People have an ideal state of superiority that they are trying to achieve, called final fictionalism. People have unique personality styles for approaching their goals. The four types that Adler recognized are ruling, getting, avoiding, and socially useful. Adler suggested that position in birth order makes a big difference. For example, first born children are often have conservative values and accept authority, whereas youngest children sometimes fail to become independent and have an exaggerated view of their own self-worth.
Some people have an inferiority complex, which is a mindset of extreme inferiority.
This results in those people becoming tentative, helpless, and lazy or engaging in overcompensation. Overcompensation involves boasting about successes and exaggerating qualities in order to hide their inferiority from others and themselves. John B. Watson, a leader of the behaviorist movement, disagreed sharply with the psychoanalysts that the internal workings of the human mind should be studied. He believed only observable behavior should be studied, otherwise psychology would not be a true science. Strict behaviorism eventually fell out of favor, because of its refusal to consider internal mental processes as factors that affect behavior.