The Four Quadrants of Conformism

July 2020

One of the most revealing ways to classify people is by the degree
and aggressiveness of their conformism. Imagine a Cartesian coordinate
system whose horizontal axis runs from conventional-minded on the
left to independent-minded on the right, and whose vertical axis
runs from passive at the bottom to aggressive at the top. The
resulting four quadrants define four types of people. Starting in
the upper left and going counter-clockwise: aggressively
conventional-minded, passively conventional-minded, passively
independent-minded, and aggressively independent-minded.

I think that you'll find all four types in most societies, and that
which quadrant people fall into depends more on their own personality
than the beliefs prevalent in their society.
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