Ego Development and Cultural Differences

Analogues of aggressive-differentiating and affectionate-affiliating behavior are presumed to exist in human systems at all levels of organization—from cells to supranational organizations. The author offers hypotheses about the nature and relationships of these component subsystems of the body, the personality, and associated social structures. Integrating psychoanalytic, general systems, and physiological perspectives into a conception of the differentiating and affiliating modes in ego attitudes, emotional attachments, cognitive styles, and sociocultural forms, he illustrates his concept with a clinical description of a renal transplant patient.