factors that direct activity, since this word rather implies foresight
of the goal, which demands the intellectual ability to imagine a
result not present to the senses. This highest level of inner control
over one's behavior had best be left for consideration in later
chapters on imagination and will. There are two levels below this. In
the middle level, the individual has an inner steer towards a certain
result, though without conscious foresight of that result. At the
lowest level, we can scarcely speak of the individual as being
directed towards any precise goal, but still his {72} internal state
is such as to predispose him for certain reactions and against other
reactions.
The lowest level, that of organic states, is typified by fatigue. The
middle level, that of internal steer, is typified by the hunting dog,
striving towards his prey, though not, as far as we know, having any
clear idea of the result at which his actions are aimed. The highest
level, that of conscious purpose, is represented by any one who knows
exactly what he wants and means to get.
No single word in the language stands out clearly as the proper term
to cover all three levels. "Motives" would serve, if we agree at the
outset that a motive is not always clearly conscious or definite, but
may be any inner state or force that drives the individual in a given
direction. "Wants" or "needs" might be substituted for "motives", and
would apply better than "motives" to the lowest of our three levels.
"Tendencies", or "tendencies to reaction", carries about the right
meaning, namely that the individual, because of his internal state,
tends towards a certain action. "Determining tendencies" (perhaps
better, "directive tendencies") is a term that has been much used in
psychology, with the meaning that the inner tendency determines or
directs behavior. Much used also are "adjustment" and "mental set",
the idea here being to liken the individual to an adjustable machine
which can be set for one or another sort of work. Often "preparation"
or "readiness for action" is the best expression.
Organic States that Influence Behavior
Beginning at the lowest of our three levels, let us observe not even
the simplest animal, but a single muscle. If we give a muscle electric
shocks as stimuli, it responds to each shock by contracting. To a weak
stimulus, the response is weak; {73} to a strong stimulus, strong. But
now let us apply a long series of equal shocks of moderate intensity,
one shock every two seconds. Then we shall get from the muscle what is
called a "fatigue curve", the response growing weaker and weaker, in
spite of the continued equality of the stimuli. How is such a thing
possible? Evidently because the inner condition of the muscle has been
altered by its long-continued activity. The muscle has become
fatigued, and physiologists, examining into the nature of this
fatigue, have found the muscle to be poisoned by "fatigue substances"
produced by its own activity. Muscular contraction depends on the
oxidation of fuel, and produces oxidized wastes, of which carbon
dioxide is the best known; and these waste products, being produced in
continued strong activity faster than the blood can carry them away,
accumulate in the muscle and partially poison it. The "organic state"
is here definitely chemical.
[Illustration: Fig. 22.--Fatigue curve of a muscle. The vertical lines
record a series of successive contractions of the muscle, and the
height of each line indicates the force of the contraction. Read from
left to right.]
This simple experiment is worth thinking over. Each muscular
contraction is a response to an electric stimulus, but the force of
the contraction is determined in part by the internal state of the
muscle. Fatigue is an _inner_ state of the muscle that _persists_ for
a time (till the blood carries away the wastes), and that
_predisposes_ the muscle _towards_ a certain kind of response, namely,
weak response. Thus the three characteristics of purposive behavior
that seemed so {74} difficult to fit into the scheme of stimulus and
response are all here in a rudimentary form.
But notice this fact also: the inner condition of _muscular fatigue is
itself a response_ to external stimuli. It is part and parcel of the
total muscular response to a stimulus. The total response includes an
internal change of condition, which, persisting for a time, is a
factor in determining how the muscle shall respond to later stimuli.
These facts afford, in a simple form, the solution of our problem.
Before leaving the muscle, let us take note of one further fact. If
you examine the "fatigue curve" closely, you will see that a perfectly
fresh muscle _gains_ in strength from its first few responses. It is
said to "warm up" through exercise; and the inner nature of this
warming up has been found to consist in a moderate accumulation of the
same products which, in greater accumulation, produce fatigue. The
warmed-up condition is then another instance of an "organic state".
There will be more to say of "organic states" when we come to the
emotions. For the present, do not the facts already cited compel us to
enlarge somewhat the conception of a reaction as we left it in the
preceding chapters? Besides the external response, there is often an
internal response to a stimulus, a changed organic state that persists
for a time and has an influence on behavior. The motor response to a
given stimulus is determined partly by that stimulus, and partly by
the organic state left behind by just preceding stimuli. You cannot
predict what response will be made to a given stimulus, unless you
know the organic state present when the stimulus arrives.
Preparation for Action
At the second level, the inner state that partly governs the response
is more neural than chemical, and is directed {75} specifically
towards a certain end-result. As good an instance as any is afforded
by the "simple reaction", described in an earlier chapter. If the
subject in that experiment is to raise his finger promptly from the
telegraph key on hearing a given sound, he must be _prepared_, for there
is no permanent reflex connection between this particular stimulus and
this particular response. You tell your subject to be ready, whereupon
he places his finger on the key, and gets all ready for this
particular stimulus and response. The response is determined as much
by his inner state of readiness as by the stimulus. Indeed, he
sometimes gets too ready, and makes the response before he receives
the stimulus.
The preparation in such a case is more specific, less a general
organic state, than in the previous cases of fatigue, etc. It is
confined for the most part to the nervous system and the sense organ
and muscles that are to be used. In an untrained subject, it includes
a conscious purpose to make the finger movement quickly when the sound
is heard; but as he becomes used to the experiment he loses clear
consciousness of what he is to do. He is, as a matter of fact, ready
for a specific reaction, but all he is conscious of is a general
readiness. He feels ready for what is coming, but does not have to
keep his mind on it, since the specific neural adjustment has become
automatic with continued use.
Examples of internal states of preparedness might be multiplied
indefinitely, and it may be worth while to consider a few more, and
try out on them the formula that has already been suggested, to the
effect that preparation is an inner adjustment for a specific
reaction, set up in response to some stimulus (like the "Ready!"
signal), persisting for a time, and predisposing the individual to
make the specified reaction whenever a suitable stimulus for it
arrives. The preparation may or may not be conscious. It might be
named "orientation" or "steer", with the meaning that {76} the
individual is headed or directed towards a certain end-result. It is
like so setting the rudder of a sailboat that, when a puff of wind
arrives, the boat will respond by turning to the one side.
The runner on the mark, "set" for a quick start, is a perfect picture
of preparedness. Here the onlookers can see the preparation, since the
ready signal has aroused visible muscular response in the shape of a
crouching position. It is not simple crouching, but "crouching to
spring." But if the onlookers imagine themselves to be seeing the
whole preparation--if they suppose the preparation to be simply an
affair of the muscles--they overlook the established fact that the
muscles are held in action by the nerve centers, and would relax
instantly if the nerve centers should stop acting. The preparation is
neural more than muscular. The neural apparatus is set to respond to
the pistol shot by strong discharge into the leg muscles.
What the animal psychologists have called the _delayed reaction_ is a
very instructive example of preparation. An animal is placed before a
row of three food boxes, all looking just alike, two of them, however,
being locked while the third is unlocked. Sometimes one is unlocked
and sometimes another, and the one which at any time is unlocked is
designated by an electric bulb lighted above the door. The animal is
first trained to go to whichever box shows the light; he always gets
food from the lighted box. When he has thoroughly learned to respond
in this way, the "delayed reaction" experiment begins. Now the animal
is held while the light is burning, and only released a certain time
after the light is out, and the question is whether, after this delay,
he will still follow the signal and go straight to the right door. It
is found that he will do so, provided the delay is not too long--how
long depends on the animal. With rats the delay cannot exceed 5
seconds, with cats it can reach 18 {77} seconds, with dogs 1 to 3
minutes, with children (in a similar test) it increased from 20
seconds at the age of fifteen months to 50 seconds at two and a half
years, and to 20 minutes or more at the age of five years.
Rats and cats, in this experiment, need to keep their heads or bodies
turned towards the designated box during the interval between the
signal and the release; or else lose their orientation. Some dogs,
however, and children generally, can shift their position and still,
through some inner orientation, react correctly when released. The
point of the experiment is that the light signal puts the animal or
child into a state tending towards a certain result, and that, when
that result is not immediately attainable, the state persists for a
time and produces results a little later.
Preparatory Reactions
In the delayed reaction, the inner orientation does little during the
interval before the final reaction, except to maintain a readiness for
making that reaction; but often "preparatory reactions" occur before
the final reaction can take place. Suppose you whistle for your dog
when he is some distance off and out of sight. You give one loud
whistle and wait. Presently the dog swings around the corner and
dashes up to you. Now, what kept the dog running towards you after
your whistle had ceased and before he caught sight of you? Evidently
he was directed towards the end-result of reaching you, and this
directing tendency governed his movements during the process. He made
many preparatory reactions on the way to his final reaction of jumping
up on you; and these preparatory reactions were, of course, responses
to the particular trees he had to dodge, and the ditches he had to
jump; but they were at the same time governed by the inner state set
up in him by your {78 } whistle. This inner state favored certain
reactions and excluded others that would have occurred if the dog had
not been in a hurry. He passed another dog on the way without so much
as saying, "How d'ye do?" And he responded to a fence by leaping over
it, instead of trotting around through the gate. That is to say, the
inner state set up in him by your whistle _facilitated_ reactions that
were preparatory to the final reaction, and _inhibited_ reactions that
were not in that line.
