How does Ego-Resiliecy affect Ego-Control

The descriptions of the Ego-Resilient/ Brittle and Ego-Controlled/ Undercontrolled individual outline those who fall at the extreme end of the spectrums. Few people hide their emotions all the time, or never show any self-control. However each of us has a tendency to be more controlled or less controlled, some of us more so than others. The more typically controlled we are, the more our description will be similar to the description of the extreme Overcontroller.

This is where Ego-Resiliency now becomes very important. Our typical level of Ego-Resiliency represents how easy it is for us to change our typical level of Overcontrol/ Undercontrol. We may, for example be typically Undercontrolled, and not be very organised and tend to be quite lazy. However, at certain times in life, it may become important for us to not be lazy. Let us imagine for a moment that a student is typically quite relaxed about the amount of work she does at university. However, let us now imagine that this student has exams approaching in a week’s time. If our imaginary student continues to be lazy and do no work, her final exam results may suffer. Let us imagine that she recognises the importance of her final exam results and for the last week prior to exams, she ‘crams’ in large amounts of last minute revision. For the last 2 nights prior to her exams she stays up late each night drinking redbull and tea and writes many pages of notes concerning her exam subject matter.

Our imaginary student is typically very lazy and Undercontrolled. However, when push came to shove, she demonstrated an ability to implement the typical behaviour of the studious Overcontroller. She is said to be ‘Ego-Resilient’. Ego-Resilience represents how much an individual is able to alter her typical Control level when the situation requires it.

The Ego-Brittle (the opposite of Ego-Resilient) individual is not able to alter her typical level of Control. If our imaginary Undercontrolled student was highly Ego-Brittle, she would not be able to exercise discipline leading up to her exams and her results may suffer accordingly.