In consequence of this lesser liability to repression, any failure in development as regards the aspects in question will usually manifest itself in a positive rather than in a negative form. In so far as the failure is of the nature of a simple arrest or regression as distinct from a displacement (cases of which will, in pursuance of our programme, be considered later), its manifestations consist therefore, for the most part, of certain characteristics proper to an earlier stage of development, but which should have been outgrown in the process of normal adaptation to adult life, and which, when persisting in an individual of mature years, constitute, as has been sufficiently shown in the earlier chapters, a serious obstacle to the full enjoyment of a useful and successful life. The attitude of the individual towards his life and work may nevertheless be affected in a certain number of ways which are less obvious in nature and which may therefore well be mentioned here, especially as a considerable degree of light has been thrown upon them by recent psycho-analytic research. [Sidenote: The influence of heredity] In the first place it must be recognised that the degree of independence developed by an individual and the amount of energy and self-reliance with which he faces the difficulties of life, is apt to depend to a very considerable extent upon the degree of development of these very same qualities in one or both of the parents. No doubt, so far as concerns direct inheritance of mental characteristics, there is a tendency, here as elsewhere, for the child to develop qualities similar to those of his parents. This inherited tendency may moreover be reinforced as the result of precept and imitation, the child tending naturally to follow his parents' instruction and example; especially in so far as he admires and envies them or (as almost inevitably happens to a greater or less extent) so far as he--consciously or unconsciously--comes to regard them as ideals to which he may himself hope one day to approximate. [Sidenote: Psychological influences may cause strong] [Sidenote: parents to have weak children or vice versa]