THE PERSONALITY SYSTEM AND ITS SUBSTITUTIVE REACTIONS
So far in this book human behavior has been interpreted in terms of
various “tendencies” which such behavior is supposed to manifest.
Suppose we call into question this type of psychological explanation.
What, after all, is a “tendency”? It postulates a relationship between
events, one of which is taken as the terminal situation, and others of
which are treated as relative approximations to the type situation.
Terms like “wishes,” “desires,” “instincts,” “impulses,” “drives,” and
“motives” are all employed in this sense.
For purposes of analysis, tendency interpretations may be divided into
five main classes, depending on the nature of the relationship which
is postulated between the approximate and the terminal situation.
First, personality events may be interpreted as approximations toward,
or realizations of, goals (terminals) which are communicated by the
subject. We may believe a man who tells us that he is running for a
train when we see him dashing along the street toward the railway
station.
Second, personality events may be interpreted as degrees of
approximation to subsequent events which are actually observed. Mr. C’s
solicitude for the health and welfare of the needy ones of the district
may be construed in the light of his subsequent campaign for Congress.
Third, personality events may be treated as degrees of resumption of
terminal situations of a type which have already been observed. Lying
in bed after waking up in the morning, whenever there are difficulties
to cope with, may be interpreted as a reactivation of an earlier
psychological impulse to lie still and be waited on.
Fourth, personality events may be construed as approximations to
“normal” terminal events which are observed for the biological or
cultural category of the individual. Thus heterosexuality may be
postulated as a tendency of a human being, although he consummates no
heterosexual adjustments.
Fifth, personality events may be interpreted in terms of end situations
which are “extreme” for the members of the species or the culture. Thus
the acts of man may be viewed as degrees of approximation to murder,
suicide, and incest.
Each sense in which the tendency conception is used is valid and useful
for certain purposes, and is exposed to characteristic liabilities to
error. Thus if we accept the man’s statement that he is running to
catch a train, we may be wrong; he may be running to the woods beyond
to escape the constable.
The reactive type of statement is an alternative (I should prefer to
say a supplement) to tendency generalizations. When we make a reactive
statement, we specify quite definitely the antecedent-consequent
relation to which reference is made. The specific stimulus-response
description of the events which elicit the knee jerk, or call out an
avoidance reaction to yellow cloth, illustrates what is meant here.
Of course the stimulus-response style of thinking is not nearly as
exhaustive, and the tendency style of thinking is not nearly as
ambiguous in actual application, as might appear at first glance. The
stimulus-response statement of how to elicit the knee jerk which is
usually given may be predictively valid in eight cases out of ten; but
there are “exceptions” which show how wide is the context of factors
which it would be necessary to include in the picture, were it nearly
complete. And when the stimulus-response mode of thinking is extended
from such relatively stable and touchable situations to those which
involve complex central (subjective) events in the sequence, it becomes
in reality a disguised form of tendency interpretation.
The chief possible virtue of tendency conceptions is in introducing
some sort of order in complex phenomena. If the observer tries to
enumerate all the body movements, all the electronic gyrations, all
the nuances of social adjustment which are thinkable in a given
constellation of personality events, he is likely to become lost
in aimless classification, and to prove barren in the invention of
procedures which are calculated to elicit particular aspects of the
whole which may be of high predictive value. The human mind is able to
operate with a very small number of categories with which to introduce
order into events, particularly when these are, for the most part,
still defined qualitatively. Clarity of thought demands economy in the
orienting frames of thought.
How a tendency simplification may lead to fruitful research for
predictively valuable particulars is shown in the case of Freud, in
contrast to Janet. Janet made remarkably clear classifications of
the psychopathological facts as he saw them, and although his terms
and categories were abundant, his work was comparatively sterile of
novel procedures for the modification of human personalities. Even
his classificatory pursuits were hampered by his little-criticized
assumptions. His notion that dreams were passing confusions which
were traceable to diminished psychological tension in sleep deprived
dream material of all significance as classifiable data, and he almost
completely ignored it. Freud, who tended to operate with a few bold
tendency simplifications, brought into the range of observation whole
categories of data which have high predictive value.