A hunting dog following the trail furnishes another good example of a
directive tendency. Give a bloodhound the scent of a particular man
and he will follow that scent persistently, not turning aside to
respond to stimuli that would otherwise influence him, nor even to
follow the scent of another man. Evidently an inner neural adjustment
has been set up in him predisposing him to respond to a certain
stimulus and not to others.
The homing of the carrier pigeon is a good instance of activity
directed in part by an inner adjustment, since, when released at a
distance from home, he is evidently "set" to get back home, and often
persists and reaches home after a very long flight. Or, take the
parallel case of the terns, birds which nest on a little island not
far from Key West. Of ten birds taken from their nests and transported
on shipboard out into the middle of the Gulf of Mexico and released
500 miles from home, eight reappeared at their nests after intervals
varying from four to eight days. How they found their way over the
open sea remains a mystery, but one thing is clear: they persisted in
a certain line of activity until a certain end-result was reached, on
which this line of activity ceased.
One characteristic of tendencies that has not previously been
mentioned comes out in this example. When a tendency has been aroused,
the animal (or man) is tense and {79} restless till the goal has been
reached, and then quiets down. The animal may or may not be clearly
conscious of the goal, but he is restless till the goal has been
attained, and his restlessness then ceases. In terms of behavior, what
we see is a series of actions which continues till a certain result
has been reached and then gives way to rest. Introspectively, what we
feel (apart from any clear mental picture of the goal) is a
restlessness and tenseness during a series of acts, giving way to
relief and satisfaction when a certain result has been reached.
A hungry or thirsty animal is restless; he _seeks_ food or drink,
which means that he is making a series of preparatory reactions, which
continues till food or drink has been found, and terminates in the
end-reaction of eating or drinking.
What the Preparatory Reactions Accomplish
The behavior of a hungry or thirsty individual is worth some further
attention--for it is the business of psychology to interest itself in
the most commonplace happenings, to wonder about things that usually
pass for matters of course, and, if not to find "sermons in stones",
to derive high instruction from very lowly forms of animal behavior.
Now, what is hunger? Fundamentally an organic state; next, a sensation
produced by this organic state acting on the internal sensory nerves,
and through them arousing in the nerve centers an adjustment or
tendency towards a certain end-reaction, namely, eating. Now, I ask
you, if hunger is a stimulus to the eating movements, why does not the
hungry individual eat at once? Why, at least, does he not go through
the motions of eating? You say, because he has nothing to eat. But he
could still make the movements; there is no physical impossibility in
his making chewing and swallowing movements without the presence of
food. {80} Speaking rationally, you perhaps say that he does not make
these movements because he sees they would be of no use without food
to chew; but this explanation would scarcely apply to the lower sorts
of animal, and besides, you do not have to check your jaws by any such
rational considerations. They simply do not start to chew except when
food is in the mouth. Well, then, you say, chewing is a response to
the presence of food in the mouth; and taking food into the mouth is a
response to the stimulus of actually present food. The response does
not occur unless the stimulus is present; that is simple.
Not quite so simple, either. Unless one is hungry, the presence of
food does not arouse the feeding reaction; and even food actually
present in the mouth will be spewed out instead of chewed and
swallowed, if one is already satiated. Try to get a baby to take more
from his bottle than he wants! Eating only occurs when one is _both_
hungry and in the presence of food. Two conditions must be met: the
internal state of hunger and the external stimulus of food; then, and
then only, will the eating reaction take place.
Hunger, though a tendency to eat, does not arouse the eating movements
while the stimulus of present food is lacking; but, for all that,
hunger does arouse immediate action. It typically arouses the
preparatory reactions of seeking food. Any such reaction is at the
same time a response to some actually present stimulus. Just as the
dog coming at your whistle was responding every instant of his
progress to some particular object--leaping fences, dodging trees--so
the dog aroused to action by the pangs of hunger begins at once to
respond to present objects. He does not start to eat them, because
they are not the sort of stimuli that produce this response, but he
responds by dodging them or finding his way by them in his quest for
food. The responses that the hungry dog makes to other objects than
{81} food are preparatory reactions, and these, if successful, put the
dog in the presence of food. That is to say, the _preparatory
reactions provide the stimulus that is necessary to arouse the
end-reaction_. They bring the individual to the stimulus, or the
stimulus to the individual.
[Illustration: Fig. 23.--A stimulus arouses the tendency towards the
end-reaction, R, but (as indicated by the dotted line), T is not by
itself sufficient to arouse R; but T can and does arouse P, a
preparatory reaction, and P (or some external result directly produced
by P), coöperating with T, gives rise to R.]
What we can say about the modus operandi of hunger, then, amounts to
this: Hunger is an inner state and adjustment predisposing the
individual to make eating movements in response to the stimulus of
present food; in the absence of food, hunger predisposes to such other
responses to various stimuli as will bring the food stimulus into
play, and thus complete the conditions necessary for the eating
reaction. In general, _an aroused reaction-tendency predisposes the
individual to make a certain end-reaction when the proper stimulus for
that reaction is present; otherwise, it predisposes him to respond to
other stimuli, which are present, by preparatory reactions that
eventually bring to bear on the individual the stimulus required to
arouse the end-reaction_.
Let us apply our formula to one more simple case. While reading in the
late afternoon, I find the daylight growing dim, rise and turn on the
electric light. The stimulus that sets this series of acts going is
the dim light; the first, inner response is a _need_ for light. This
need tends, by force of habit, to make me turn the button, but it does
not make me execute this movement in the air. I only make this
movement when the button is in reaching distance. My first {82}
reaction, rising from my chair, is preparatory and brings the button
close enough to act as a stimulus for the hand reaction. The button
within reach is not by itself sufficient to arouse the turning
reaction, nor is the need for light alone sufficient. The two
conditions must be present together, and the preparatory reaction is
such that, given the need, the other condition will be met and the
reaction then aroused.
What a Tendency Is, in Terms of Nerve Action
Very little need be added to our neural conception of a reaction in
order to get a satisfactory conception of a tendency to reaction.
Principally, we must add this fact, that a nerve center aroused to
activity does not always discharge instantly and completely into the
muscles, or into some other center, and come to rest itself. It does
so, usually, in the case of a reflex, and in other momentary
reactions; as when A makes you think of B, and B at once of C, and so
on, each thought occupying you but a moment. But a tendency means the
arousing of a nerve center under conditions which do not allow that
center to discharge at once. The center remains in a condition of
tension; energy is dammed up there, unable to find an outlet.
We have already seen what the conditions are that cause this damming
up of energy. The center that is aroused tends to arouse in turn some
lower motor center, but by itself does not have complete control over
that lower center, since the lower center also requires a certain
external stimulus in order to arouse it to the discharging point.
Until the proper external stimulus arrives to complete the arousal of
the lower center, the higher center cannot discharge its energy.
When there is an "organic state" present, such as hunger or thirst,
this may act as a persistent stimulus to the sensory nerves and
through them to the higher center in {83} question; and then we can
readily understand how it is that the center remains active until the
organic state is relieved. But where there is no such persistent
organic stimulus, as there can scarcely be in the case of the
bloodhound or of the man hurrying to a train or seeking in the crowd
for a friend, there we have to suppose that a center, once aroused to
activity and prevented from complete discharge, remains active by
virtue of energy dammed up in itself. There is pretty good
physiological evidence that this sort of thing is a fundamental fact;
for there are certain rhythmical reflexes, like scratching or
stepping, that, when started going by a momentary sensory stimulus,
keep it up for a time after the stimulus has ceased. There seems to be
no doubt that a nerve center, once aroused, may stay aroused for a
time.
The "dammed-up energy" here is not to be confused with the "stored
energy" spoken of under the head of reactions. We said, in that
connection, that a stimulus released energy stored in the organism.
That, however, was _potential_ energy, dormant within the organism
till aroused; but what we have here in mind is active or _kinetic_
energy. Stored energy is like that of coal in the bin; dammed-up
energy is like that of steam in the boiler.
Dammed-up energy in the nerve centers accounts for the persistence of
a tendency to reaction after the stimulus has ceased. It accounts for
the "delayed reaction" and similar cases. But how shall we account for
preparatory reactions? We have a nerve center in an active state,
tending to discharge into a certain lower motor center, but unable to
do so because a peripheral stimulus is necessary, in addition, in
order to arouse this lower center. Then we find the higher center
discharging into _other_ lower centers, and so giving rise to
preparatory reactions. More precisely, what we find is that the higher
center facilitates the response {84} of certain lower centers to their
proper peripheral stimuli, while inhibiting the response of other
lower centers to their appropriate stimuli. This is the same sort of
thing that we observe in all control exerted by a higher center over a
lower. It means that the higher center, besides its main line of
connection with the lower center that will give the end-reaction, has
minor lines of connection with certain other lower centers; some of
these centers it facilitates and others it inhibits. These connections
between the main and the subordinate centers may have been established
by inborn nature, or by previous training, as will be explained in
later chapters.
