Internal and External Determinants of Behavior in Psychodynamic Theories

Abstract

The distinction between inner and outer determinants of behavior, or some variant of that distinction, has been common in discourses on human behavior from the time of the Greek philosophers to the most recent A.P.A. journal. Although not identical to the inner-outer question, questions of freedom versus determinism, of responsibility and punishment versus rehabilitation, of environmentalism versus instinctualism or environmentalism versus mentalism, of organismic versus conditioning models, and many other recurrent themes and debates are clearly recognizable as, so to speak, loading on the same factor.