The Theory of Human Behavior in its Individual and Social Aspects.

The article discusses theory of behaviorism. Like all theories of life, behaviorism makes a fundamental assumption as to the nature of life and that assumption is that the whole world, or universe, is one continuous mechanism, as it were; that everything in human life and civilization can be explained on this basis without introducing the separate agency of any force not obeying the same natural laws as those we know. In psycho-analysis we have a comparatively recent phase of the science of human behavior. The essence of the theory, after it has been stripped of Freud's strong emphasis on sex, which is not essential to our purpose and of some of its mentalistic traits, is that the behavior reactions of the individual are organized into interrelated groups of ideas, or complexes. These complexes are gradually built up by the association of more or less closely related ideas so that a reference to one idea will bring out a large number of those closely associated with it. The psycho-analysts then conceive that complexes are built up which are in more or less direct conflict at some point at which they come in contact. Since the complexes are built up around one central idea it is natural that they should not always be in complete harmony with all sides of a group of ideas built up around a totally different central idea. This conflict of complexes will cause a more or less complete dissociation of the personality of the individual which the individual attempts to overcome either by harmonizing the conflict, or by the repression of one complex or the other.