When tendency simplifications are used until vast numbers of instances
accumulate of their supposed operation, “subtendencies” (such as
the variations of the manifestations of the Oedipus constellation)
multiply apace until the problems of rendering one tendency consistent
with the expressions of another one carry scientific speculations
into the logical molds of legalism and dogmatic theology. If the
subtendencies are not modified, and long lists of special tendencies
are added, terminological difficulties likewise arise in applying the
unwieldy list. The long inventories of supposed instincts are less at
fault because they imply an unwarranted assurance about the innate
propensities of man than because they are “too numerous to mention,”
and introduce confusion rather than orienting principles in the field
of study.
Although the prediction of one set of tangible reactions from another
is the aim of scientific formulation, this by no means implies, then,
that the reactive style of thinking is the one best calculated to guide
the attention of the thinker to the selection of the most fruitful
hypotheses (“if” predictions). Indeed, especially valuable results have
been secured in the personality field by the pattern of thinking which
views a cross-section of facts as an expression of a few tendencies.
But a reactive style of thinking which operates with a few
simplifications might prove useful in the study of human personality
at the present time, since both the psychoanalytical and the
“itemistic” psychologies have a plethora of particulars with which they
are familiar, but suffer from certain crippling viewpoints inherent in
their early starting-points. Psychoanalysis is well accustomed to the
use of a few orienting terms, but since these are stated in “tendency”
form, there is much lack of emphasis upon rendering the objective marks
of their manifestation precise. The inventory psychologies though
accustomed to precision are accustomed to overlooking the woods for the
trees.
Can the personality be viewed as a system, and can we think of it in a
few terms which can be gradually objectified, and which indicate the
principal varieties of personality manifestation? If the personality
is a true system, interferences which are introduced at various points
ought often to produce substitutive reactions at many remote parts of
the personality. Personalities may be compared from one cross-section
to another, and from one personality to another, by exposing them to
similar interferences, and by examining the substitutive reaction
sequences which emerge.
For the purpose of summing up the personality at any given period, we
may consider it to be a constellation of the following action patterns:
object orientations, adjustive thinking, autistic reveries, somatic
reactions.
The object orientations of the individual are describable as various
degrees of assertiveness, provocativeness, or submissiveness toward
sexual and non-specifically sexual objects in the environment. In
extreme instances the individual may be abusive, insulting, domineering
toward superiors, colleagues, clients, and subordinates in his
profession, and toward his wife or mistress in intimate life; or he
may be cowed in his work and timid in his sexuality; or he may show
extreme variations between his professional and private levels of
behavior. These are the differentiating reactions upon which it is
hoped to throw some light by the examination of the personality system
in its principal manifestations.
Adjustive thinking has to do with the relationship of the individual
to reality. It issues in socially relevant acts, which on the
creative level mean contributions to science, art, administration,
and philosophy. Autistic thinking is highly egocentric, but adjustive
thinking when it dwells upon the relationship of the self to its
surroundings is able to treat the self as an object among objects.
Autistic reveries are non-adjustive to reality. They may be divided
into several classes of which morbid-suicidal, pessimistic,
megalomanic, denunciatory, and persecutory reveries are particularly
common. In exaggerated form they become the most conspicuous feature
of the personality, and various clinical names are used to distinguish
them. Common, and representative, themes are suggested by these
quotations: “I’m a hopeless sinner”; “The world’s going to the dogs”;
“I’m the slickest guy in the world”; “The President is the Judas of
mankind”; “The President is using death-rays on me.” Autistic thinking
flourishes in greater or less abundance in every personality whose
history is taken for any length of time.
