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This book is full of our American variety of common sense, about two-fifths of which is devoted to theories of personality and methods of studying it, and the rest, as stated in the title, to everyday problems of adjustment. It is up-to-date, orderly, comprehensive; nothing pertinent is omitted. The author tells all that an elementary student or educated layman needs to know about the constitutional foundations of behavior, neural and glandular. The dynamics of learning, in the broader sense, are perhaps not accorded the detailed exposition they deserve; but there are some excellent sections on language development, thought and the rise of the self in interaction. The importance of anticipation as a determinant of behavior is well stated. Problems arising out of parent-child and teacher-pupil relationships are analyzed and judiciously appraised. Since the author has the solid middle-class majority in mind when he discusses mental hygiene for college students, adjustments in marriage, problems of the single woman and so forth, his conclusions are almost necessarily banal, though sensible. A hundred and sixty pages are devoted to delinquency, neurosis and psychosis.
Dr. Young, who is primarily a social psychologist, finds himself very often in accord with the social-interactional conceptions of G. H. Mead and W. I. Thomas, but he is almost equally hospitable to the ideas of Freud, Allport and a host of others. His intellectual attitude is that of an eclectic, a democratic liberal, friendly to many opposing theories which swim together in his text like so many boon companions. He is better at seeing similarities than differences. In fact he is a consummate peacemaker: he does not fret and fume, take issue with sectarians, or tilt at straw men. He picks out the best ideas, here, there and everywhere, and merges them; but when one reaches the end of a chapter it is rather difficult to make a mental inventory of one's acquisitions. There is lack of critical de