In case we understand the life space in social behavior, it is necessary for us not only to grasp it non-historically, that is, field-theoretically, functionally and situationally but also to comprehend the historical context of the factors functioning in each situation. By what is called a historical approach is meant the grasp of the necessity which exists between situations. Hence, a situational approach can bear out the structural complex of the factors which is inherent in a given situation, and thus it clarifies the specific and concrete meaning of a certain situation by taking into account the interrelationship of person, society, and culture, and enables us to predict its future behavior pattern.
On the other hand, the historical approach presupposes to functionally understand more than two situations. In this sense, these two approaches depend on each other and require the contemporaneousness of each approach so as to make it productive. In the socio-psychological study of delinquency, it is almost impossible to attribute the state of subjective or objective readiness working in delinquent behavior to one specific situation. Only by referring to the other situations which are related to this particular one, it is possible to define the peculiarity of that situation and its life-historical and social-historical implications. And this will in turn lead to a prediction of its future situational pattern.
Moreover, as far as social psychology is concerned, a historical approach does not necessarily mean a macro-level-approach. In social psychology, it is essential to pay attention to a tri-dimensional balanced structure of person, society and culture when each particular situation is historically analyzed.
From this viewpoint, due consideration must be given to a median-level-approach. In other words, in the social-psychological study of delinquents, we are required to make clear, first of all, the social structure of a community or reform school, in which they live day in day out, and at the same time to elucidate the circular connections of delinquent field, correction field, and delinquent or non-delinquent field throughout their lives.
In this manner, the median-level-approach must be said to be the nucleus of the study. Nonetheless, it has to be backed up by a microscopic approach on, one hand, and, on the other, by a macroscopic one.
It must also be added that we understand a historical type of delinquent behavior not by an ideal type but by a realistic and conditionally developmental type.