A primitive [ERA] is a doer, a person who enjoys developing behavioral activities and interacting with others. He has limited ability in symbolic memory but potentially high capacity for visual memory. Because of his preoccupation with external activities, he is less aware of his own mental activities. As a result, his behavior is very active and very responsive. He interacts with the people and things in his environment spontaneously. He may be described as socially dependent because he makes so many demands on the outside world. In addition, he can be described as involving, because he not only responds to external events but also expects external events to respond to him.

The primitive [E] infant will show considerable frustration when denied interaction, will show anger when his personal needs are not satisfied by an external source and will show fear when isolated or abandoned. The primary pressures exerted on the primitive [E] are intended to force him to be less responsive, less active and more self-sufficient.

The primitive [R] potentially has the capacity to develop specific aptitudes. A characteristic of the primitive [R] is that he depends on and is responsive to direction or control from the outside. The primitive [ER] individual, since his primary psychological drive is in the direction of external activity, if given direction, will learn motor activities in an efficient and useful way. However, he will be inclined to learn one motor activity very well at the expense of other activities.

A characteristic of the primitive [R] individual is that since he is essentially psychologically satisfied with his perseverating activity, he tends to become self-centered and preoccupied, and is insulated from or even oblivious to the mild pressures that demand he widen his interests. As a result, it is often necessary for external observers (or directors or surrogate figures) to use strong affect in order to "get through" the insulation of the primitive [R]. The primitive [R] may be confused early because of his inability to anticipate the emotional attitudes of the people in his environment.

Specifically, the primitive [R] is literal, self-centered and preoccupied. Potentially, his ability to learn and retain skills is good, but he needs instructions and direction. The primitive [R] does not vary his activities spontaneously.

The primitive [R] infant will show considerable frustration when forced to change interests or activities, will demonstrate anger when restricted or controlled as a means of preventing him from perseverating and show fear when placed in situations to which he has not learned to respond. The primary pressures exerted on the primitive [R] are to force him to be more versatile, more sensitive and more responsive.

From the standpoint of the child, a major element of his early psychological experience is determined by the quality and scope of his social interactions. The "personality" of the infant cannot be explained on the basis of acquired knowledge or intent of the infant, neither can it be explained on the basis of physical attractiveness per se. To a large extent, infants are reacted to impressionistically and a factor in their early psychological experience is the extent to which they are noticed, interacted with and responded to.

Those babies who are actively noticed and interacted with by most people in their environment are characterized as [A] babies. Parents with primitive [A] babies respond with considerable pleasure at the attention and acceptance received by their child but this is often soon replaced by jealousy and anxiety over the fact that their child's affection and attention is being diverted from them.

Fundamentally, the primitive [A] child has little early experience with rejection. If he is primitive [E], he welcomes and responds to interaction. The primitive [ERA] child, since he receives attention and responds to it, rapidly acquires social skills and adeptness in social activities. However, since he receives so much attention and expects so much interaction, he may not be put under early pressure to develop, modify, or control his non-social skills and aptitudes. Characteristically, the primitive [A] infant is role versatile, socially responsive, socially imitative and interpersonally responsive.

The primitive [A] infant will show considerable frustration when required to limit his role, will demonstrate anger when not accepted or responded to and show fear when placed in situations where he is rejected or emotionally threatened.

Broadly speaking, the [ERA] child begins life as an external-environment oriented, imitative but perseverating, socially responsive individual. Regardless of his level of intelligence his maturation rate will be considered high because he will learn behavioral activities quickly and efficiently. He will demand and will receive considerable attention, affection and warmth. He will, in return, show considerable appropriate affection and warmth. He will be relatively immune to many early childhood trauma. For example, separation from his mother would not be very traumatic because of his capacity to make rapid and effective emotional transference to others. Toilet training, as such, would offer little problem but some difficulty would be encountered because of his own tendency to be preoccupied (or perseverating) with his own and others' toilet functions (or genitals). Acquisition of language would be fairly rapid, but he would be completely dependent upon his environment for his vocabulary. Initially, he would have considerable drive (or need) to communicate with others and, depending on his intelligence, would learn the necessary vocabulary or languages efficiently. [ERA] s of below average intelligence may experience frustration if the vocabulary expectations are very complex (that is require intense mental concentration). In general, the [ERA] child will quickly acquire a good grasp of the colloquial language of his sub-culture, but once acquired will show little need to expand or augment this acquisition. The primary factors that may be traumatic for the [ERA] child include (1) isolation or abandonment without opportunity for reestablishing an interpersonal relationship (eg being an only child in a socially-isolated family); (2) strong curtailment of his activity and expressiveness (eg thwarting or overcontrolling his movements. Thumb-sucking, to take a very primitive example, once established may be perseverated indefinitely. Strong measures against this perseveration may move the child to frustration and anger); and (3) delimiting his involvements (eg over-rewarding him for showing affection and warmth to his parents and overpunishing him for showing equal affection and warmth for others.)

