Human behavior and the principle of least effort. An introduction to human ecology (see record 1950-00412-000) is the work of a philologist who has surveyed many fields of knowledge in an effort to discover a general principle around which to organize the facts of human behavior. He believes he has found such a principle in the notion of Least Effort. But the reader, faced with the complications of terminology and the multiplication of concepts, seeks in vain for a satisfactory way to minimize the effort of comprehension. G. K. Zipf criticizes briefly the various efforts of psychologists working with the principle of least work or least effort, and goes on to define the concept for his own purposes as the attempt to "minimize the average rate of work-expenditure over time." The principle is generalized to the fullest possible extent. There can be value in establishing relationships between environmental factors and almost any aspect of behavior. Opinions differ about the necessity of writing into the equations of these relationships processes in the individual such as personality factors, drives, conflict, and the ego. It is scientifically acceptable to leave these factors out if accurate predictions can be made without them, but it is not acceptable to introduce them, as Zipf does, without making any contact with the large body of empirical psychological fact about personality and other aspects of the individual with which psychology deals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)