Chris Davidson (1999) wrote about the three dimensional model of Okayness. (download PDF of subsequent article)

The OK Corral only includes two "dimensions" in the equation (even though these could involve more than one person) In reality there is often a third dimension - "he", "she" or "they".

For example, anyone who is part of a group may, when in conversation with another person in the group, behave as though they believe "We are OK" and give that person the message "You are OK". They may also include the message "He/She/They are not OK" in relation to someone outside the group. This dynamic often occurs at work. People within a team give each other OK messages, whilst at the same time making other teams or individuals (i.e. "Them") not OK. We find a person (or persons) who we like and then in conjunction with them, gossip and put other people down.

We are therefore saying that we believe we are OK but those others are not. (underneath this there may well be a belief that we are not OK either but we feel better by putting someone else down. The two dimensional model of OKness needs to extended to make sense of this phenomenon.

(see downloadable article for more on this)