Prevalence and Distribution of Drama Roles and Lifeviews: Patterns in Human Consciousness
Abstract
Emotional resistance patterns can significantly impact personal development and transformation, yet their prevalence and interrelationships remain understudied. This research investigates the distribution of two foundational frameworks: Karpman's Drama Triangle Roles (Victim, Persecutor, Rescuer) and Emotional Intelligence 3.0 Lifeviews (Life's Not Fair, King of the Hill, Helping is Noble) among 500 participants. The findings reveal these patterns are remarkably prevalent, with 89% of participants exhibiting at least one active Drama Role and distinct Lifeview. These insights provide Emotional Intelligence 3.0 Practitioners with critical data to identify and address specific barriers in a client’s ability and desire to work on developing emotional balance, the key to emotional well-being and, ultimately, wholeness. By understanding the near-universal nature of these resistance patterns, practitioners can better tailor their approaches, ultimately enhancing client transformation outcomes and accelerating meaningful growth.
Keywords
Drama Roles, Lifeviews, Resistance, Consciousness, Emotional Patterns, Transformation, Human Development, Emotional Intelligence
Table of Contents Show
Introduction
The goal of Emotional Intelligence 3.0 (EI3.0) is to unlock the wholeness of the people of the planet through emotional well-being (EWB). It and the research that supports it focus on uncovering and sharing the secrets of human consciousness that limit emotional well-being and wholeness.
Our research has revealed a fundamental framework within the human emotional operating system—one that operates largely outside our awareness. Its primary mission is maintaining emotional safety through three key mechanisms:
Safety Strategies are the approaches we've developed to maintain emotional security. They manifest through the managed self's emotional tendencies and the stressed self's survival response.
Core Entanglements emerge when we become caught in recurring patterns in relation to ourselves, others, and life circumstances stemming from these safety strategies.
Relationship Dynamics reflect how these recurring patterns impact our ability to connect, collaborate, and communicate, particularly during challenging times.
Drama Roles and Lifeviews typically manifest within the stressed self, emerging as resistance patterns when the managed self's emotional control mechanisms fail. This article explores how these roles and views function as safety strategies that use resistance as a method of control.
The EI3.0 approach to emotional well-being is straightforward: achieve emotional balance by raising awareness of safety strategies and reducing entanglements. The stepping stones include emptying the emotional well to make space for something new (reduces the sensitivity of the stress response), increasing emotional intelligence, integrating what is in the well to improve emotional balance, and accepting the self. This approach recalibrates the emotional operating system's balance to allow for wholeness. It is our "solve problems, improve outcomes, deliver results that matter" methodology.
Through extensive development of the EI3.0 system, resistance has consistently emerged as a fundamental safety strategy of the stressed self that creates a core entanglement. It must be addressed to restore balance to the emotional operating system. To effectively help clients, EI3.0 Practitioners must understand the resistance patterns, where and when they emerge, and why they manifest. It begins with understanding the emotional operating system.
The Emotional Operating System
The emotional operating system is molded early in life, shaped by formative childhood emotional experiences that teach about love and belonging. As psychologist Abraham Maslow identified decades ago in his hierarchy of needs, love and belonging are critical emotional needs that must be met to achieve self-actualization and wholeness, the fullest expression of oneself in the world. These two emotional needs are affairs of the heart and inform our relationship dynamics.
In EI3.0, connection is the conduit for love, and collaboration is the conduit for belonging. We express connection and collaboration via communication (words, tone, body language). That makes the most impactful relationship dynamics connection, collaboration, and communication. When the emotional operating system is not in balance, it disrupts our ability to connect, collaborate, and communicate, harming the quality of our relationships.
A person’s perceptions of self-worth and self-authority are the key factors influencing the balance of the emotional operating system, called emotional balance, and whether we experience EWB that results in positive emotional health. Self-worth is how much a person values themself, dictating how much they love themselves. Self-authority is the extent to which a person makes choices aligned with their unique self; it’s your personal power. The harshness of childhood experiences determines a person’s self-perceptions of worth and authority.
Children learn to suppress or modify aspects of themselves that receive negative feedback from their environment. That creates a fracturing: who we authentically are and who we pretend to be to maintain emotional safety.
