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In this paper Holt demonstrates that the concept of identification is of fundamental importance for sociological theory as well as for psychoanalytic theory. In the history of social science two principal kinds of answers have been given to the basic question of how individuals manage to function as members of a group. 'Utilitarian' theorists assume that the punishments of nonconforming deter the individual from criminal and antisocial behavior. This point of view with some modification is also followed by the 'learning' theorists who believe that people, like rats, learn what they are rewarded for learning and learn not to behave in ways that are punishable. The second group of sociologists are not impressed by man's rationality and adhere to the theory that biological forces impel individuals to function as members of groups. Holt believes that the resolution of this dilemma is to be found in understanding the significance of the process of identification. She quotes Emile Durkheim, an eminent French sociologist, and Freud to demonstrate that social constraints which were originally external to the individual must become internal and that this internalization is part of man's instinctual nature. Eventually the human being incorporates the values and norms of his society so that they no longer appear to him as limitations but become his own wishes. It is neither 'social contract' nor 'racial memories' which leave their traces on the newer generations but rather the process of identification which is the decisive factor in the socialization of man.