ABSTRACT
This chapter examines some of the more obvious differences between biological, psychological and social systems. The phenomenon of biological evolution–improbable as it may seem–is much more probable than social adaptation, for a paradoxical reason. Societies are in many ways similar to the human beings who collectively both create and are created by their cumulative product. As our society becomes more complex and more competent, it appears to threaten the biological integrity of its members. International science may indeed be the most viable social institution man has yet developed–and provide the requisite model for the other social institutions. The relationships between individual human beings and their societies are peculiarly complicated because this is a part-whole relationship in which any part, formed by a whole, may in turn modify that whole, which in turn may modify any part. The chapter constructs many models to help build a bridge between personality theory and general social science.