When childhood experiences that teach about love and belonging are harsh and painful, self-perceptions are likely negative and result in an imbalanced emotional operating system. The child is taught they aren’t worthy of love and belonging as they are, and that can have lifelong implications.
These harsh experiences can shatter the heart, resulting in a child closing it to protect from further harm. If the heart doesn’t re-open, a person will likely never fully trust others or be vulnerable in relationships. A part of their heart will always be kept under lock and key. The motivation is to remain safe, even at the cost of love and belonging.
The unresolved energy of such experiences must be housed somewhere, and the heart is closed, so it can’t be processed through the body’s energy center designed to do that. Because our bodies are wise and adept at protecting us, they form the metaphorical emotional well for those betrayals that are suppressed and held onto instead of processed and integrated.
The well represents a heart-adjacent space that houses the remnants of emotional cycles we don’t process to completion. In short, the emotional well is a holding tank for the trapped energy of incomplete emotional cycles.
For many of us, the original childhood betrayals were just too big for the heart to hold, so they were tucked away in the emotional well. Thus, they became the initial deposits in the well, remaining until processed. These initial deposits can cause emotional distress long into adulthood.
Additionally, future betrayals are heaped on top of what is in the well, causing the original deposits to become hidden from consciousness as other experiences are layered over them. Whatever is trapped at the bottom of the emotional well is out of view of the conscious mind. Thus, we aren’t even aware of our distorted self-perceptions.
When unintegrated emotional cycles accumulate, they gradually occupy our emotional capacity (filling the well), leaving no room for processing new experiences, responding thoughtfully to current situations, or managing additional stress or conflict.
For many of us, by the time we reach adulthood, the emotional well is full of unprocessed experiences that easily spill over into the now, amplifying the fierceness of our protective behaviors. When that happens, our stress response, an unconscious survival mechanism, assumes command, and conscious choice is overridden. Thus, there is who we are when the contents of the emotional well are settled (the managed self), and there is who we are when the contents of the emotional well have been activated (the stressed self). Each version of the self has its own safety strategies.
When childhood experiences are comforting, perceptions are likely positive and result in a balanced emotional operating system. The child is taught they are worthy of love and belonging as they are.
Those harsh childhood experiences teach us to entangle to remain safe instead of engage to co-create together. Thus, the unlocking maneuver in EI3.0 is to shift from entangling to engaging.
The Nature of Entanglement
Entanglement, a term typically used in quantum physics, occurs when a person remains tied to past experiences through trapped energy, even if a great distance exists between them. It happens when a person creates negative energy during an exchange or receives the brunt of negative energy from others or life, and the experience remains unintegrated (negative energy is trapped in the emotional well). For those involved in the experience, the trapped energy can linger within until processed.
Engagement expands the self, others, and possibilities to create a better future from the present moment. The motivation is to connect and collaborate to create together. While engagement traps no energy and leaves no residue, entangling keeps the past alive in the present and intertwines self, others, and life across time and space long after the moment has passed. This entanglement occurs because most of us lack the skills to process and integrate the emotional cycles of our youth meaningfully, so they trip us up in adulthood. The term emotional cycle captures the experience and its related feelings and sensations.
Entangling is a beautiful and profound response to being overwhelmed by the harshness of experiences we didn’t have the capacity to manage. The unresolved energy of such experiences must be housed somewhere, and the heart is closed, so it can’t be processed through the body’s energy center designed to do that. Because our bodies are wise and adept at protecting us, they form the metaphorical emotional well for those betrayals that are suppressed and held onto instead of processed and integrated.
But back to those harsh experiences... they threatened our survival, so our emotional operating system devised a plan to keep us safe. Internally, denial of the underlying experiences occurred to protect us against the perceived truth of the story of the experience (I am not worthy of love as I am, nor am I worthy of using my power to choose how I belong). This primary defense mechanism acts as an emotional shield, protecting the person from a painful truth (that was never accurate, but we believed it) but ultimately preventing them from addressing the underlying issue. The managed self then attempts to avoid anything that feels similar by controlling the environment, using three specific safety strategies called emotional tendencies:
The EI3.0 Emotional Tendencies.
