ABSTRACT
Broucek (1979) Describes The Significance for psychoanalytic theory of findings that infants actively (assertively) respond to problem-solving experimental situations. In these experiments, the infants quickly recognized the potentials in the situation for their assertive response. Acting on this recognition, they explored the possibilities for establishing an efficient contingent relationship between their activity and an occurrence in the environment. They could be induced into the activity to receive a reward in the form of a preferred stimulus, but they sustained the activity to obtain the affective amplification of pleasure that derived from their efficiency or competence.
