Psychological flexibility is a crucial cognitive ability that goes beyond mere personality adjustment; it involves the fundamental way we relate to ourselves and the ability to adjust our thoughts, actions, and feelings to the circumstances we find ourselves in. Because situations are constantly changing, being flexible allows us to behave in the most functional way possible to achieve our goals.
The Developmental Roots of Flexibility
The brain is not fully formed at birth; infant brains are essentially "under construction," waiting for wiring instructions from the world. If a child is exposed to a wide variety of experiences, their brain is wired to function flexibly and learn new things when necessary. Conversely, restricted experiences can lead to less flexibility in adjusting actions to different situations.
This flexibility can be demonstrated through tasks like the Stroop Test. In this test, a sequence of words (like RED or GREEN) is written in different-colored inks. It takes people longer to name the color of the ink when it differs from the word itself (e.g., the word "RED" written in blue ink). The difficulty arises because the automatic process of reading the word interferes with the ability to state the color aloud, requiring the brain to switch between different pieces of information. The more difficult a person finds this task, the less cognitively flexible they generally are.
Flexibility, Learning, and Stress
In simple terms, learning occurs when the brain is confronted with new, unpredicted information—what scientists call "prediction error". A flexible brain responds to prediction error by updating and learning, while an inflexible brain tends to ignore the new sensory data and stick with its original prediction. Flexibility means tailoring a response to the specific situation either by predicting well or by learning when there is an error in that prediction.
Psychological flexibility is critical in dealing with stress. Inflexibility often means that people use a very narrow range of the resources they have available to adapt. The goal of cultivating psychological flexibility is to move people from a state of "languishing"—being stuck in an unsatisfactory situation—into a zone where they can achieve more of their full potential.
Taking Control of Your Mind
The resistance people feel toward changing their lives from a low state of satisfaction to a higher one is often due to inflexibility in how they approach the problem. There is a deep lesson here: you are not just a passive recipient of whatever the world gives you; you can take more control over your environment.
To invest in maintaining a flexible brain, one must spend time cultivating new experiences and foraging for new information. This means deliberately exposing yourself to prediction error, such as ideas you might not like, so that your brain is better equipped to solve problems flexibly in the future. While this exposure might feel challenging or "crappy" in the moment, it is a crucial long-term investment in cognitive health.
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