Why has the United States not yet elected a female president? Why do revolutions often result in greater continuity than foundational change? And what caused women to relatively quickly overtake men in higher education in recent years? Understanding political plasticity is critical to understanding in what ways and how fast political behavior can, or cannot, change. Political plasticity is limited by hard-wiring outside and inside individuals. Areas of low political plasticity include leader-follower relations, but domains of high political plasticity exist as well. Political plasticity provides a conceptual avenue for better understanding why some long-established political patterns have been continuous for thousands of years, despite radical and sometimes violent attempts to overturn them.