The following is an excerpt from Chapter Nineteen of Relationship Power

As a practical man I have no desire to write about what is already known. Moreover statistics indicate that the majority of books by unknown authors (like me) have to be “self published” at the author’s expense, and are very likely to lose money. So I didn’t do it for the money. Why then did I write this book?

It was done as a labor of love. I am a self styled philosopher who is a lover of wisdom and therefore a seeker of knowledge and truth. It was truth about relationships (or at least a significant part of truth), which I sought and believed I found, that led me to write this book.

The beginning of the search

Ever since I read How to Win Friends and Influence PeopleI became aware of the need to “make people feel important” when dealing with them. However what I could not find in any book was how to resolve my next problems, which were:

Why was I constantly and uncontrollably thinking derogatory thoughts about others?

Why couldn’t I easily and constantly apply the Dale Carnegie philosophy?

Why was I unable to control my bad habit of often being aggressively disagreeable towards others?

Was there anything I could do to understand the cause and therefore hopefully to learn how to control that undesirable behavior?

My questions addressed the fundamental processes and mysteries of human behavior. That is the area of expertise of Psychology. So I decided to read as much as I could about that subject. Over a period of years and with the help of my friend and mentor Dr. Hoffman, I learned all I could about the field of human behavior as currently explained by psychology.

The first question for which I sought an answer was: Is Psychology a Science? If not a science, what exactly is it ?

The details of what I learned about Science and Psychology can be found in Appendix I of this book.

Basically I discovered that:

• Psychology is not yet a science

• Nobody has articulated any general theory of human behavior that is verifiable or that can predict human behavior accurately.

My next step was to proceed with my own research and attempt to reach my own conclusions.

My research and conclusions

Operating through self analysis and introspection and as much informal experimentation and verification as I could accomplish, I came to the following conclusions:

The first, which I call the Ronald Bibace Theory of Personality states: All human behavior past survival seeks to make individuals feel good about themselves and avoid feeling bad about themselves.

That Theory of Personality may also be referred to as the Ronald Bibace Universal Theory of Human Behavior. That is because it encompasses in a single clear statement the motivation that seems to drives all human activity.

The process began when I discovered what all available evidence indicates is the key ingredient in all good human relationships, which is the need we each have to feel good about ourselves.

I then tested the results anecdotally by means of the Self Test described earlier in this book. The statistical results, though unscientific, were overwhelming positive. Encouraged by the result I continued my research to determine how one could achieve the desired goal, what the obstacles to the goal were and how to overcome those obstacles. The further conclusions were:

• The desire to feel good about ourselves is “one side of a single coin”, the other side is the desire to avoid feeling bad about oneself.

• We each possess within our brain an “illogical limbic Beast” often in conflict with our Logical brain.

• The Beast within us can be very powerful and make us act in ways we disapprove of without us even being aware of what is happening.

• We can learn to control that Beast by means of the Magic switch.

I continued further introspection and anecdotal testing and application of these ideas. The methodology of my research can be found in Appendix II.

The results once more persuaded me that my overall approach appeared valid and led to the writing of this book. For further confirmation that my theories were sufficiently different from conventional wisdom, I listed the differences between the theories in this book and conventional wisdom in the field. That list can be found in Appendix III.

What about predicting behavior?

The essence of any scientific theory is that it can predict behavior. Prediction is defined as: the act of foretelling; also, that which is foretold. [1913 Webster]. I believe that the application of the Ronald Bibace Universal Theory of Human behavior can predict behavior. Some may regard what are referred to here as ‘predictions’ are merely ‘theories’. In any case they do seem to constitute a step forward in knowledge about human behavior.

Predictions or theories?

The following are a number of ‘predictions’ that I suggest can be made based on my theory.   Here they are:

1. Testing bullies, gang members and criminals for the low level of emotional currency received in their youth and thus the potential lack of emotional capital accumulated, will result in a statistically significant lower level of emotional capital for those groups than for the general population.

2. Testing “false profile” criminals for the same emotional capital levels will produce the same results as testing “high or true profile” criminals. A false profile criminal is one whose comfortable or even opulent lifestyle and upbringing may falsely suggest that the criminal falls outside the expected profile of the “boy from the hood” beaten by a drunken father and a crack addict mother.

3. Testing couples who get along well, for their levels of emotional capital, will result in numbers sufficiently different from the “norm” or average of all couples as to be statistically significant. Couples who get along well will be much more likely to have accumulated sufficient emotional capital to sustain them in times of stress.

4. Testing couples who have continual difficulty getting along should result in lower numbers of emotional capital sufficiently different from the “norm” of all couples as to be statistically significant.

5. Applying society approved methods that make anti-social individuals feel good about themselves will result in a statistically significant reduction of anti-social behavior.