Grid-Group Typology

The grid-group typology is the structural apparatus beneath cultural theory. Two dimensions — grid, the degree to which an individual's life is constrained by external prescription, and group, the degree to which an individual is incorporated into bounded social units — produce four ideal-typical cultural positions. High grid, high group yields the hierarchist; low grid, high group yields the egalitarian; low grid, low group yields the individualist; high grid, low group yields the fatalist. Each position generates a coherent worldview, a characteristic risk portfolio, and a preferred mode of social organization. The typology is not a personality test — individuals occupy different positions in different domains of their lives — but a structural map of the organizational forms available to any society.