ABSTRACT
The common meaning of the term transaction involves an exchange, an interchange, between two sets of events or phenomena. In the case of work, the two terms of the transaction are the working individual and the sociocultural milieu in which work takes place. This chapter shows that work requires a different set of behaviors from those elicited, for example, by such other broad life domains as love and play. It argues that what one must learn in order to adapt to work differs both in kind and quantity from the requirements of other life spheres. The chapter examines how the demand to work differs from other major life demands. In developing an outline for a model of the individual psychology of work, one must start with the proposition that the basic psychological equipment the worker brings to his job is not different from what he brings to any other life situation.