The somatic reactions at any given cross-section of the personality are
striped muscle movements and tensions; heart and circulatory reactions;
gastro-intestinal responses; skin adjustments; organic sexual behavior;
respiratory, pupillary, and urogenital adaptations; inner glandular
action on the biochemical balance of the blood; heat production (fever
and certain metabolic alterations not included before); electrical
conductivity; and immunological responses. Under the same environing
conditions individuals show wide variations in physical behavior, and
when these manifestations show certain gross deviations from norms,
though no organic lesion can be shown to be present, the presumption
is that the energy of some mental process has been converted into
somatic form. This notion of hysteria (and what may be called hysteroid
reactions) was classically formulated by Freud. Every individual who
is closely scrutinized shows, from time to time, tendencies to urinate
excessively (though no adequate physical explanation is apparent), to
refrain from passing feces, or to suffer pains in the back or neck.
The comparisons which may be made among personalities on the basis of
the nature of the substitutive reactions which arise when they are
subjected to similar conditions may be illustrated on the gross level
by citing some “experiments” which society has tried. Mr. A is a member
of the city council in one of our large cities. On two occasions,
when he was defeated for re-election, he developed autistic reveries
to such an extent that he was confined in a sanitarium under the care
of a psychiatrist. Thus Mr. A met a deprivation in the sphere of his
orientation to social objects (political activity) by developing
exaggerated autistic reveries (depressive preoccupations). The case of
A may be thrown up against that of Mr. B. When Mr. B lost out in his
campaign for re-election to the legislature, he began to worry about
his health, and although the physicians could find no adequate physical
basis for his trouble, he developed a host of gastro-intestinal
disturbances which incapacitated him from regular professional
life. His substitutive reaction was somatic. Another man, a Mr. C,
was defeated and spent most of his time writing a subsequently
well-recognized book on political theory. His substitutive reaction
was in the sphere of consecutive, theoretical, adjustive thinking.
It will be remembered that one of our driving administrators, J, had
his administrative duties curtailed and immediately took the wife of
another for his mistress showing that his object orientation in the
world of affairs was a substitute for his object orientation in the
sexual field.
From this point of view, we are able to examine the relative function
which political activities and preoccupations play in the personality
integration of the individual. For one it is an alternative to mental
disorder, for another it is an alternative to physical disease, for
another an alternative to aggressive sexuality.
Now it is of interest and importance to observe that the study of
the life-histories of these men showed that their mode of meeting
the world had become organized rather early. The man who developed
somatic symptoms had shown a physical upset after losing a contest for
the presidency of his class in college, and also in adolescent and
preadolescent deprivation situations. Alexander traced the basis for
the personality splitting in J to very early childhood.
I want now to indicate how the prolonged interview throws much light
on personality development, and lends itself to consideration from
the point of view outlined here. If the analyst is “insulted” by
the subject in the course of a day’s interview, the subject may the
next day report somatic trouble, or morbid reveries, or unusual
kindliness toward an annoying person, or a burst of creative work. The
interviewer, taking such facts in juxtaposition to others, may be able
to predict the kind of substitutive reactions which this person is
likely to show in a whole range of social situations, and to predict
retrospectively the form of reaction which was manifested at different
levels of development. The trained psychoanalyst watches the subject
like a hawk for clues of this kind; the possibility of removing his
“hunches” from the realm of art into the area of dependable knowledge
depends upon the objectification of his observations, and upon the
development of specifically experimental methods.
A method by which some certainty is to be introduced in personality
records is by testing the coincidence of observations taken through
time by observers who occupy specified positions in relation to the
subject. Very important applications of this procedure have been made
to child study by several child psychologists, more particularly by
Florence Goodenough and Dorothy Thomas. A set of categories were set
up to describe various acts, such as “smiling,” “physical contact with
other child,” and “physical contact with object.” The definiteness of
each term was then tested by having two independent observers make the
same number of observations at fixed intervals during a prescribed
period. The results showed which categories were ambiguous, and
which categories were sufficiently clear to justify their inclusion
in behavior studies. It was discovered, for example, that “smiling”
behavior showed much less definiteness than “physical contact with
another child.” This procedure makes it possible to measure the error
of a measuring procedure and is strictly comparable to the calibrating
process common to the physical sciences in determining the relative
reliability of measurements made by a particular instrument. The social
scientist is compelled to rely on the use of his eyes, and the problem
is to standardize the use so that objective results can be secured.[66]
Such methods of devising and testing categories for the observation
of behavior need urgently to be developed for the study of courtroom,
legislative, committee, mass meeting, and other types of behavior in
situations of immediate political interest. It is possible to record
the differential reactions of participants, and to distinguish that
which is inherent in the rôle performed (chairman), and that which is
the individualized penumbra of the act (individual gesture).
