Exploring Connections Between Some Concepts in the Theory of Action.

This article focuses on exploring connections between some concepts in the theory of action. The initial distinction between orientation primacy and situational problem is abandoned--at least as far as the content of the classification is concerned. Instead, the distinction between variables particularly relevant for need-dispositions and for role-expectation analysis is picked up-but the basis for that distinction, or the classificatory principle, is changed. Now, the classification is based on indeterminacies of objects vs. indeterminacies in attitudes. It seems that the first classification principle is kept, but that the resulting grouping is the one originally produced by the second principle. So, this conclusion is reached--before a situation can have determinate meaning for the actor, its objects must be defined either in performance- or in quality-terms and in terms of either universalism or particularism; and he must so to say select either affectivity or affective neutrality and either specificity or diffuseness as relevant principles for his attitude formation.