The FIRO-B™: An interesting fact about Wanted Inclusion

As you know, the FIRO-B has six scales: Inclusion, Control, and Affection, all in Wanted and Expressed forms. In studies done on a national sample of 3,000 people in 1997, researchers found an interesting trend in groups sorted by age.

Needs for Expressed Control, Wanted Inclusion, Expressed Inclusion and Expressed Affection all seem to decrease with age. Wanted Affection seems to remain about the same. Wanted Control seems to increase slightly with age.

The largest drop came in Wanted Inclusion. This makes sense when you consider that there is some correlation of this scale with the E-I scale on the Myers-Briggs. Some studies have shown that samples of older people tend to have greater numbers with preferences for Introversion than in more mixed samples.

Unfortunately, since this research was done on a cross section, there's no way to know if the changes in averages are due to cultural factors, cohort differences, or a combination.