In Chapter 7, I conceptually sketched the relationship between perception and behavior within the dynamic psychological field. Now I will make that sketch more analytic, especially regarding social behavior. This will provide more detail on the psychological framework of social behavior and serve as an analytic basis for discussing the relationship between individuals in the sociocultural space.

Let me call two socially interacting individuals i and j. At its simplest, i's behavioral dispositions towards j will be a consequence of i's perception of j and the occasion; i's actual behavior, however, will be a result of the relationship between these dispositions and i's expectations of their outcomes. Similarly, j's reciprocal behavior will be a result of j's perception, the occasion constituting in part i's behavior, j's behavioral dispositions, and j's expectations of the outcome. Thus, in this social interaction we have an interfusing of mutual perceptions each other, perceived occasion, behavioral dispositions, expectations, and actual social behavior.

To display this social interaction, I will have to make explicit relevant aspects of the dynamic psychological field. Now, i's dynamic psychological field is a space, whose components describe i's needs, attitudes, roles, sentiments, temperaments, abilities, moods, and states--i's personality. These components are common latent functions that similarly span the psychological spaces of everyone. For example, hunger is such a component delineating a need which motivates us all.

Within i's psychological space, i has a vector location by virtue of i's personality profile, i's specific personality. This is shown in Figure 11.1a. Since motivations are also aspects of personality, this vector also comprises i's superordinate goal and i's intentions towards others, including j. This space also includes what i perceives. From previous discussion, i's awareness of external reality is a balance between i's outward reaching perspective and that which bears upon i, a balance in part between the forces of i's personality and beliefs and the power of that perceived. This balance, our actual perception, I call a situation.

When we perceive another as a situation, he becomes a field of expression, a complex of myriad, transitory manifestations, of more stable dispositions and determinables, of powers and potentialities. But this perceived situation, this field of expression, is also given a unity, a balance, a gestalt, by perceived latents. Thus, we perceptually transform patches of pink, blacks, and blues and configurations of lines and shapes into a soldier, a woman, our friend John, our boss Mr. Howard, and so on.

Now, these latents are organized psychologically by common latent functions, the components of our psychological space. That is, we organize our perception of others in terms of their temperaments, needs, roles, sentiments, and the rest. Or, in a more sociologically relevant language, we see others in terms of their interests (which are intentions, roles, sentiments, and values), capabilities (temperament, abilities, moods, and states), and wills (credibility, behavioral dispositions).

Within our psychological space the other is perceived relative to our selves. That is, we relate another person to our own personality; we see their interests, capabilities and credibility relative to our own; we perceive their distance from ourselves. This is exemplified in Figure 11.1b, which shows j as a perceived situation relative to i in i's psychological space. This situation is a vector, in that it has direction and magnitude, and its location describes the perceived personality of j relative to i. The corresponding perceived distance between i and j is the vector shown in Figure 11.1c. This distance reflects the differences and similarities in interests, capabilities, and credibility that i perceives between him and j.

The situation constituting a perceived other is rather invariant, however. The other as wife, friend, or daughter may be hiking, eating, or conversing with us, and we perceive largely the same person in relation to ourselves. What does vary is the occasion.

We behave socially towards the more or less stable perception of another on the basis of some perceived occasion and for some intention or reason. That is, there is some immediate event which stimulates or triggers, or provides a goal or reason for social behavior. Such an occasion may be another asking us a question, winking at us, writing us a letter, offering us a drink, and so on. The occasion may also be a perceived context, as when we sit next to him at a banquet, pass him in the hall, or hear him fighting with another.

From i's perspective, an occasion is a particular perceived situation lying also within i's psychological space, in relation to i's interests, capabilities, and will. Thus occasion is a vector as illustrated in Figure 11.2a.

There is now a psychological unity, a common space and field uniting i's personality, the perceived other, j's distance from i, and the perceived occasion. Our behavioral dispositions towards j in a particular occasion alpha (), then, are a product¹ of these two vectors, shown alone in Figure 11.2b. In words, our social behavior towards another, j, depends on j's relationship to our interests, capabilities, and will and the nature of the behaving occasion. Surely, we will act differently towards the same person if the occasion is a party rather than a conference, our supper table rather than a busy intersection, a church rather than our bedroom. Moreover, even if the occasion is the same, our behavioral dispositions will vary depending on whether the other is smiling at us, talking to us, or cursing us.

Behavioral dispositions--the product of distance and occasion--are not, however, behavior. What transforms these dispositions into behavior are the expectations i has about the outcome of i's behavior towards the other. How will the other respond? What will be the consequences? How credible is the other's threat or promise? To understand the relationship between expectations and behavioral dispositions, consider now a region of psychological space called behavior space--the multitude of i's behavioral potentialities and dispositions.² Since our interest is in social behavior, I will focus on that aspect of the space, and on the basis of my previous discussion, the common components--latent functions--spanning this social behavioral space are familistic, contractual, and compulsory.

Figure 11.3a shows as a vector the disposition of i to socially behave towards j in a particular way. This vector, therefore, is an actualization of the behavioral potentialities of this space. The expectations, beta (), that i has of j's behavioral response is shown in Figure 11.3b along with i's dispositions in the same space. Beta defines which of these common behavioral potentialities i perceives that j will actualize as a consequence of i's behavior. Will j be friendly and helpful, strictly legalistic, antagonistic and threatening, and so on? How i behaves towards j is then a product of these two vectors. In other words, what dispositions i manifests, and to what degree, depend on i's expectations of j's responses.

In sum, then, i's behavioral dispositions are generated by i's perception of j's field of expression, j's relative interests, capabilities, and will, and of the occasion. How these dispositions work themselves out into specific social behavior--acts, actions, or practices--towards j then is a function of i's expectations of j's corresponding behavior.³