The action of the main center on the subordinate centers concerned in
executing preparatory reactions does not relieve the tension in the
main center. The dammed-up energy stays there till the proper stimulus
is procured for arousing the end-reaction, and then escapes through
its main channel of discharge, and the main center then finally comes
to rest.
It may fairly be urged that no violence has been done to the general
conception of a reaction by these additions, and also that with the
additions the notion of a reaction has room for tendencies or inner
adjustments. So that we conclude that stimulus-response psychology is
adequate to the job, and will do justice to all forms of human
behavior. It has a place for sensations, perceptions and thoughts, as
we saw in the preceding chapter, and it has a place also for purposes,
desires and motives generally.
Motives
In the present chapter, desirous of "keeping close to the ground", we
have said little of distinctively human motives. That will come later.
In general, a motive is a tendency towards a certain end-result or
end-reaction, a tendency which is itself aroused by some stimulus, and
which {85} persists for a time because its end-reaction is not at once
made. The end-reaction is not made at once because it can only be
aroused by an appropriate stimulus, acting in conjunction with the
motive. But the motive, persisting in its inner activity, facilitates
reactions to certain stimuli and inhibits others. The reactions it
facilitates are preparatory to the end-reaction, in that they provide
the necessary conditions for that reaction to occur, which means that
they bring to bear on the individual the necessary stimulus which can
arouse the end-reaction. The restlessness that characterizes an
individual driven by an inner motive gives way to rest and
satisfaction when the end-result is reached.
Motives range from the primitive or primal, like hunger, to the very
advanced, such as zeal for a cause. They range from the momentary,
illustrated by the need for more light in reading, to the great
permanent forces of life, like _amour propre_ and _esprit de corps_.
But the permanent motives are not always active; they sleep and are
awakened again by appropriate stimuli.
In everyday speech we are apt to use the words "motive" and "reason"
interchangeably, as in asking some one what his "motive", or what his
"reason" is for doing so and so. A motive, however, is not necessarily
a reason, nor a reason a motive. A reason is thought-out and
conscious, which a motive need not be. On the other hand, a reason
does not become a motive unless it takes hold of us and arouses a
genuine tendency towards the planned result. You may prove to me,
logically, the desirability of a course of action, but your reasons do
not necessarily make me desire it. You can give a child excellent
reasons for studying his lessons, but you have to stir some real
motive of child life in order to get action. In the highest type of
conduct, to be sure, motive and reason pull together, reason showing
the way to the goal at which motive is aimed.
{86}
EXERCISES
1. Complete the following outline of the chapter, by filling in
main headings to fit the subordinate headings that are given below:
A. _________
(1) It keeps close to the facts.
(2) It has room for introspective as well as behavior study.
(3) It can be applied practically.
B. _________
(1) A stimulus is typically external, a purpose internal.
(2) A stimulus typically acts for a moment, a purpose persists
for some time.
(3) A stimulus is not directed towards a result, a purpose is
so directed.
C. _________
(1) Organic or physiological states that predispose towards
certain forms of behavior.
(2) Inner adjustments towards certain results, without
foresight of the results.
(3) Conscious purpose.
D. _________
(1) They are aroused by stimuli.
(2) They persist for a time.
(3) They influence the response to other stimuli.
E. _________
(1) They are neural rather than chemical.
(2) They amount to a preparation or readiness for a certain
response.
(3) They persist sometimes for only a few seconds, sometimes
for many minutes at least.
F. _________
(1) A whole series of acts may be set going by a single stimulus.
(2) The series comes to an end when a certain result has been
reached.
(3) Each act in the series is a response to some particular
stimulus, and yet would not be aroused by that stimulus
except for the active adjustment towards the end-result.
{87}
(4) The end-result cannot be reached until a particular
stimulus helps the adjustment to arouse the end-reaction.
(5) The preliminary acts in the series bring the required
stimulus that can give the end-reaction.
G. _______
(1) It may be kept active by a continuing peripheral stimulus.
(2) It may be unable to discharge fully because its main path of
discharge is blocked.
H. _______
(1) The main center has minor connections with other
centers, in addition to its main path of discharge.
(2) The persisting activity of the main center influences
other centers by way of facilitation and inhibition.
2. Fill in the blanks in the following paragraph:
"A motive or (1) is a reaction that has not yet come off. It has
been (2) by some stimulus, and it tends towards a certain (3),
which however it is unable of itself to produce, but requires the
assistance of another (4) which is not yet present. The motive
gives rise to (5) responses, which, if (6), finally bring the
required (7), and this, combined with the (8) arouses the (9), and
so brings the whole (10) of acts to a close."
3. Cite cases illustrating the importance of preparatory adjustment
(a) for securing prompt reaction, and
(b) for securing keen observation.
4. Cite a case where some need or desire gives rise to a series of
preparatory reactions.
5. Cite a case where a need or desire leads to the omission
(inhibition) of acts that would otherwise have occurred.
6. What is meant by the last sentence in the chapter?
7. An experiment on the "delayed reaction". Take two sheets of
paper, and on each write the letters A, B, C, D, E, and F,
scattering them irregularly over the sheet. The task, in general,
is now to take aim at one of the letters, while your hand, holding
a pencil, is raised to the side of your head, and then to close the
eyes and strike at the letter aimed for. First aim at A, and mark
the point hit with an a, then the same with B, and so on. With the
first sheet, strike as soon as you have got your aim and closed
your eyes; but with the second sheet, aim, close your eyes, and
count ten slowly before striking, keeping the eyes closed till the
stroke has been made. Two sorts of observation should now be made:
first, introspective--record at once what you can of the way you
kept your aim during the delay. Second, objective--measure the
errors, and determine how much the delay affected your aim. What
conclusions can you draw from the experiment?
{88}
REFERENCES
On the "delayed reaction", see Walter S. Hunter, "The Delayed Reaction
in Animals and Children", _Behavior Monographs_, No. 6, 1913. A brief
summary of this work can also be found in Hunter's _General
Psychology_, 1919, pp. 31-33.
On the homing of pigeons and terns, see Watson and Lashley, _An
Historical and Experimental Study of Homing_, published by the
Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1915.
Interesting examples of changed organic states affecting the behavior
of unicellular animals are given by Jennings in his _Behavior of the
Lower Organisms_, 1906, and by Margaret F. Washburn in _The Animal
Mind_, 2nd edition, 1917, pp. 246-257.
{89}
CHAPTER V
NATIVE AND ACQUIRED TRAITS
SOME RESPONSES ARE PROVIDED BY NATURE, WHILE
OTHERS HAVE TO BE LEARNED BY EXPERIENCE
John Doe is a strongly built man, over six feet high, with big bones
and muscles, erect, vigorous, with plenty of color in his face,
dark-haired, blue-eyed, clean-shaven, with a scar on his cheek, broad
face and large ears. He is easy-going, even-tempered, fond of children
and also of women, rather slangy and even profane in his talk, has a
deep, sonorous voice and can carry the bass in a chorus. He is handy
with tools, can drive or repair an automobile, is a fairly good carpet
salesman, but much prefers out-of-door work. Rather free in spending
his money, he has never run into debt except on one occasion, which
turned out badly for him. Which of these traits of John Doe are native
and which are acquired? How far are his physical, mental and moral
characteristics the result of his "original nature" and how far have
they been ingrained in him or imposed upon him by his training and
environment?
The distinction between native and acquired is clearest in the field
of anatomy. Hair color and eye color are evidently native, and so, in
the main, is the size of the body, though undoubtedly growth may be
stunted by poor nutrition, and the individual fail to reach his
"natural" height and weight. On the other hand, scars, tan, and the
after-effects of disease or injury, are evidently acquired. Of
movements, the native character of the reflexes has already been
noted, and it is clear that skill in handling tools or {90} managing
the voice is learned, though the individual may have a natural
aptitude for these performances. Temperament and emotional traits we
usually think of as belonging to a man's "nature", though we have to
admit that a naturally cheerful disposition may be soured by ill
treatment. On the other hand, while we reckon habits, such as
profanity, or free spending, or an erect carriage, as belonging with
the acquired traits, we know that some natures are prone to certain
habits, and other natures to other habits. Thus the effects of
"nature" and "experience" are almost inextricably interwoven in the
behavior of an adult person.
Difficult as it certainly is to separate the native from the acquired
in human action, the attempt must be made. We cannot dodge so
fundamental a problem. Scientifically it is important as the
starting-point of a genetic study; we must know where the individual
starts in order to understand the course of his development.
Practically it is important because there is reason to believe that
native traits are deeply seated and not easily eradicated, even though
they can be modified and specialized in different ways. If a habit is
not simply a habit, but at the same time a means of gratifying some
natural tendency, then it is almost imperative to find a substitute
gratification in order to eliminate the habit. The individual's nature
also sets limits beyond which he cannot be brought by no matter how
much training and effort; and this is true of mental development as
well as of physical.
