Until recently, most personality theories depicted behavior as impelled by inner forces in the form of needs, drives, and impulses, often operating below the level of consciousness. Since the principal causes of behavior resided in forces within the individual, that is where one looked for explanations of man's actions. Although this view enjoyed widespread professional and popular acceptance, it did not go unchallenged. Theories of this sort were criticized on both conceptual and empirical grounds. Because the inner determinants were typically inferred from the behavior they supposedly caused, the result was pseudoexplanations. Thus, for example, a hostile impulse was deduced from a person's irascible behavior, which was then attributed to the action of the inferred impulse. In a similar manner, various traits and dynamics, which represent the descriptive constructs of the assessor, frequently become entities within the individual that supposedly cause his behavior. Different personality theories proposed diverse lists of motivators, some containing a few allpurpose drives, others embracing� a varied assortment of specific drives. The conceptual structure of psychodynamic theories was further criticized for disregarding the tremendous complexity of human responsiveness. An internal motivator cannot possibly account for the marked variation in the incidence of a given behavior in different situations, toward different persons, at different times, and in different social roles. One can predict with much greater accuracy the expression of aggressive behavior from knowledge of the social contexts (for example, church, school, ghetto sidewalk, athletic gymnasium), the targets (for example, parent, priest, teacher, or peer), the role occupied by the performer (for example, policeman, soldier, teacher, sales clerk), and other cues that reliably signify