and observers with a cross-section of society, and then looking for common value areas in a large sample drawn from the United States, Canada, and Japan. The resulting responses were then clustered statistically to locate 16 common value areas that were present in almost every individual tested.These value areas are power, independence, curiosity, acceptance, order, saving, honor, idealism, social contact, family, status, vengeance, romance, eating, physical activity, and tranquility. You will have to read the book to find out exactly what is meant by these areas, but don't think about them too literally. The meanings are different from the common dictionary definitions in several cases (such as with romance, which is a cross that includes sex and beauty). There is a test you can use to find out how oriented you are (very, average, or less than average) to each area in the book that I found very interesting to take.The book goes on to distinguish between enjoyment from pleasant sensations (which is fleeting and depends mostly on how well born and wealthy you are) and value-based pleasure which anyone can achieve at a high level. Christopher Reeve is cited as an example of someone who has lots of fear and pain from his paralysis, but lots of value-based pleasure based on his attachment to his family, his idealism, and his desire to help others like himself. The author goes on to argue that these same values are found in the primates most like humans, so he thinks that the values are primarily inherited as a species. On the other hand, the degree of your feeling for these areas is conditioned by environmental influences like family values, exposure, and experiences.He makes a strong case for individuality, because there are 43 million potential combinations of attributes possible. To drive that point home and to explain more about the values, the author also prov