ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on: what implications can be drawn from social psychological research and theory that can contribute to the acceptance and promulgation of effective birth control practices? It then reverts to the problem of desired family size in connection with a discussion of research needs. The fertility of a population can be viewed as the resultant of many individual acts and decisions, made within a framework of biological and environmental constraints. Questions of human motivation and motivational change thus have an important bearing on the viability of efforts to attain social control over population growth. What motivational factors are involved in the acceptance and effective use of birth control and how may the more effective use of birth control procedures be promoted? These kinds of motivational questions are thus respectively concerned with the private ends and means that affect fertility and population growth.
