Take a psychologist-designed quiz to see if you thrive on challenges or flow.
How Much Of A 'Friction-Maxxer' Are You?
Intentionally adding small obstacles can boost focus, discipline, and satisfaction. A short quiz shows where you fall on the spectrum.
By Mark Travers, Ph.D. | Last Updated:
We might know a person in our lives that seems magnetically drawn to the path with most friction: they'll choose the difficult major over the easy A, seek out viewpoints that contradict their own or deliberately start conversations others would avoid. Meanwhile, their friends might wonder why anyone would intentionally make life harder when there's a perfectly good and efficient path available.
This fundamental difference in how we relate to difficulty reflects something psychologists are increasingly recognizing as a distinct dimension of individual differences. Think of it as your "friction tolerance," or more popularly, your capacity for "friction-maxxing." This faculty defines the degree to which you're energized versus depleted by resistance in its various forms.
Take my fun and science-inspired Friction Maxxer Energy Test to discover your own friction profile across four key dimensions, then read on to understand the science behind what your results reveal.
Why Do Some People Need More 'Friction' In Life?
At its core, friction-maxxing reflects a distinct "need for cognition," or a sense of enjoyment derived from effortful thinking. People high in need for cognition don't just tolerate intellectual challenge; they actively seek it out. These individuals process information more thoroughly and report greater satisfaction from mentally demanding tasks.
But friction-seeking extends beyond the purely intellectual realm. The Big Five personality framework captures related tendencies: high openness to experience, for instance, predicts attraction to unconventional approaches, low agreeableness correlates with willingness to engage in conflict when principles are at stake and conscientiousness intersects with choosing harder paths aligned with long-term values.
What makes friction-maxxing interesting is that it cuts across these traits in particular patterns. Someone might be high in openness (seeking intellectual challenge) but also high in agreeableness (avoiding interpersonal friction). Another person might deliberately choose authentic but difficult paths while preferring cognitive consonance.
Recent research on "counterdispositional behavior," or acting against one's natural tendencies, adds another layer to a friction-maxxers personality. A 2021 study published in Personality and Individual Differences found that people differ dramatically in how they experience acting outside their comfort zones. For some, it's genuinely energizing; for others, it's depleting. This isn't about capability, but about whether resistance feels like fuel or friction.
Interestingly, neuroscience research on effort and reward processing offers clues about these individual differences. Studies using fMRI have shown that people vary in how their brains' reward centers respond to challenging tasks. For some, the anterior cingulate cortex and striatum show heightened activation during difficult cognitive work, suggesting that effort itself becomes rewarding.
Others show this activation primarily upon task completion, not during the struggle. This may help explain why some people genuinely enjoy the process of friction while others tolerate it only for the outcome.
What Are The Four Pillars Of 'Friction-Maxxing'?
The four dimensions measured in the friction-maxxing framework used in this test capture distinct aspects of this pattern:
- Authentic path selection asks whether you choose harder roads because they feel more "you," connecting to research on self-determination.
- Countercultural energization measures whether opposing mainstream norms feels energizing versus depleting. This is not simple nonconformity, but whether ideological independence provides meaning.
- Cognitive challenge-seeking focuses specifically on one's appetite for disconfirming evidence; while most people prefer information confirming their beliefs, some actively expose themselves to contradictory viewpoints.
- Confrontational directness captures preferences for addressing relationship tensions head-on versus letting them dissipate.
What's psychologically interesting is that these dimensions don't always align. You might be intellectually combative but interpersonally harmonious, or unconventional in lifestyle but avoidant of difficult conversations. These patterns aren't contradictions because they reflect that friction appetite comes in different shapes and sizes, and we each have our own signature blend.
Understanding your friction profile can explain why you thrive in some challenging situations but avoid others, or why a friend's approach to difficulty energizes them but exhausts you. These aren't moral questions about courage; they're descriptive questions about psychological wiring.
Research on person-environment fit suggests that aligning friction preferences with life circumstances matters for well-being. Someone with a high friction appetite who is forced to constantly take the "trodden path" may find this depleting, even if they're skilled at it. Conversely, someone preferring efficiency but pressured to constantly challenge and disrupt may be equally drained. The mismatch, and not the capability, creates the strain.
How Can You Become A Friction-Maxxer?
You might cultivate an appetite for intellectual friction while maintaining interpersonal harmony preferences, or find that your taste for authentic difficulty-seeking in your twenties shifts toward strategic efficiency in your forties. The framework isn't deterministic; it describes your current orientation and can inform intentional development.
Perhaps most valuably, understanding friction-maxxing can improve how we relate to people who occupy different points on this spectrum. The person who always seems to make things harder than necessary isn't being difficult, they might genuinely be energized by resistance in ways that feel foreign to you.
Similarly, the colleague who always opts for the path of least resistance isn't necessarily lazy; they may be conserving energy for challenges that matter more to them, or they may simply be wired to find flow more rewarding than friction.
The science suggests that there's no universally optimal level of friction-seeking. Both high and low scorers have distinct advantages:
- High friction-maxxers often drive innovation, challenge stagnant systems and model intellectual courage.
- Low friction-maxxers often build harmony, identify efficient solutions and create sustainable systems. Most of us land somewhere in the middle, with selective friction-seeking in domains that matter to us.
What matters most is self-awareness: knowing where you naturally seek resistance, where you naturally smooth it away, and whether your current life circumstances allow you to operate in your friction sweet spot more often than not.
Because whether you're someone who feels most alive when choosing the hard path, or someone who finds deep satisfaction in making things easier, your relationship with difficulty is a core part of your psychological signature, one worth understanding, honoring and occasionally stretching in service of growth.
If you're curious to know where your friction-maxxing appetite shines the most, take my fun and science-inspired Friction Maxxer Energy Test today.