ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some features of personality ‘growth with particular regard to the influences of the family and other primary groups. It shows that adolescent and adult habits, attitudes, traits, ideas, and values are largely predicated upon the early training of the child and focuses on materials interpreted from the genetic and historical point of view. There is an enormous body of data on child growth from the angle of traditional individualistic psychology, with its emphasis upon highly minute descriptions and analyses of specific sensorimotor behavior, traits, attitudes, verbal or other subovert responses, emotional manifestations, and motivation. The social-cultural definitions of the manner in which the child might attain his wishes were catalogued under the concept of the reality principle, backed by the authority, that is, the power and wisdom of the older and more mature persons who surround the child.
