“We are not concerned with the nature of the universe, but with the problem of prediction and control in the field of psychology itself.
Let us begin our presentation by noticing the relationships involved in the assimilation of food. To the infant especially, food is a problem. It must begin with those foods which are easy to assimilate, and progress to a more varied diet by easy stages. In a word, the organism must learn to solve increasingly difficult problems of assimilation, and develops because it does solve them. Assimilation is not a matter of passive acceptance, but a task. When accomplished, the disturbance of hunger is removed and the organism returns to its normal state. In the effort to maintain this state all parts of the organism cooperate.
Learning therefore is problem-solving, and the number of solutions achieved constitutes the organism’s preparation. The more adequate the preparation, the wider the variety of foods that can be used to maintain the normal state, and the greater the organism’s freedom of choice and action, since it is no longer dependent upon any particular food. It must likewise learn to defend itself against germs and bacteria, to adjust to changes in temperature, and to accustom itself in many other ways to live in the world in which it finds itself. Stability is a function of preparation.
Independence and freedom, insofar as they exist, are thus the organism’s own achievement. Assistance can be given by protecting the child against problems too difficult for him, and by presenting new problems at the proper time, but the learning itself must be accomplished by the child. He must develop his own repertory of solutions. Since his preparation at any given time is limited, however, and his history is marked by failures as well as by successes, the scope of his freedom is likely to be rather sharply defined. That is, he tends to select and avoid situations according to his estimate of his own abilities. On the basis of past experience, he predicts in advance whether new situations will be soluble or insoluble, and consequently whether his organization will be strengthened or disturbed if he faces the problem.
It is this limitation of his abilities which constitutes the individual’s standard of values, the line between acceptance and avoidance. Thus we see that choice and selection have their real basis in the individual himself, and the objective situation merely provides the occasion for making a choice. To understand the individual and the nature of his preparation, therefore, we must study his choices.
It will be noticed that although our discussion of assimilation began with the assimilation of food, it has expanded into the psychological field quite naturally. The relationships are precisely the same. We merely shift the location of the problem from the internal environment to the external, from the interoceptors to the exteroceptors. Psychological as well as physical development depends upon problem-solving, and independence and freedom are attained in proportion as the individual is prepared to maintain his normal organization in a greater variety of situations.”
Extract from Self-Consistency: A Theory Of Personality. by Prescott Lecky. 1945