The Source of Native Traits
"Native" means a little more than "congenital." A child may be born
blind, having been infected by disease germs shortly before birth; he
may be congenitally an idiot because of head injury during a difficult
birth; or his mentality may have been impaired, during his uterine
life, by {91} alcohol reaching his brain from a drunken mother. Such
traits are congenital, but acquired. Native traits date back to the
original constitution of the child, which was fully determined at the
time when his individual life began, nine months before birth. The
"fertilized ovum", formed by the combination of two cells, one from
each of the parents, though microscopic in size and a simple sphere in
shape, somehow contains the determiners for all the native or
inherited traits of the new individual.
It is very mysterious, certainly. This microscopic, featureless
creature is already a human individual, with certain of its future
traits--those that we call "native"--already settled. It is a human
being as distinguished from any other species, it is a white or
colored individual, male or female, blonde or brunette, short or tall,
stocky or slender, mentally gifted or deficient, perhaps a "born"
musician or adventurer or leader of men. These and all other native
traits are already determined and latent within it; and the only
question, regarding such traits, is whether the environment is going
to be such as to enable this young individual to live and mature and
unfold what is latent within it.
Reactions Appearing at Birth Must Be Native
For the first few months of the individual's existence, sheltered as
it is within the mother's body, there is no chance for any
acquisition, except of certain abnormalities such as were alluded to
above. What occurs during this prenatal period is natural development,
not learning or any effect of experience. The traits displayed by the
new-born child are, accordingly, native traits. His breathing, crying,
starting at a noise, squirming, stretching, grasping, sucking and
swallowing, and other movements made from birth on, are to be counted
as native reactions, that is to say, as {92} reactions executed by
sensory, muscular and nervous machinery that have become ready for use
by the mere process of natural growth. This is the first and clearest
sign of a native trait, that it shall appear at birth.
Reactions That Cannot Be Learned Must Be Native
But native traits continue to make their appearance as the child's
development proceeds after birth. Inherited anatomical traits, like
stature and build, hair color, beard, and shape of nose, though
certainly determined by native constitution, do not fully make their
appearance till maturity. In fact, what does maturity mean, except
that the natural characteristics have finally reached their complete
development? And it is as true of internal structure as of external,
that natural development, far from being complete at birth, keeps on
till maturity. The neurones continue to grow, and their synapses in
the nerve centers to become closer knit, just by virtue of natural
growth; and thus reflex arcs, and other reaction machinery, one by one
reach the ready-to-use stage during the individual's growing-up,
especially during the first few years. With the growth to a functional
condition of their sensori-neuro-muscular mechanisms, mental and motor
reactions that are native, though not present at birth, make their
appearance. The native intelligence of the child gradually unfolds,
likewise his special native "gifts" and his inherited emotional and
impulsive traits.
Of course it is more difficult to make sure that a trait is native
when it does not appear till some time after birth, for the chance of
acquiring it by a process of learning has to be taken into account. If
you can so control the conditions under which the young individual
grows as to eliminate the possibility of learning a certain act, then
you can {93} make sure whether the act is acquired or provided by the
native constitution.
Experimental Detection of Native Reactions
Take the question whether birds learn to fly or simply come to fly
when their natural development has gone far enough. The newly hatched
bird cannot fly; its muscles are not strong enough, its wings are not
feathered, and its nerve mechanism for coördinating the wing movements
has still some growth to make before being ready for use. But, under
ordinary conditions, the young bird has some chance to _learn_ flying,
by watching the old birds fly and by trying and gradually getting the
motion. The old birds, after a time, push the young ones from the nest
and seem, to our eyes, to be teaching them to fly. Experiment enables
us to decide the question. One of the earliest experiments in animal
psychology was made by Spalding in 1873. He took newly hatched birds
from the nest and shut each one separately in a little box that gave
it no chance to stretch its wings or to see other birds fly. Here he
fed and cared for them till the age at which flying usually begins,
and then released them. Off they flew, skilfully managing wings and
tail, swooping around the trees and soon disappearing from sight. A
very successful experiment!--and conclusive. The little birds had had
no chance to learn to fly, yet they flew. Flying must have come to
them in the natural course of growth.
Compare with this experiment another one no less successful, though it
turned out differently. To discover whether the song of the oriole is
fixed by nature or learned by imitation, Scott took some little ones,
just hatched, and brought them up away from older birds. After a time,
when growth had advanced to a certain stage, the birds began {94} to
sing. The elementary notes and rattles characteristic of the oriole
made their appearance, but were combined in unusual ways, so that the
characteristic song of the oriole did not appear, but a new song. When
these birds had grown up in the laboratory, other new-hatched orioles
were brought up with them, and adopted this new song; so that the
laboratory became the center for a new school of oriole music. The
experiment showed that the elements of the oriole's song were provided
by nature, while the combination of these elements was acquired by
imitation.
Probably this last is about the result one would get in the analogous
case of human speech, if a similar experiment should be tried on
children. Without an experiment, we have certain facts that point to a
conclusion. The child uses his vocal organs from birth on; and before
he reaches the age when he imitates the speech of others, he produces
various vowels and consonants, and even puts them together into simple
compounds, as "da-da" and "goo-goo." So far, deaf children do about
the same as others, affording additional evidence that so much of
speech is native. To get real speech, however, further combinations of
the speech movements must be made, and the combinations (words) must
have meaning attached to them. These higher achievements are evidently
the result of learning, since the child uses the words that it hears
spoken, and attaches the same meanings to them as people do about it.
The child comes to speak the language of those about it, without
regard to the speech of its ancestors. His "native language" is
therefore acquired, though the elements of vocal utterance are truly
native, and apparently are alike all over the world without regard to
the various languages spoken.
{95}
Is Walking Native or Acquired?
As another example of this same general problem of distinguishing
native from acquired reactions, and of the kind of evidence that
throws light on the problem in the absence of direct experiment, let
us consider the child's walking. Does the child learn to walk, or does
it simply _come_ to walk when its natural development has gone far
enough? We think the child learns to walk because it begins very
imperfectly and usually takes several weeks before it can be described
as really walking of itself. We even think we teach it to walk, though
when we examine our teaching we soon convince ourselves that we do not
know _how_ we walk, and that what we are doing with the baby is to
stimulate and encourage him to walk, protect him from hurting himself,
etc., rather than teaching him as we later teach the child to write.
An experiment to settle the matter might be conducted along the lines
of Spalding's experiment on the young birds. We might prevent the baby
from making any attempt to walk till it had fully reached the normal
age for walking, and then turn it loose and see whether it walked of
itself.
Such an experiment has never been made under strict laboratory
conditions; but here is a well-attested case that approximates to an
experiment. A little girl of seven months, a very active child, seemed
to want to get on her feet; but the doctor decided that her feet were
too small to use, and directed that she be put back in long dresses.
For four months she was kept in long dresses, and great care was
exercised never to place her on the floor without them. Then, one day,
she was set down without her dress, and immediately up she got and
walked; and from that moment she was very agile on her feet.
Another rather different case, but tending towards the {96} same
conclusion, is that of a little girl who, in contrast to the
preceding, gave her parents some anxiety because, up to the age of
seventeen months, she wouldn't walk. She would stand holding on, but
not trust herself to her feet alone. One noon her father came in from
his work and, removing his cuffs, laid them on the table. The little
girl crept to the table, and raised herself to a standing position,
holding on to the table. She then took a cuff in one hand, and
inserted the other hand into it, thus, for the first time, standing
unsupported. She put on the other cuff in like manner, and then
marched across the room, as proud as you please. For a few days she
could walk only with cuffs, but after that was able to dispense with
them. There are a few other cases, differing in details, but agreeing
on the main point, that the baby walked well on its first trial and
went through nothing that could properly be interpreted as a process
of learning.
It would really be very surprising if the human infant were left to
learn locomotion for himself, while all other animals have this power
by nature. Just because the human infant matures slowly, and learns a
vast deal while maturing, is no reason for overlooking the fact that
it does mature, i.e., that its native powers are gradually growing and
reaching the condition of being ready for use. The most probable
conception of "learning to walk," in the light of the evidence, is
about as follows. At the age when the child's bones and muscles have
become strong enough for walking, the nerve connections for
coördinating this complex movement have also just about reached the
stage of development when they are ready for business. The numerous
synapses in the nerve centers that must be traversed by nerve currents
in order to arouse the muscles to this particular act are not, we may
suppose, all ready at the same instant, and it takes some little time
for them to pass from {97} the stage when they will first conduct to
the stage when, having grown more, they conduct perfectly. In other
words, the neural mechanism for walking can function imperfectly
before it can function perfectly. It takes several weeks of growth to
pass from the barely functional condition to the fully functional
condition; and it is during these weeks that the child seems to be
learning to walk, while really his exercise of the partially developed
neural mechanisms has no effect except to hasten their growth to some
extent.
Universality as a Criterion of Native Reactions
The fundamental sign or criterion of a native trait, in accordance
with what we have been saying, is that it shall make its appearance
when there has been no chance to acquire it through experience. This
is the one perfect criterion; but unfortunately it cannot always be
applied, especially with a slowly maturing and much-learning species
such as the human. We need other criteria, and one of some value is
the criterion of _universality_.
