Resource Generation and Interchange

Abstract

The psychosocial model used here differs from intrapsychic and social models of personality and conduct by conceptualizing social behavior as a function of social/contextual factors and the personal factors of people as known and as active agent knowers. It assumes that much of our nature as individuals is formed by, contingent on, and of necessity linked with interchanges with others. From birth onward these interchanges influence the meanings that we assign to our activities, ranging from the most basic aspects of life, such as food and sex, to the most abstract intellectual or emotional exchanges. These interchanges are biopsychosocial in that they do not have a physical existence apart from the people involved in them, and they are psychosocially formed. Further, they are not solely guided by homeostatic need reduction principles; rather, they may increase as is suggested by Rotter’s (1954) concept of need induction.