ABSTRACT
This chapter presents some of the characteristics of interaction which have their inception in other primary configurations than the family, especially as they affect the child’s development. It discusses aggressive and dominant behavior; various forms of withdrawal, such as resistant behavior; development of inferiority feelings and consequent compensations; retreat into fantasies; and the beginnings of certain persistent emotional reactions such as fears and anxieties. Many of the fundamental patterns of behavior exhibited in the primary groups derive from habits and attitudes originating in the family circle. Organic qualifications of dominant behavior, which must always express themselves in a social-cultural context, include sheer physical strength and differences in drive, in, age, in intelligence, and in energy intake and output. Play may be described as the more or less spontaneous unhampered reactions of the child to the material and social objects of his environment. Certainly play serves as an important item in socialization and in this sense is preparatory to later behavior.
