ABSTRACT
One of the most formidable "givens" in the study of human development is the impact of the formative years on all subsequent development. The notions of dependency and malleability in the young have appeared so self-evident that every major theory of man in modern times has accepted them as premises. As a result, the outcomes in human development continue to appear understandable in social learning terms. For example, Sears, Maccoby and Levin (1957) showed that the dispensing of rewards and punishments (reinforcement contingencies) by a caretaker (adult) presumably resulted in predictable outcomes. Knowingly or otherwise, this model employed the psychoanalytic concept of the family as a four-person group, critical in socialization, varied only by generation and sex (Parsons, 1964). Suffice it to say in retrospect that Freud's (1949) categories, the basis for a supposedly dynamic analysis, may be seen today as highly subjective products of the time, rather than parts of a truly dynamic theory. Freud's approach has been called infant-determinism, in which most major life outcomes presumably are preset in the early formative years through the shaping influence of the parent.
