Welcome to the “Conquer Your Battlefield” podcast, where we come together to discuss some of the more significant struggles, and metaphorical battlefields, that we’ve faced along our journeys, and share some insight on how we’ve conquered them.

I’m your host, JD McGibney, and today I’ll be chatting with an absolutely outstanding musical and poetic genius. A man who has not only carved a name for himself in the metal community as the frontman and guitarist of the band Iapetus, but who has also grown a career in the video game industry as a writer and narrative designer, and who also happens to be a very good friend of mine for nearly twenty years: Mr. Matt Cerami. How’re you doing today, Matt?

Today we are going to be talking about Sociotropy. For those who are unfamiliar, sociotropy is a psychological personality dimension characterized by an excessive investment in interpersonal relationships, social approval, and the avoidance of rejection.

To build a better picture of this, sociotropy is often paired with autonomy as its polar opposite. Where autonomous people focus on their independence, sociotropic people tie their emotional stability to their relationships with other people. As a result, sociotropic people are more susceptible to feelings of depression.