which facilitate maintenance and transfer of atti- 
tudes and value systems. Functionally, although 
of an ephemeral nature themselves, attitudes and 
value systems, are just a special case of cultural 
artifacts. 
Societal determinants of social behavior are consti- 
tuted of organizational characteristics of the group 
as well as secondary attributes of the group arising 
from its functioning as an organized group. Thus, 
societal determinants represent a supra-organismic 
level of influence in contradistinction to the indi- 
vidual level of influence represented by personality. 
Group attributes include such phenomena as (1) 
conservation of moisture or body heat in aggre- 
gates, (2) more effective repelling of predators, or 
(3) development of group norms which bias the 
individual’s attitudes. 
In their formulation of “A general theory of 
action” with reference to human social behavior 
Parsons and Shils (46) are only concerned with 
adjustive behavior and the process through which 
attitudes or value systems held by one individual 
are internalized by another individual, in which 
they then become an integral component of his 
personality. As I see it, Parsons and Shils overlook 
a large area of the social plexus which is relevant to 
human experience and which is requisite to a 
formulation of comparative sociology. They ignore 
the three types of consequences of social behavior 
listed above, except for attitudes or value systems 
related to satisfaction of needs. 
Sprott (47) in his review of Parsons (48) and 
Parsons and Shils (46) concurs with my critique at 
least to the extent that he recognizes the need for 
proceeding with the evaluation of those variables 
affecting social behavior, other than those involving 
only direct social interaction, without awaiting 
completion of a fully adequate theory of social 
action. In fairness to Parsons one must recognize 
his awareness of the restrictions to his theories for 
he writes: “But quite clearly we have advanced no 
theory of the interdependence of social action 
processes and the biological and physical factors of 
their determination” [(48), p. 488]. Even though 
he recognized the existence of such factors he 
prefers to ignore them. In contrast, my own 
emphasis is that development of a comparative 
sociology requires initial consideration of the origins 
and consequences of those social behaviors least 
involved with values or attitudes. 
Detailed observation of lower forms raises 
doubts as to the frequently implied absence of 
symbolic communication, attitudes, and value 
systems in forms other than man. For example, 
there is the ethic of honor your father and mother. 
Operationally rats exhibit behaviors indicating 
conformance to such a tenet. For example, one 
of the 21 -month-old stem mothers, No. 39, of colony 
a (table 44) still maintained her residence with her 
daughters, nieces, grandchildren, etc. at the home 
burrow, even though she was no longer capable 
of reproduction. This old female, as was also 
true for other old females who had successfully 
reared a number of young, was “honored” to the 
extent that her presence was tolerated within a 
group to whose welfare she appeared to contribute 
no longer. I shall not attempt speculation on the 
origin of this relationship. Suffice it to say — 
comparative examination of social behaviors with- 
out artificial restrictions of scope should provide 
more meaningful insight. 
In dealing with man Parsons and Shils focus 
entirely on adjustive behavior, and ignore any 
implication of adaptive behavior. That is they 
are concerned with what a particular species, 
Homo sapiens , strives for or is motivated toward, 
not what does he have to strive for in order to 
survive as an organism. In so doing they inten- 
tionally or inadvertently ignore a large segment of 
the social plexus which affects both man and other 
species to varying extents. Their restriction of 
point of view is a logical derivative of their failure 
to consider social phenomena from a comparative 
point of view. 
We may also put the shoe on the other foot and 
ask: “Why have experimental studies with Norway 
rats failed to advance very far our understanding 
of social phenomena?” By taking into considera- 
tion the complexities of social behavior or Norway 
rats in a naturalistic environment observed by me 
and by Steiniger, and by taking into consideration 
the formulation of the social plexis as presented 
above it becomes apparent why studies by experi- 
mental psychologists [See reviews by Crawford (49) 
and Munn, (36).} have contributed so little to the 
understanding of social phenomena of the rat as a 
social animal. Those conducting these studies 
exhibit a nearly total ignorance of the nature of 
the normal social behavior of this species. This 
has posed great barriers to stating properly ques- 
tions to be tested, to structuring the experimental 
situation, or to evaluating results. Development 
of social behavior in the rat, other than for the 
rudiments of sexual intercourse, maternal behavior, 
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