uals in areas where existing residents already are 
characterized by marked propinquity to other indi- 
viduals. The physics of this situation has been 
discussed in detail by Stewart (42, 43, 44). Stewart 
designates this propinquity among individuals as 
the population potential. An inherent assumption 
of his formulation is that population potential is 
positively correlated with the incidence of inter- 
actions. A favorable byproduct is the more effec- 
tive production of material goods. My own studies 
(43a) of the correlation between population poten- 
tial and rates of mortality or admission to mental 
hospitals shows that the latter exhibits a positive 
correlation with population potential, as also does 
the former after 35 years of age when proneness to 
metabolic breakdown diseases becomes accentuated. 
Greater susceptibility of the mobile portion of the 
population to mental illness is confirmed by Malz- 
berg and Lee (45b). Thus, conformity to the de- 
mands of Western technological society is certainly 
adjustive in that it assures greater material rewards, 
but the evidence of disruption of physiological 
homeostasis strongly indicates that such behavior 
is not adaptive. 
If this insight approximates reality we can antici- 
pate a positive correlation between the complexity 
of society and the prevalence of psychosomatic 
symptoms and behavioral deviates. If not, the 
observed prevalence of these conditions merely 
reflect some malfunction of social organization. 
Consequences of social behavior may arise from 
either direct or indirect social behaviors. In 
indirect social behavior two individuals need not 
be present at the same time for one to exert an 
influence on the other. The only requisite is that 
the activities of one individual produce changes 
in the environment which alter the behavior of 
some other individual. Direct social behavior in- 
volves the simultaneous presence of a symbol 
denoting some quality of the absent individual that 
is relevant to the present one. In this case the 
qualities of the symbol are equivalent to perform- 
ance by the absent individual. 
Neither the social behavior of the performer or 
its effect on another individual necessarily involve 
any learning process. Where physiological altera- 
tions occur in the direction of prevention of 
homeostatic imbalance or return toward balance, 
and if the animal is endowed with an adequate 
nervous system, learning rnay take place. Thus, 
even in the absence of innate social behaviors or of 
innate responses to them, learned behavior leads to 
256 
codification of the performance-effect system. 
Furthermore, where learning is possible certain 
aspects or qualities of the performance-effect 
system, of the individuals themselves, or of the 
environment in which the system operates, may 
become associated with the operation and thus they 
become goals in and of themselves with respect to 
the gratification-denial parameter of experience. 
Such transformations become attitudes or value 
systems. 
At any point in time each individual is charac- 
terized by a specific predisposition to respond in a 
particular way to impinging stimuli. Such pre- 
disposition constitutes the individual’s personality 
which functions as a determinant of social behavior. 
Thus, personality is here considered as the complex 
of genetically limited and environmentally modi- 
fied states of physiology, or capacities for perception 
and action which modify responses. All responses 
reflect the influence of personality variables, 
regardless of whether or not the response has social 
implication. Attitudes or value systems constitute 
the most complex aspects of personality. 
Physical determinants of social behavior form an 
important, and conceptually a much neglected, 
aspect of the social plexus. These include physical 
objects as such, their spatial distribution or function 
as barriers, and their motivational or symbolic 
implication. The distribution and shape of objects 
or characteristics of the environment modify the 
frequency and pattern of contacts between in- 
dividuals, which in turn are important variables 
in determining the size and stability of groups, as 
well as the stress experienced in relation to the 
frequency of making adjustments following con- 
tact. In addition, some objects, such as a piece of 
food at which two individuals may arrive simul- 
taneously, are related to specific motivational 
states, such that encounters here are quite different 
from elsewhere. A special case is that of cultural 
artifacts, in which certain aspects of the environ- 
ment are restructured by certain individuals, and 
this restructuring alters the behavior of other 
members of the same generation or even of later 
generations. 
Quality and configuration of routes of communi- 
cation, of places of abode, of the amount of food- 
stuffs, or of the aggregates of individuals themselves, 
form pertinent examples. Response to these 
changed conditions may be either innate or learned. 
At higher phylogenetic levels, particularly with 
man, cultural artifacts assume symbolic connotations 
