Are You Too Rigid?

If you ever watched the TV series The Odd Couple, you surely noticed a sharp contrast between the two lead characters. Oscar is the laid-back, flexible type, while Felix is just the opposite--proper, exacting, and highly organized. For entertainment purposes, they were cast as extremes. If you watched several episodes, you'd have noticed that the rigid one always seemed to suffer the most when things went wrong.

In real life, rigidity poses the same problems. People who tend to be overly conscientious perfectionists can be hard on those who can’t keep up with their demands, and as a result, tough on themselves, too. Most of us are neither extremely exacting nor extremely easygoing. Instead, we are usually a mix of both. Still, just as people are classified as introverts or extroverts, submissive or dominant, people can also be categorized as rigid or flexible. When people are uptight, however, stress is often a factor. Fortunately, we can learn to spot this tendency and modify it.

Where do you stand on the rigidity scale? The following quiz is based on various personality tests used to measure authoritarianism, dominance, and other traits that define the “uptight” personality.