The [ERA] child requires considerable discipline and direction. The primary liability of the adjustment is that the individual gets so much satisfaction out of each stage of his development, he must be forced, quite literally, to move on to the next stage. Under most circumstances, infancy and early childhood are periods in which direction is actively given and since behavioral skills are the primary ingredients of early maturation, the [ERA] child requires little urging after the initial forcing from one stage to the next. However, once the behavioral maturation is achieved, the [ERA] child is in danger, because he is expected to continue his maturation curve on his own initiative when in reality he may be psychologically satisfied with his current adjustment. The two areas that require the most modification are, first, the overcommitment to the immediate external environment events with the resultant lack of either experience in or control of the mental processes; and second, the self-centered preoccupation with his own needs and interests, with resulting inability to see himself in relation to others and their needs and interests.

For a long period in the life of any individual, progress in maturation is judged impressionistically. In one sense, then, what he appears to be is more important than what he really is. A child is not deliberately deceptive but does soon learn to avoid, or at least to minimize pain, frustration, discomfort or dissatisfaction. An important aspect of his early adjustment, then, is a function of how successfully he can accomplish this avoidance. A child can meet, say, a frustration in any of a number of ways. He can learn to overcome it; he can do something else so well he can be forgiven for his weakness; he can recognize his frustration as not important and view accomplishment in it with contempt, or he can admit inadequacy and accept failure.

In the [ERA] child, how he responds to any given frustration or reacts to inadequacy is very much determined by the value system of the sub-culture in which he develops. In addition, the success of his adaptation depends largely on how well the value system to which he is exposed accords with his aptitudes, talents and natural inclinations.

The first real period of crisis for the [ERA] child is most likely to be elementary school. Prior to this, in most cases, the emphasis on behavioral maturation and social-interpersonal adaptability has been to his advantage. In the first grades in school, he still enjoys something of an advantage because the attention of the teachers is diverted to those children weak either in behavioral or in social maturation. The primary problems of the [ERA] child is that he is not receiving the social-interpersonal attention to which he is accustomed and his need to be active and responsive is being curtailed. Confronted with loss of attention and curtailment of activity, the [ERA] would go about regaining his position with some finesse. The [ERA] would be sensitive (and immature) to censure by the teacher and would undertake to learn how to pay attention -- thus getting the acceptance he required and at the same time appearing to curtail his activity. In the final analysis, the [ERA] child would become quite effective in appearing to pay attention while under the eyes of the teacher, while being active whenever out from under her eyes. In effect, the teacher would believe the [ERA] child was better behaved and more attentive than he was in fact. Even when caught, the [ERA] child would be so genuinely contrite and disturbed that the teacher would be moved to forgiveness and understanding. The significance of this adjustment pattern, then, is that chances are very good that the [ERA] will successfully learn to appear different than he may be in fact. Specifically, during the first two or three years of schooling he will appear to achieve more than he does. For example, in reading he will do only what is required in class, and because he appears to be doing so well, he is put under no pressure to improve. His problem develops later, when it may be too late for effective remedy.

In any event, the need to curtail his [E] responsiveness is a frustrating and even a traumatic event for the [ERA], for he must learn to modify or control what represents distraction for him. In the [ERA], the sources of distraction are twofold; first, pressures to recognize and respond to [E] stimuli and, second, pressures on him to recognize and respond to social-inter-action stimuli ([A] stimuli). In order to develop ideational skills effectively, he must work out some mechanism for managing his distractibility. The efficient management of these distractions are primarily accomplished during his elementary school years.