These objective categories and recording practices can be extended
to the study of behavior wherever dominating and submissive behavior
is found. The gap between the studies of children and the study of
personalities in complicated adult political situations can be filled
in with the idea of finding reliable criteria of the stability of
political reactions. Some early studies have been made which suggest
that types of dominating behavior are isolable at very early ages.
Charlotte Bühler detected children who dominated through pressure of
activity, despotic behavior, and “leadership” behavior. Her monograph
reproduces photographic illustrations of what she means by the terms
employed.[67] An outgrowth of her work is the experimental study by
Marjorie Walker at the Minneapolis Institute of Child Welfare (under
direction of Anderson and Goodenough). An observational study by
Mildred Parten at the same place showed that in uncontrolled play
activities the dominating or submissive rôles might be strikingly
monopolized by individual children.[68] By methods which are less
objective but much better than simple impressionism, there have been
a number of “political types” observed in later development. Karl
Reininger kept a careful record of the behavior of his pre-puberty
schoolboys, and brought out very clearly the functional distinction
between the “leader” and the “specialist.” The specialist might
temporarily guide the group in some activity for which he was
particularly competent, but the leader kept him within limits and
reassumed the direction as soon as the special activity was over.
Reininger has many shrewd observations to offer about the bearing of
what he saw on the whole range of social psychological theory, and
his monograph is a beautiful example of how a circumscribed empirical
study can be given meaning and distinction against a broad theoretical
background.[69] Hildegard Hetzer watched the spontaneous groupings
of children in play groups, and shrewdly distinguished organizers,
specialists, and social leaders from one another.[70]
At a still later level is the study which Viktor Winkler-Hermaden
made of the psychology of youth-movement leaders. These leaders are
recruited from youths who are not much ahead of their groups in age,
and in a well-balanced and penetrating chapter he contrasted the
“ruler,” “teacher,” and “apostle.”[71]
Special studies of dominating and submissive types in various
situations ought to be made with some reference to the reaction-type
classifications for the age period which are made by competent
students. Since puberty-adolescence is of so much importance, the
categories which are proposed in the literature ought to be examined
by the special investigator. H. Hoffman gives a modified list of the
puberty types described by Spranger and Croner in one section of
his general book on character formation.[72] Suggestions on various
distortions of development which lie behind certain forms of dominating
and submissive behavior are to be found in August Aichhorn’s lectures
on _Verwahrloste Jugend_.[73] This is the most valuable book to a
student of youth which has yet been explicitly devoted to the subject
by an analyst. Aichhorn reports in his eighth lecture the results of an
extremely important experiment which he made with the most aggressive
and uncontrollable boys under his supervision (he has served for many
years as the head of a home for homeless boys). The whole group was
put together, and the staff members were instructed never to interfere
with them, short of stopping permanent injury. These “hard-boiled”
youths broke up the furniture, mauled one another, and wore out several
attendants before they gradually tamed down. After having learned that
they could not taunt the environment into punishing them, and into
justifying their own suspicions of it, they went through a process
of character re-education. The behavior of the group is reported in
graphical form, and representative instances of what occurred are
recited in the text of the lecture. Several specific genetic hypotheses
are set up to explain particular kinds of behavior on the part of the
boys with whom Aichhorn has had intimate touch.[74]
Will we be able to predict from objective studies made of preadolescent
boys who dominate their play groups that one set of them will stand
a high chance of dominating play and work groups in adolescence? Can
we thus isolate rather stable developmental sequences for various
trait constellations which are of direct importance to the student of
politics? Can we achieve a composite picture for a given culture by
studying overlapping age groups for a two-year period? Certainly the
way is becoming clearer to an effective relationship between political
science and the disciplines associated with the study of the growing
individual.
