This chapter is concerned with the Rigid-Flexible dimension of personality. Sections deal with comparisons between the inherent qualities and behavioral tendencies of rigid and flexible individuals at the primitive level; the general course of their respective developments; and the nature and direction of their compensating and modifying tendencies.
Rigidity and Flexibility
The Rigid-Flexible dimension is the second of the three fundamental components of personality structure which the theory regards as inherent, or "given." This dimension is described, in the theory, as the "mechanical-procedural" variable of personality, because it is thought to be closely associated with the kinds of procedures, methods, and controls by which the individual makes his adjustments. Rigidity and Flexibility are the polar extremes of the second major personality dimension, in the same way that the Externalizer and the Internalizer are the polar opposites of the first.
Rigid and flexible individuals are different in their inherent needs and satisfactions, which they seek in different ways. They are different in connection with what threatens them, and in the nature of their defensiveness. They have different realistic strengths and weaknesses, and different concepts of themselves and of others. In learning, they are attracted to different areas, in which each one learns in his own way. Rigid and flexible individuals are unlike in both behavior and experience. Like the Externalizer and the Internalizer, their many differences stem ultimately from the two areas of major differences in their respective native endowments; they differ in the quality of their inherent awareness, and in their predetermined manners of response.
The theory conceives of the rigid or flexible component of an individual's personality structure as present at birth; reaching a basic, compensated state in adolescence; and. arriving at the adult level through modification. For the most part, the process parallels the development of the Externalizer and Internalizer, which was described in the preceding chapters. Here again, the primitive tendency is thought to continue along its Inherent developmental lines unless external forces oppose it, and until sufficient pressure toward
change has been applied to arouse feelings of guilt, anxiety, and inferiority. Under such circumstances, compensatory tendencies arise, masking the primitive direction, and producing a stable, enduring adjustment at the basic level of personality development. The contact, or mature orientation is reached when the basic pattern has achieved Its modified state.