We use these tendencies to control our environment, maintain emotional safety, and avoid experiencing the harshness of childhood experiences all over again that have been denied and rest at the bottom of the emotional well. The managed self runs these tendencies subconsciously. And we do it because we don’t trust others or life to honor our emotional needs, so we protect ourselves from further harm.
When the over-relying tendency is deployed, a person avoids self-reliance and independence. A person avoids self-sufficiency and internal validation when the seeking tendency is deployed. When the offering tendency is deployed, a person avoids receiving and vulnerability.
These strategies entangle us in the hurt and harm of the past, holding us in repeating patterns that keep us safe but limit our ability to express our authentic selves fully. The repeating patterns caused by emotional tendencies are core entanglements.
When the safety strategies of the managed self are ineffective, usually during stressful situations and conflicts, the stressed self takes over, using the patterns of self-preservation: anger, resistance, and defensive communication. That’s because anger is the feeling of survival; it prepares the body for a fight. Resistance is a pushback against change, even when part of the person wants or needs to change. It often stems from fear of change, attachment to familiar patterns, or concerns about losing control. The anger and resistance are then expressed, usually defensively, severing connection and collaboration.
The interplay between our managed and stressed selves reveals how early emotional wounds create intricate patterns of self-protection that paradoxically keep us from the very wholeness we seek. When our emotional well overflows, these protective patterns—whether through over-reliance, seeking, or offering—transform into more intense survival responses of anger, resistance, and defensive communication. This escalation from subtle control to overt self-preservation illuminates why sustainable emotional growth requires more than just managing our stress responses.
Through the lens of EI3.0, we can see how these patterns form a self-reinforcing cycle: Denial creates the need for control, control breeds avoidance, and avoidance fuels resistance. Yet understanding these patterns offers more than just insight; it provides a map for transformation. By recognizing how our emotional operating system adapted to protect us in childhood, we can consciously choose new patterns that allow for safety and authentic self-expression.
The prevalence of drama roles and lifeviews in our study demonstrates that resistance isn’t just an individual struggle; it’s a typical human response to emotional threats. This universality suggests that the path to wholeness isn’t about eliminating these protective patterns but rather about developing the emotional intelligence to work with them consciously, creating space for both our need for safety and our desire for genuine connection and self-actualization.
The Self
As previously mentioned, there are versions of the self we experience on the way to wholeness. That’s because the experiences that leave a mark on the emotional operating system in childhood also fracture the self, resulting in a managed and stressed self. As emotional balance develops, this split between performative selves integrates, and there is only one version of the self: the authentic self. The authentic self has a balanced inner and outer emotional presence, so no divided self exists.
The work of emotional well-being is to reclaim your true nature so that you can operate from the authentic self. It is the facet of identity that is whole and unfragmented; there is no duality amongst the selves. It has accepted the self’s physical, mental, and emotional design. It leads to a different type of duality. This higher duality occurring in wholeness manifests differently. It’s more about integrating seeming opposites like individual/universal awareness or being/becoming. Rather than a protective splitting, it represents a mature capacity to hold paradox.
The primary emotionally imbalanced version of the self is the adapted identity. It is formed in childhood when people disown the parts and pieces of themselves that aren’t welcomed in the family or community systems; thus, they adapt who they are to stay emotionally safe. It’s a beautiful survival mechanism. As previously explained, this version of the self has two stances: the stressed self and the managed self.
Ordinarily, most people present their “managed” selves daily to the world. The managed self is a person’s persona in an average-stress environment. In it, they effectively deploy their strengths while having the will to acknowledge and mitigate their tendency toward less productive behaviors.
Versions of the Self.
The managed self uses strategies and techniques that allow a person to mask the imbalance of their emotional operating system. Emotional intelligence, an individual’s capacity to effectively and positively navigate one’s emotions and those of others, is one such technique. These methods are beneficial until they aren’t. Many people with a high EQ (the measure of emotional intelligence in a numerical value) aren’t necessarily high in emotional balance because their methods have masked their imbalance, not resolved it.
These strategies and techniques enable people to perform acceptably in an average-stress environment. However, as stress increases and willpower depletes, the methods of the managed self are overridden by the stressed self’s self-preservation strategy. In those instances, trapped energy from past harsh experiences becomes visible in the present, dictating the force of the response.
The unique self is the facet of identity that aligns with the individual’s unique gifts and talents—their values, strengths, social currency, and purpose. Operating from it is essential to achieving emotional balance.
When activated, the stressed self defaults to Drama Roles and Lifeviews as its primary language of survival, automatically adopting these patterns as shields against perceived emotional threats.
The Drama Roles
The Drama Triangle, developed by Dr. Stephen Karpman, reveals a fascinating yet troubling pattern in human conflict, one that operates like a perpetual motion machine of emotional entanglement. At its core, the model identifies three interconnected roles: the Victim, the Persecutor, and the Rescuer. But rather than existing as fixed positions, these roles function like three acts in the same play, with participants unconsciously swapping costumes mid-scene. It is a compelling lens into how a person uses personal power during conflict in a way that undermines collaboration. EI3.0 uses this lens to understand where entanglement occurs when exercising personal power.
The drama roles surface in our interactions with others and represent the manifestation of underlying self-perceptions of worth and authority.
Victims perceive themselves as unable to take care of their own needs and are anxious about their prospects. They feel powerless to effect changes and are often overwhelmed by hopelessness, helplessness, and powerlessness. When individuals adopt this role, they may become paralyzed by this “lessness.” They usually control the situation by making others responsible for solving their challenges. This role reflects low self-worth and low self-authority.
Persecutors avoid confronting their faults. Instead, they direct blame toward others. They may be in denial about their tendency to shift responsibility and exhibit behaviors such as bullying, threatening, and dominating. People in this role struggle with accepting accountability for their actions. They typically dominate a situation through blame tactics. This role reflects distorted self-worth and self-authority as both are over-inflated.
Rescuers feel compelled to help others by fixing whatever they perceive as wrong, often neglecting their own needs. Despite feeling resentful and unappreciated, they continue to focus on the problems of others, waiting for someone to rescue them. This role can lead to a pattern of self-sacrifice, with Rescuers neglecting their own well-being. They typically control a situation by taking responsibility for fixing the issue at hand. This role reflects over-inflated self-authority and low self-worth.
There are three maturity designations for these roles:
Maturity Designations for Drama Roles.
The Lifeviews
The three lifeviews are the underlying mentalities of the Victim, Persecutor, and Rescuer applied to life. The Life’s Not Fair Lifeview is about resisting life because it’s unfair, and we expect it to be fair. If it’s not going to be fair, we are going to resist. The King of the Hill Lifeview is about resisting life because we deserve more than it gives us to make up for the harm we experienced in childhood. In short, the world owes us, and it better deliver. The Helping is Noble Lifeview is about resisting life because we have been of service, and we should get something in return for that from life, and we aren’t receiving anything (reinforcing the underlying belief that we aren’t worthy of receiving the good things in life). While the King of the Hill stance is “I am owed,” the Helping is Noble stance is “You owe me.” Neither of these holes can be filled in the way a person seeks to fill them, which is true of the Life’s Not Fair stance, as well. Yet, we repeat the Drama Role and Lifeview patterns over and over, expecting a different result that never comes.
The Lifeviews use only the active and transcended designation:
Active: the Lifeview controls your choices during a conflict with life.
Transcended: the Lifeview does not affect your exercise of choice during a conflict with life.
Methods
The sample comprised 500 individuals who participated in a study on political typology and emotional well-being. Each participant completed the EI3.0 Relationship Inventory, which includes a comprehensive section assessing Drama Roles and Lifeviews, and the Pew Research Center Political Typology Quiz.
Responses were measured on a 5-point Likert scale, with drama role patterns categorized as active, influencing, or transcended and lifeview patterns categorized as active or transcended.
Results
The analysis revealed the significant presence of Drama Roles, with approximately 89% of participants showing at least one active role:
Victim: 68.2% active, 22.4% influencing, 9.4% transcended
Persecutor: 89.0% active, 4.0% influencing, 7.0% transcended
Rescuer: 63.2% active, 28.0% influencing, 8.8% transcended
Drama Role Maturity Distribution
Only 7 participants (1.4%) demonstrated complete transcendence of all Drama Roles.
Lifevews showed more variation in activation rates:
King of the Hill is most prevalent (89.4% active)
Life's Not Fair follows (82.0% active)
Helping is Noble shows notably lower activation (58.6% active)
Lifeview Maturity Distribution
Overall Patterns:
496 participants (99.2%) exhibited at least one active pattern
3 participants (0.6%) showed no active patterns but maintained influencing patterns for Drama Roles
1 participant (0.2%) demonstrated complete transcendence of all patterns
It is important to note that we have conducted research on the Drama Roles and Lifeviews in three smaller studies (sample sizes ranged from 20 to 50 participants) and have obtained similar results regarding the maturity level of these resistance approaches.
Discussion
The findings suggest these patterns of the emotional operating system represent fundamental aspects of human conditioning rather than individual pathologies. A key theoretical distinction emerges in the data: Drama Roles reflect resistance patterns in interpersonal interactions, while Lifeviews manifest as patterns of resistance to life forces themselves.
The finding that approximately 90% of participants have at least one active Drama Role suggests these resistance patterns may function as core survival mechanisms in social contexts.
Lifeviews show their own distinctive pattern of activation (King of the Hill 89.4%, Life's Not Fair 82.0%, Helping is Noble 58.6%), reflecting different ways humans resist life itself. The notably high activation rates of King of the Hill and Life's Not Fair views suggest these may be predominant resistance patterns to life forces in current society.
The progression of maturity for the Drama Roles from active to influencing to transcended appears to be sequential, with complete pattern transcendence being exceptionally rare (approximately 1% of the population), indicating it represents a significant shift in consciousness. The Helping is Noble Lifeview showed the most variance, with higher rates of transcendence (41.4%), suggesting some patterns may be more amenable to transformation than others.
Implications
The distinction between interpersonal resistance (Drama Roles) and resistance to life forces (Lifeviews) has significant implications for understanding human development and approaches to transformation.
The development and expression of these patterns appear to follow distinct trajectories. Drama Roles likely establish themselves early through primary relationships, while Lifeviews may emerge later as abstract understanding develops. The widespread activation of both systems suggests they are deeply embedded in current human consciousness rather than representing individual pathology.
Different approaches may be needed for interpersonal versus life force resistance patterns. The high correlation between Drama Roles indicates they likely function as an interconnected system requiring integrated intervention approaches. Lifeviews, with their direct relationship to life resistance, may require distinct transformational methods.
These patterns appear to be sustained and reinforced through various social mechanisms. Cultural narratives may particularly influence Lifeviews, while organizational structures may inadvertently reinforce Drama Roles. It suggests that transformation work must address individual patterns and the social systems that maintain them.
The transformation process appears to require sophisticated approaches that can simultaneously address both systems. The rarity of complete pattern transcendence in the population indicates these are deeply entrenched aspects of human consciousness that require significant personal development work to transform. This understanding can inform more effective approaches to both individual and collective transformation efforts for practitioners.
Future Research
This study opens several promising avenues for further investigation:
Longitudinal research to understand how these patterns transform over time.
Cross-cultural studies to explore variations in pattern expression and transformation.
Investigation of specific mechanisms that facilitate pattern transcendence.
Examination of the relationship between individual and collective consciousness in pattern maintenance and transformation.
Conclusion
This study provides empirical evidence for the pervasive nature of limiting emotional patterns in human consciousness. The data reveals that pattern transcendence, occurring in approximately 1% of the population, represents a rare but significant shift in consciousness. The identified stages of transformation suggest both the challenge and possibility of fundamental emotional transformation.
These findings advance our understanding of human consciousness and development in several key ways. First, they empirically demonstrate the widespread nature of both interpersonal and life force resistance patterns. Second, they identify distinct developmental stages in pattern maturation. Finally, they establish pattern transcendence as achievable.
This research contributes to a growing body of knowledge about human consciousness and transformation while highlighting opportunities for future investigation into the mechanisms and pathways of emotional development. As we continue to study these patterns, we may discover new approaches to support individual and collective transformation toward greater wholeness.
Downloads
Download a PDF of this article: Coming Soon!
Download terms used in EI3.0 (Revised March 30, 2025).