One of the difficulties which lie in the path of successful
collaboration with psychiatrists and child psychologists is that the
political scientists have not themselves made it entirely clear just
what the adult differentials are whose genetic history they would like
to understand. What are the questions about the specifically political
life of the individual which the political scientist would like to
have included in any master-inventory of possible facts about the
intensively studied individual?
The following classification of political attitudes is intended to
have suggestive value rather than formal completeness. The first
section of this classification refers to the political preferences
and expectations or forebodings of the individual investigated.
Some individuals cherish a fraternal and some a paternal ideal. The
anarchist, socialist, and democrat talk the language of equality among
a family of brothers; the monarchists preserve a father.[75] A series
of other ideological distinctions are perhaps sufficiently clear from
the terms used.
CLASSIFICATION OF POLITICAL ATTITUDES
SECTION A. POLITICAL VIEWS
I. Preferences
Paternal ideal
Fraternal ideal
Strong central authority
Weak central authority
Revolutionary ideal
Counter-revolutionary or reactionary ideal
Cataclysmic change
Evolutionary change
Indulgent toward coercion, secrecy, ruthlessness
Insistent upon persuasion, openness, scrupulousness
Emancipatory, defensive, expansive ideal for group
World-unity ideal
II. Expectations and forebodings
Small political change can have great results
Small political change can have some results of value
Little of value can be accomplished by politics
Revolutionary changes imminent, eventual, contingent
It is probably in relation to political practices, as distinguished
from political views, that the intensive study of the individual
has the most to offer. I have included a list of questions in
Appendix B which are intended to suggest the sort of thing which
is directly pertinent to the interest of the political scientist
in this regard. How has the individual acted as a subordinate when
confronted by superiors of various kinds (in the army, in school, in
fraternity organizations, in business, in party clubs, in propaganda
organizations, in administrative hierarchies, and the like)? How has
the individual acted as a superior when confronted by subordinates
of various kinds? Besides considering the behavior of the person as
subordinate or superior, we may inquire into his attitude toward
individuals who have not been members of his various organizations,
but who have been possible helpers or obstacles. Thus he may have
approached strangers for money, or sought to win diplomatic support
from another organization against a common menace. His tactics may be
classified according to the means employed and the measure of success
attained. Special attention may likewise be devoted to the behavior
of the individual, not toward particular persons, but toward publics,
which are necessarily anonymous. Summarizing:
SECTION B. POLITICAL PRACTICES
I. As subordinate
Confronted by superiors who are
A. Strong, brutal
B. Masterful but rather objective
C. Weak
Reaction (conscious)
1. Does not assume a friendly mask (exterior) even though
he sees it would be an advantage (seeks to escape, becomes
stubborn, surly, assaultive, joins anti-authoritation acts
engaged in by associates, continues to contemplate revenge long
after)
2. Does not see or press up own individual advantage because
of attachment or intimidation (deference without conscious
hostility, pronounced affection, intimidated sacrifice of
associates to curry favor, overgratitude)
3. Combines friendly mask with conscious acts of hostility
(plays up qualities admired by chief, whether imitative of
chief or expressive of the chief’s repressions)
4. Irrational elements in adaptation at a minimum
II. As authority
Confronted by subordinates who are
A. Strong, hostile, dangerous rivals
B. Strong and objective
C. Weak
Reaction
1. Does not refrain from taking up a hostile front even when it
is recognized to be inappropriate
2. Takes apparently friendly line while pursuing hostile
purposes
3. Does not take strong-enough measures to secure efficiency or
respect (too indulgent of mirrors of self or of those who work
out frustrations)
4. Objective (inflicts narcissistic wound when advantageous,
reassures when useful, develops abilities of subordinates,
thwarts when dangerous)
III. In dealing with possible helper or obstructor who is outside
organization (most effective tactics chosen and range of tactics)
Appeals to logical standards
Appeals to sentiment
Non-violent and violent coercion
Inducement (tangible advantage)
IV. In dealing with public
Types of tactics chosen, success
Forms of expression, thought, and interest may be singled out for
special consideration. What is intended here is sufficiently apparent
from the captions: