ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies enough contingencies for reasonable empirical tests to be conducted and to ensure that the theory will not be rejected because of a wrongful assumption that it asserts effects that are invariant in all circumstances. It illustrates how personality traits can be contingencies for the central causal process by sometimes intruding to alter expected behavioral outcomes without necessarily affecting the operative control ratio. Among the contingent variables for the control balancing process is seven that are individualistic in the sense that they are linked with internal psychic and emotional traits. They include perceptual tendencies, internalized moral precepts, habits, personality characteristics, ability to commit various kinds of deviance, overarching alternative motivations, and memories associated with prior deviance. Deviance cannot occur without opportunity, so it is an essential component of the causal process by which control imbalances are translated into deviant acts. Yet, some opportunities are better, or more frequent, than others, and some opportunities barely qualify, whereas others are "golden."
