This is a colloquium held at the Institute for the Study of Human Relations conducted by the institute using its method which consists of studying behavior in constant relation with the contrary behavior, the two being placed in the same context. It permits one to grasp the comparative dynamism of the two elements studied, their interactions and their regulations. This method is called relational.
Man and lower animals are considered from a point of view at once biological and ethological. The psychological reactions of man are placed in the same context and what we know of psychophysiological mechanisms of the one and the other has been specified, in order to have the bases of reference constantly in mind; otherwise, the assimilations remain theoretical and the liaisons imaginary.
The two behaviors are studied not only in the individual human, but in comparison with animal societies, in groups and in