Consider, for example, the attraction between the sexes, and ask
whether this represents a native tendency, or whether each individual
acquires it, as he does his "native language", by learning from his
elders. Before the body reaches sexual maturity, there has been
abundant opportunity for the quick-learning child to observe sex
attraction in older people. Yet it is highly improbable that the
liking for the other sex which he begins to show strongly in youth is
simply an acquired taste. It is improbable because the attraction
between the sexes is so universal not only among mankind but among
birds and mammals and, indeed, practically throughout the animal
kingdom.
Fighting is a similar case. Not so universal as the sex instinct, it
still appears almost universally among birds and mammals.
{98}
The human individual is an animal, and some of his native traits are
universal among animals. He is a vertebrate, and some of his traits,
though not present in all animals, are universal among vertebrates. He
is a mammal, with mammalian traits; a primate, with primate traits; a
man with human traits; a Chinaman or Indian or European with racial
traits; belongs to a more or less definite stock or breed within the
race, and possesses the traits that are common to members of that
stock; and the same with family traits. The criterion of universality,
in the light of these facts, comes down to this: that _when all
individuals having the same descent show a trait in common, that
trait is to be regarded as belonging to their native
constitution--unless evidence can be brought forward to the contrary_.
Smoking is universal among many Malay peoples, but we know, as a
historical fact, that it was introduced among them after the discovery
of America, not very many generations ago. Superstition is universal
among some peoples, but we see the superstitious beliefs and practices
taught by the older to the younger generation. Similarly with any
specific language. It may very well be true in such cases that the
universal practice appeals to some native tendency of the people; but
the specific practice is handed down by tradition and not by
inheritance.
Some Native Traits Are Far from Being Universal
Though the universality of a trait creates a certain presumption in
favor of its being native, the opposite is not always true, for a
trait may be native and yet appear in only a fraction of those who
have a common descent. Eye color is certainly native, and yet one of
two brothers may have blue eyes and the other brown. Mental deficiency
runs in families, but usually some members of such families have {99}
normal mentality. Genius is almost certainly a native trait, but it is
the reverse of universal. The fact is that, along with certain traits
that appear in all, the native constitution of a stock provides also
for traits that appear only sporadically. Enough has been said to show
that the criterion of universality is one that needs to be applied
with judgment.
Why Acquired Traits Differ from One Individual to Another
Acquired traits are on the whole much less universal, much more
individual, than native traits. They are readjustments of the
individual to environmental conditions; and, as the environment
varies, so the adjustments vary, even when native traits are the same.
Acquired traits are often specializations of the native traits, as any
specific language is a specialization of the vocal utterances that are
native and common to all men, and as the peculiar gait of an
individual is a specialization of the universal walking movement. The
gait differs with the environmental differences to which the
individual has adapted himself, and will be different in one who has
been accustomed to walk over rough ground and in one whose walking has
been done on the city streets.
_Acquired traits are not independent of native, but are developed on
the basis of the native traits_. They are acquired not by laying aside
native tendencies and working out something entirely new, but by
acting in accordance with the native tendencies and making such
readjustments as the environment demands. The acquisition of mental
traits is accomplished by the process of _learning_, and we shall
later have abundant occasion to examine it in more detail.
{100}
What Mental Traits Are Native?
For the present, let us simply take a brief survey of the mental
field, and notice what types of reactions are native and what
acquired. On the motor side, the reflexes are native, while habitual
and skilled movements are acquired. On the sensory side, nature
provides the use of the sense organs and the sensations immediately
resulting from their stimulation. The baby responds to touch, warmth,
cold, sound and light as soon as it is born, or practically so, and
undoubtedly has the corresponding sensations. In other words, the
rudiments of seeing, hearing, etc., are provided by nature. But when
we say, "I see a dog" we mean more than that we are getting certain
visual sensations; we mean that we see a known object or known sort of
object. This implies recognition of the object, either as an
individual thing or as one of a class; and this the baby can scarcely
be supposed to do at first. He sees the dog to the extent that he
responds by visual sensations to the light coming from the dog, but
not to the extent that he recognizes the dog as a dog. In short, the
_meanings_ of sensations are acquired, though the sensations
themselves are native.
Things come to be known by use of the senses, and when thus known are
not only recognized when present, but also remembered and thought of
when they are not present to the senses. Such memories and items of
knowledge, dependent as they are on experience, are to be reckoned
among the acquired reactions. Ideas or conceptions of things also
belong here.
Of the emotions, some are called "primary" or native--anger and fear
are examples--while others result from the compounding of these
primary emotions and are therefore acquired. As people and things come
to be known, emotional reactions become attached to them, and give
what {101} are often named "sentiments", such as love for this person,
contempt for that one, family pride, patriotism. These sentiments,
bound up as they are with knowledge and ideas, are certainly acquired.
Closely akin to the primary emotions are the native impulses, as the
impulse to eat, to cry, to laugh, to escape from danger, to resist
external compulsion and to overcome obstacles. The native impulses are
the raw material out of which the numerous acquired desires of child
and adult are formed. One sort of native impulse is the impulse to
notice or pay attention to certain sorts of stimuli. These native
interests of the child give birth to the various specialized interests
of the adult. The baby's attention to a bright light represents a
native interest; the older child's fixing his eyes on a dark brown
piece of chocolate represents an acquired interest which has developed
in a way that is easy to understand.
Finally, we must count among the native traits of the individual his
inherited aptitudes for certain kinds of work. One child shows a
natural aptitude for music, another for acting, another for
mathematics, another for mechanical things, another for language, and
so on. As any of these "natural gifts" is present in some degree in
nearly all members of the human family, and not to anything like the
same degree in animals, they are the characteristically human traits.
It is on the basis of such native aptitudes that each individual
proceeds, through the processes of learning, to build up his various
acquired abilities, such as the ability to sing, to speak a certain
language, to add, to work with tools, to perform athletic feats, and
to take part in social activities of various sorts.
Our next task will be to examine more closely the native equipment of
man, and after that to take up the process of learning, which is the
way reactions are acquired. First the native, then the acquired. The
acquired is based upon {102} the native. Acquired reactions are indeed
so numerous that we cannot attempt even to list them all, let alone
examine each one separately; but we can at least study the _way_ in
which they are acquired. Native reactions are much less numerous, so
that the student may hope to obtain a fairly comprehensive survey of
this field, though, of course, without much detail.
The general plan of this book, then, is as follows. Up to this point,
it has been providing a stock of methods and general conceptions to
serve as tools in psychological study: consciousness and behavior, the
introspective and objective methods, reactions and tendencies to
reaction, native and acquired, and the part played by the nervous
system. Next comes a survey of reactions provided by the native
constitution, and after that a study of the process of learning or
acquiring reactions. Finally, there are several chapters devoted to
such topics as imagination, reasoning and will, which are ways in
which the individual utilizes his whole equipment, native and
acquired, in meeting the exigencies of life.
{103}
EXERCISES
1. Outline the chapter.
2. When does the individual come into existence as an individual?
When does he begin to acquire traits? How long does he continue to
unfold his native traits, and how long does he continue to acquire
traits?
3. Which of the following elements of spoken language are native,
and which acquired?
(a) Production of voice by the vocal cords and air blast from the lungs.
(b) Varying the voice in loudness.
(c) Varying the voice in pitch.
(d) Production of vowels by different positions of the mouth.
(e) Production of consonants by lip and tongue movements.
(f) Combination of vowels and consonants into words.
(g) Combination of words into idioms and grammatical sentences,
(h) Attachment of meanings to words.
(i) Sweet-toned voice.
(j) Nasal twang.
(k) Fluency in speaking.
4. In each of the following reactions, decide whether the connection
of stimulus and response is probably native or acquired:
Stimulus Response
(a) a sudden noise starting
(b) a bright light blinking
(c) a bright light shading your eyes
(d) cold putting on coat
(e) cold shivering
(f) sight of a ball reaching for it
(g) ball in the hand throwing it
(h) slipping righting yourself
(i) row of objects counting them
(j) insulting language anger
REFERENCES
Edward L. Thorndike, in Chapter I of his _Educational Psychology,
Briefer Course_, 1914, gives a general survey of the native factors in
mental life and behavior.
{104}
Hollingworth and Poffenberger, in their _Applied Psychology_, 1917,
devote Chapters II and III to the matter of mental heredity.
Norsworthy and Whitley, in their _Psychology of Childhood_, devote
Chapters I and II to "original nature".
C. B. Davenport, in his _Heredity and Eugenics_, presents evidence of
the importance of heredity in determining mental and moral traits.
Yerkes and Bloomfleld, in a short article in the _Psychological
Bulletin_ for 1910, Vol. 7, pp. 253-263, under the title, "_Do Kittens
Instinctively Kill Mice?_", furnish a good illustration of the method
employed in distinguishing native from acquired reactions.
{105}
CHAPTER VI
INSTINCT
CONDUCT AS DETERMINED BY NATIVE REACTION-TENDENCIES
Instinct is native behavior. It is contrasted with habit, knowledge,
or anything in the way of learned reactions. When the mother wasp
gathers a store of food suitable for young wasps, lays eggs beside the
food and covers the whole with a wall of mud, we know that her
behavior is instinctive because she has had no possible chance to
learn from older wasps. She has never seen a wasp's nest made, for
when the last preceding crop of nests was being made she was herself
an unhatched egg. Therefore, she cannot possibly know the use of the
nest with its eggs and store of food. She has no "reason" for building
the nest, no ulterior purpose, but is impelled to build the nest,
simply and solely for the sake of doing just that thing. Thus instinct
is contrasted with calculated or reasoned action as well as with
learned action. Calculated action is based on knowledge of cause and
effect, and this knowledge is acquired by the individual in the course
of his experience; but instinct is not based on the individual's
experience, but only on his native constitution.
The case of the baby eating is exactly the same as that of the wasp.
The baby has not learned to eat, he knows nothing of the use of food
and therefore has no ulterior purpose in eating, he does not reason
about the matter, but eats simply because hunger is a native impulse
to eat. {106} Eating is an end in itself to a hungry baby, and not a
means to some further end; and that is what eating continues to be
even to the hungry adult, however much he may learn about the use of
food in maintaining life. From a broad philosophical point of view,
instinct may be seen to work towards some great end, such as the
preservation of the individual or the propagation of the race, but
from the individual's own point of view, it is directed simply towards
the performance of some particular act, or the accomplishment of some
particular result.
If instinct, as a collective term, means native behavior, "an
instinct" is a unit of such behavior. Or, it is some unit of native
organization that equips the individual to behave in a certain way.
Different species of animals have different instincts, i.e., they are
differently organized by nature. The differences of organization lie
partly in the equipment of sense organs, partly in the equipment of
motor organs, and partly in the nerves and nerve centers that, being
themselves aroused by way of the sense organs, in turn arouse the
motor organs.
The dependence of instinct on sensory equipment becomes clear when we
think of animals possessing senses that human beings lack. The
instinct of dogs to follow the scent depends on their keen sense of
smell. Bees have something akin to a sense of taste in their feet, and
follow their own trails by tasting them. Fishes have special sense
organs along their sides that are stimulated by water currents, and it
is in response to this stimulus that the fish instinctively keeps his
head turned upstream.
The dependence of instinct on motor equipment is still more obvious.
The flying instinct of birds depends on the possession of wings, and
the swimming instinct of the seal depends on the fact that his limbs
have the peculiar form of flippers. The firefly instinctively makes
flashes of light, {107} and the electric eel instinctively discharges
his electric organ and gives his enemy a shock.
But the core of an instinct is to be sought in the nerve centers,
since it is there that the coördination of the muscles is
accomplished. A wing or flipper would be of no use unless its muscles
were excited to action by the nerve centers, and it would be of very
little use unless the nerve centers were so organized as to arouse the
muscles in a certain combination, and with a certain force and rhythm.
In terms of the nervous system, an instinct is the activity of a team
of neurones so organized, and so connected with muscles and sense
organs, as to arouse certain motor reactions in response to certain
sensory stimuli.
The Difference Between an Instinct and a Reflex
What we have said regarding instinct thus far could equally well be
said of reflex action. A reflex is a native reaction, and it is taken
care of by a team of neurones in the way just stated. We might speak
of a reflex as "instinctive", using this adjective as equivalent to
"native"; but we should shrink for some reason from speaking of the
pupillary reflex to light as an instinct, or of the "knee jerk
instinct", or the "swallowing instinct", or the "flexion instinct".
There is some difference between the typical reflex and the typical
instinct, though it is not very obvious what the difference is.
The typical reflex is a much simpler act than the typical instinct,
but it is impossible to separate the two classes on this basis. At the
best, this would be a difference of degree and not of kind. Among
reflexes, some are simpler than others, but even the simplest is
compound in the sense of being a coördinated movement. The knee jerk
is simpler than the flexion reflex, and this is simpler than the
scratch {108} reflex, which consists of a rapid alternation of flexion
and extension by one leg, while the other is stiffly extended and
supports the trunk. Coughing, which would be called a reflex rather
than an instinct, consists of a similar alternation of inspiration and
forced expiration, and swallowing consists of a series of tongue,
throat and gullet movements. These compound reflexes show that we
cannot accept the simple definition that is sometimes given for an
instinct, that it is a compound of reflexes. Such a definition would
place coughing and swallowing among the instincts, and so do violence
to the ordinary use of the word. In point of complexity, we find a
graded series ranging from the pupillary reflex at one extreme to the
nesting or mating instinct at the other, and no sharp line can be
drawn on this score between the reflexes and the instincts.
Another distinction has been attempted on the basis of consciousness.
Typically, it may be said, a reflex works automatically and
unconsciously, while an instinct is consciously impulsive. The reflex,
accordingly, would be an unconscious reaction, the instinct a
conscious reaction. But this distinction also breaks down on
examination of cases. The pupillary reflex, to be sure, is entirely
unconscious. But the flexion reflex is a little different. When
unimpeded, it occurs so promptly that we are scarcely aware of the
painful stimulus before the reaction has occurred. But let the
reaction be hindered--either voluntarily or, for instance, by the foot
being seized and held--and a strong conscious impulse is felt to pull
the leg away; so that here the flexion reflex would belong among the
instincts, according to the proposed distinction.
Similar remarks would apply equally well to coughing, since a strong
impulse to cough is felt if the coughing movement is checked.
Sneezing, a protective reflex, is usually a slow reaction, giving time
for a conscious impulse to {109} sneeze before the reaction takes
place. The same is true of scratching and of swallowing, and of a
number of other reflexes. In short, it is impossible to draw a
satisfactory line between reflexes and instincts on the basis of
conscious impulse.
These cases point the way, however, to what is probably the best
distinction. It was when the flexion reflex was _delayed_ that it
began to look like an instinct, and it was because sneezing was a
_slow_ response that it had something of the character of an instinct.
Typically, a reflex is a prompt reaction. It occurs at once, on the
occurrence of its stimulus, and is done with. What is characteristic
of the instinct, on the contrary, is the persisting "tendency", set up
by a given stimulus, and directed towards a result which cannot be
instantly accomplished.
An Instinct Is a Native Reaction-Tendency
We would propose, then, to consider an instinct as an inner
adjustment, or tendency to reaction. It is this, rather than just a
reaction. When a stimulus promptly arouses a reaction, and that ends
the matter, we speak of reflex action--provided, of course, the
connection between stimulus and response is native. But when a
stimulus sets up a tendency to a reaction that cannot be immediately
executed, or towards an end-result which cannot immediately be
reached, and when the tendency so aroused persists for a time in
activity, and gives rise to preparatory reactions, then we speak of
instinct.
The "broody" hen makes a good picture of instinct. When in this
condition she responds to a nestful of eggs, as she does not at other
times, by sitting persistently on them and keeping them covered. She
is in a certain "organic state" that facilitates this response. In the
absence {110} of any nestful of eggs, she shows a peculiar restless
behavior that indicates to one who knows hens that this one "wants to
set." The tendency that has been awakened in her cannot be satisfied
by any momentary act, but persists and governs her actions for a
considerable period.
The nesting instinct of birds affords a still more complete example.
The end-result here, the finished nest, cannot be instantly had, and
the pair of birds keep on gathering materials and putting them
together until this end-result is present before their eyes. It is not
necessary to suppose that the birds have any plan or mental image of
what the nest is to be like; probably not. But their state, in the
nest-building season, is such that they are impelled to build, and the
tendency is not quieted till the completed nest is there.
The mating instinct, in unsophisticated members of the human species,
is another perfect example. So is the hunting instinct in a dog; when
this instinct is aroused, the animal makes a lot of movements of
various sorts, responses to various particular stimuli, but evidently
these movements are not sufficient to quiet the tendency, for they
continue till the prey is captured. The behavior of a gregarious
animal when separated from his fellows shows the same sort of thing.
Take a young chick out of the brood and fence it away from the rest.
It "peeps" and runs about, attacking the fence at different points;
but such reactions evidently do not bring satisfaction, for it varies
them until, if a way out of the inclosure has been left, it reaches
the other chicks, when this series of acts terminates, and gives way
to something quite different, such as pecking for food.
The persisting tendency does not produce the series of movements all
by itself, but, as was explained in speaking of tendencies in general,
coöperates with sensory stimuli in producing them. Clearly enough, the
nest-building bird, {111} picking up a twig, is reacting to that twig.
He does not peck at random, as if driven by a mere blind impulsion to
peck. He reacts to twigs, to the crotch in the tree, to the half-built
nest. Only, he would not react to these stimuli unless the nesting fit
were on him. The nest-building tendency favors response to certain
stimuli, and not to others; it facilitates certain reactions and
inhibits others. It facilitates reactions that are _preparatory_ to
the end-result, and inhibits others.
Fully and Partially Organized Instincts
Insects afford the best examples of very highly organized instincts.
Their behavior is extremely regular and predictable, their progress
towards the end-result of an instinct remarkably straightforward and
sure. They make few mistakes, and do not have to potter around. By
contrast, the instincts of mammals are rather loosely organized.
Mammals are more plastic, more adaptable, and at the same time less
sure; and this is notably true of man. It would be a mistake to
suppose that man has few instinctive tendencies; perhaps he has more
than any other creature. But his instinctive behavior has not the
hard-and-fast, ready-made character that we see in the insects. Man is
by all odds the most pottering, hem-and-hawing of animals. Instinct
does not lead him straight to his goal, but makes him seek this way
and that till he finds it. His powers of observation, memory and
thought are drawn into the game, and thus instinct in man is
complicated and partly concealed by learning and reasoning.
For example, when an insect needs a nest, it proceeds in orderly
fashion to construct a nest of the pattern instinctive to that species
of insect; but when a man needs a home, he goes about it in a
variable, try-and-try-again {112} manner, scheming, experimenting,
getting suggestions from other people, and finally producing--a
dugout, a tree house; a wigwam, a cliff dwelling--something that
differs altogether from many other human habitations, except in the
fact that it is a habitation and thus satisfies a need which is
undoubtedly as instinctive in man as in the insect.
A fully organized instinct is one where the necessary preparatory
reactions are linked up closely with the main reaction-tendency, so
that, once the main tendency is aroused to activity, the preparatory
reactions follow with great sureness. The main team of neurones is
closely connected with the subordinate teams that give the preparatory
reactions; and these connections do not have to be acquired by
experience and training, but are well formed by native growth. Just
the right preparatory reactions are linked to the main tendency, so
that the whole series of acts is run off with great regularity.
In a loosely organized instinct, the main tendency is not firmly
linked with any specific preparatory reactions, but is loosely linked
with a great many preparatory reactions, and so gives quite variable
behavior, which, however, leads on the whole towards the main goal.
While a creature under the spell of a fully organized instinct is
busy, one driven by a loosely organized instinct may be better
described as restless. He tries this thing and that, and goes through
the kind of behavior that is called "trial and error". A closely knit
instinct, then, gives a perfectly definite series of preparatory
reactions, while a loosely organized instinct gives trial and error
behavior. We shall see later how trial and error furnishes a starting
point for learning, and how, in an animal that can learn, those among
the trial-and-error reactions that are actually preparatory to the
end-result become firmly attached to the main tendency, so that what
was by native constitution a loosely {113} organized instinct may
become, through the individual's experience, a closely organized
habit. If a man has occasion to build himself many homes, he comes,
after a while, to build almost as uniformly and surely as an insect.
Instincts Are Not Ancestral Habits
The theory of inheritance of acquired traits has gone by the board;
biologists no longer accept it. Such traits as an individual's tanned
skin acquired by living in the tropics, horny hands acquired by hard
labor, immunity to measles acquired by having measles, big muscular
development acquired by gymnastics, are not transmitted by heredity to
the children of the individual who acquired these traits.
Nor are acquired behavior traits transmitted by heredity. Learned
reactions are not so transmitted, knowledge is not, acquired skill is
not. Learn to cook, to typewrite, or pilot an airplane as perfectly as
possible, and your child will still have to learn all over again. You
may make your experience valuable to him by _teaching_ him, but not in
the way of heredity.
Language affords a good test of this matter. A child's parents, and
all his ancestors for many generations, may have spoken the same
language, but that does not relieve the child of the necessity of
_learning_ that language. He does not inherit the language habits of
his ancestors. He has no native tendency to say "dog", or "chien", or
"hund", on sight of this animal. Here in America we have children born
of stocks that have spoken foreign languages for many generations; but
English becomes their "native tongue" after a generation or two here,
that is to say, as soon as the child hears English from infancy.
In short, there is no likelihood whatever that any instinct {114} ever
originated out of a habit or learned reaction. If we could believe it
had so originated, that would furnish an easy explanation of the
origin of an instinct; but it is contrary to all the known facts.
Instincts Not Necessarily Useful in the Struggle for Existence
Some of the best-known instincts, such as feeding or mating--or
hunting, or flight from danger, or the hibernation of frogs--are so
essential for the survival of the individual or the propagation of the
next generation that we tend to assume that all instinctive behavior
has "survival value", value, that is, towards the survival of the
individual or of the race. But this is an assumption, and it seems not
to be borne out by actual observations of instinctive behavior, since,
along with the definitely useful reactions, others occur that would
seem to have no survival value. Perhaps the crowing of the rooster at
dawn would be a case in point; or the elaborate bowing that is
observed in some kinds of birds. And there are the less definite,
rather random movements of squirming, kicking, running about,
wrinkling up the face, etc., that appear in young animals. We may well
hesitate before definitely asserting that these movements are of no
use for survival, but at least their use is not obvious, and there is
no reason for assuming that all instinctive behavior must necessarily
be useful.
To be sure, the "struggle for existence" would eliminate individuals
who behaved in ways that seriously handicapped them in procuring food
or escaping from enemies; and therefore we should not expect to find
really harmful instincts preserved in the race. But a mode of behavior
might be neutral in this respect, or even slightly disadvantageous,
and yet not be weeded out unless the struggle for existence were very
keen.
{115}
The main point is that the psychologist should take instinctive
behavior as he finds it, and not allow himself to be prejudiced by the
assumption that instinct must necessarily be useful. That has to be
shown in each case, not assumed at the outset.
The So-called Instincts of Self-preservation and of Reproduction
You will hear it stated, by some, that there are just two instincts,
and that all instinctive behavior belongs under the head of one or the
other of these two. The one is the instinct to preserve one's
individual life, and the other is the instinct to propagate the
species. Mating, nesting and care of the young come under the
reproductive instinct, while feeding, flight from danger, and shunning
extreme heat or cold are modes of self-preservation. This seems
logical enough, but it is very bad psychology. It amounts to a
classification of native reactions from an external point of view,
without any consideration of the way the individual is organized.
Perhaps the most obvious objection to these two supposedly
all-inclusive instincts is found in what has just been said, to the
effect that some instinctive behavior has no known survival value.
This amounts to saying that some instincts do not serve either the
preservation of the individual or the propagation of the species; and
such a statement is probably true, especially of human instincts.
But even if this objection should not hold, there is another, more
radical one. Neither of these two big "instincts" is a behavior unit
in any sense. Take the "instinct of self-preservation", for example.
It would certainly have to include both feeding and escape from
danger. But feeding and flight from danger do not belong in a single
series {116} of acts; they are two distinct series, and represent two
distinct tendencies. So distinct are they that, as we shall see in the
next chapter, they are antagonistic. If the danger-avoiding tendency
is aroused, the whole feeding and digestive activity is checked for
the time being. The two instincts are antagonistic, in their actual
operation; throw one into action, and you throw the other out. It is
only from an external point of view that the two can be classed
together; in the organization of the individual they are entirely
separate.
Not much different is the "instinct of reproduction". In birds, to be
sure, there is a fairly continuous series of reactions, that begins
with mating, continues with nesting, laying eggs and incubating them,
and ends in the care of the young birds. But in mammals there is no
such continuous series of reproductive acts, but mating comes to a
close and an interval elapses in which there is no behavior going on
that has anything to do with reproduction.
Before giving a detailed list of the various human instincts, we shall
do well to consider emotion, which is closely bound up with instinct.
{117}
EXERCISES
1. Outline the chapter.
2. Explain the differences between these three;
Action governed by instinct.
Action governed by habit.
Action governed by deliberation.
3. What is the objection to each of the following expressions?
(a) "The ex-soldier instinctively saluted when he met an officer
in the street."
(b) "The bee knows by instinct how to construct the honeycomb."
4. Why is it so difficult to find a valid distinction between instinct
and reflex action?
5. Why are instincts more universal and uniform than habits?
6. How is instinct an important matter to consider in a study of
human motives?
7. Show how the behavior of a hungry child of six or eight years
fits the picture of a "loosely organized instinct".
REFERENCES
William James in his _Principles of Psychology_, 1890, has a very
stimulating chapter on instinct, in Vol. II, pp. 383-441.
John B. Watson, in Chapters IV and V of his _Behavior_, 1914, gives a
good account of the instincts of animals.
{118}
CHAPTER VII
EMOTION
VARIOUS ORGANIC STATES, AND THE CONSCIOUS STATES THAT GO WITH THEM
Joy, sorrow, fear, anger, amusement, disgust and curiosity illustrate
the meaning of the term "emotion". An emotion is a "moved" or
stirred-up state of mind. Or, since almost any such state of mind
includes also elements that are cognitive, like recognition of present
objects or memories of the past, we might better speak of emotion as
the stirred-up-ness present in a state of mind. The emotional part of
the total state may be so strong as to overshadow all other
components, or it may have less intensity down to zero.
Such is emotion from the introspective point of view; but it can also
be observed objectively, and in fact there is more to say about it
objectively than introspectively. What appears to introspection as the
scarcely analyzable state of anger appears to the external observer as
clenched fists, flushed face, labored breathing, tense muscles, loud
voice, and many other describable details. Anger is a state of the
organism, or state of the individual, rather than simply a state of
mind.
We shall have a more comprehensive definition, then, if we substitute
"state of the individual" for "state of mind", and say that emotion is
a stirred-up state of the individual. It is a conscious state,
however; an "unconscious emotion" would be practically a contradiction
in terms. Not but that a person may be angry without knowing it. He
may be {119} "unconscious of the fact" that he is angry; which simply
means that he is not introspectively observing himself and analyzing
his mental state. But it is impossible that his organic state shall be
all stirred up and his mental state meanwhile perfectly calm and
intellectual. In short, an emotion is a conscious stirred-up state of
the organism.
Organic States That Are Not Usually Classed as Emotions
Something was said before about "organic states", under the general
head of tendencies to reaction. Fatigue was an example. Now we could
include fatigue under the term, "stirred-up state of the organism"; at
least, if not precisely "stirred-up", it is uneasy. It is a deviation
from the normal or neutral state. Also, it is often a conscious state,
as when we speak of the "tired feeling"; not a purely cognitive state,
either--not simply a recognition of the _fact_ that we are
fatigued--but a state of disinclination to work any longer. Though
fatigue is thus so much like an emotion that it fits under our
definition, it is not called an emotion, but a sensation or complex of
sensations. After hard muscular work, the state of the muscles makes
itself felt by "fatigue sensations", and the sum total of these,
coming from many different muscles, makes up the complex sensation of
fatigue. After prolonged mental work, there may be fatigue sensations
from the eyes and perhaps from the neck, which is often fixed rigidly
during strenuous mental activity; and there are perhaps other obscure
fatigue sensations originating in other organs and contributing to the
total sensation which we know as mental fatigue, or as general
fatigue.
Many other organic states are akin to emotion in the same way. The
opposite of fatigue, the "warmed-up" condition, brought on by a
certain amount of activity after {120} rest, is a case in point. It is
a deviation from the average or neutral condition, in the direction of
greater readiness for activity. The warmed-up person _feels_ ready for
business, full of "ginger" or "pep"--in short, full of life. The name
"euphoria" which means about the same as "feeling good", is given to
this condition. Drowsiness is another of these emotion-like states;
but hunger and thirst are as typical examples as any.
How These Organic States Differ from Regular Emotions
Now why do we hesitate to call hunger, fatigue and the rest by the
name of emotions? For two reasons, apparently. There are two salient
differences between an organic state such as hunger, and an emotion
such as anger.
Hunger we call a sensation because it is _localized_; we feel it in
the region of the stomach. Thirst we localize in the throat, muscular
fatigue in the fatigued muscles, and there are several other organic
states that come to us as sensations from particular organs. This is
not entirely true of drowsiness or euphoria, but it is still less true
of the emotions, which we feel as in _us_, rather than in any _part_
of us. We "feel mad all over", and we feel glad or sorry all over. It
is true that, traditionally, the heart is the seat of the emotions,
which means, no doubt, that they are felt in the region of the heart
more than elsewhere; and other ancient "seats", in the bowels or
diaphragm, agree to this extent that they point to the interior of the
trunk as the general location where the emotions are felt. But at best
the location of emotions is much less definite than that of the
sensations of fatigue or hunger.
The second difference between the emotions and the other organic
states comes to light when we notice their causes. Thirst, as an
organic state, is a lack of water resulting {121} from perspiration,
etc.; hunger as an organic state results from using up the food
previously eaten; fatigue results from prolonged muscular activity.
Each of these organic states results naturally from some internal
bodily process; while, on the contrary, the exciting cause of an
emotion is usually something _external_ which has nothing directly to
do with the internal state of the body. Here I am, perfectly calm and
normal, my organic state neutral, when some one insults me and throws
me into a state of rage; this queer state seems to be inside me,
specially in the trunk. Now how can the sound of the insulting
person's voice produce any change in my insides? Evidently, by way of
the auditory nerve, the brain and lower centers, and the motor nerves
to the interior. While, then, organic states of the hunger class
result directly from internal physiological processes, the organic
state in an emotion is aroused by the brain, the brain itself being
aroused by some stimulus, usually external.
The Organic State in Anger
But perhaps we are going too fast in assuming that there is any
peculiar internal state in emotion. Possibly our subjective
localization of anger in the trunk is all wrong, and everything there
is going on as usual. At least, the question is squarely before us
whether or not there is any internal bodily response in emotion.
Suppose we have a tame cat, that knows us well, and, after feeding her
a good meal containing some substance that is opaque to the X-rays,
suppose we place her on a table and pass X-rays through her body, so
as to get a visible shadow of the stomach upon the plate of the X-ray
machine. Well and good; the cat is contentedly digesting her meal, and
the X-ray picture shows her stomach to be making rhythmical churning
movements. In comes a fox {122} terrier and barks fiercely at the cat,
who shows the usual feline signs of anger; but she is held in position
and her stomach kept under observation--when, to our surprise, the
stomach movements abruptly cease, not to begin again till the dog has
been gone for perhaps fifteen minutes. The churning movements of the
intestine cease along with those of the stomach, and, as other
experiments show, even the gastric juice stops flowing into the
stomach. The whole business of digestion halts during the state of
anger. So anger is an organic state, without doubt. At least in
cats--but the same is found to be true of man, and hence the excellent
rule not to get angry on a full stomach.
Stomach-inhibition is not the only internal response during anger. The
heart, so long regarded as the seat of the emotions, does beat more
forcibly than usual; and the diaphragm, where the old Greeks located
the emotions, does make extra-strong breathing movements. There are
yet other and more curious changes that have recently been discovered
by the physiologists.
Glandular Responses During Emotion
Thus far, we have been considering muscular responses, but now we must
turn our attention to the glands. The glands are often affected during
emotion, as witness the shedding of tears in grief, sweating in anger,
the dry mouth during fear due to inhibition of the salivary glands,
and the stoppage of the gastric juice during anger, as just noted.
These particular glands all pour out their secretions either upon the
skin or upon the mucous membrane of the mouth, stomach, etc.; and such
secretion is called "external" in distinction from the "internal
secretion" of certain other glands which may be called the glands of
internal secretion or the "endocrine glands". Internal secretions are
{123} discharged into the blood vessels, and carried by the blood to
all parts of the body, and they have important effects on the activity
of various organs.
Of the endocrine glands, we will mention only two, which are known to
play an important part in mental life.
The thyroid gland, situated in the lower part of the neck, is
necessary for normal brain activity. Without its internal secretion,
brain activity is very sluggish.
The adrenals, two little glands located near the kidneys (whence their
name, though they have nothing to do with the kidney in function),
have a close connection with such emotions as anger. In the normal or
neutral state of the organism, the adrenal secretion oozes slowly into
the blood, and has a tonic influence on the heart and muscles. But let
an anger stimulus occur, and within a few seconds the adrenals are
secreting rapidly; all the organs soon get a big dose of the adrenal
secretion, and some of them are strongly affected by it. It hastens
and strengthens the action of the heart, it causes the large veins
inside the trunk to squeeze the blood lagging there back to the heart;
and by these two means greatly quickens the circulation. It also
affects the liver, causing it to discharge large quantities of stored
sugar into the blood. Thus the muscles of the limbs get an unusual
quantity of their favorite fuel supplied them, and also, by the
increased circulation, an unusual quantity of oxygen; and they are
enabled to work with unusual energy. The adrenal secretion also
protects them in some way against fatigue.
While the adrenal secretion is thus exerting a very stimulating
influence on the limb muscles, it is having just the opposite effect
on the digestive organs; in fact it is having the effects described
above as occurring there during anger. These inhibitory effects are
started by the stomach nerves, but are continued by the action of the
adrenal juice {124} on the stomach walls. The rapid secretion of the
adrenal glands during anger is itself aroused by the nerve running to
this gland.
The Nerves Concerned in Internal Emotional Response
There is a part of the nervous system called the "autonomic system",
so called because the organs it supplies--heart, blood vessels,
stomach, intestines and other internal organs, possess a large degree
of "autonomy" or independence. The heart, it will be remembered, beats
of itself, even when cut off altogether from any influence of the
nerve centers; and the same is true in some measure of the other
internal organs. Yet they are subject to the influence of the nerve
centers, which reinforce and inhibit their activity. Each internal
organ has a double supply of nerves, one nerve acting to reinforce the
activity of the organ and the other to inhibit it; and both the
reinforcing and the inhibiting nerves belong to the autonomic system.
The autonomic is not separate from the main nervous system, but
consists of outgoing axons from centers in the cord and "medulla"
(part of the brain stem). It has three divisions, one from the
medulla, one from the middle reach of the cord, and one from the lower
part of the cord; and these three divisions are related to three
different emotional states. The upper division, from the medulla,
favors digestion by promoting the flow of gastric juice and the
churning movements of the stomach; and at the same time it seems to
favor the comfortable, rather lazy state that is appropriate for
digestion. The middle division (often called the "sympathetic", though
the name is rather misleading to a student of psychology, as it has
nothing to do with "sympathy") checks digestion, hastens the heart
beat, and stimulates the adrenal glands to rapid secretion, thus
giving {125} rise to the organic condition of anger. The lower
division has to do with the bladder, rectum and sex organs, and is
active during sex excitement, for one thing.
The lower centers in the medulla and cord that give rise to the
autonomic nerves are themselves much under the influence of the
higher, cerebral centers. Thus appetite for food, and the flow of
gastric juice, can be aroused by the sight of good food, or by hearing
or reading about food, or even by merely thinking of food; and both
anger and sex appetite can be aroused in corresponding ways.
We should notice right here the antagonism that exists between the
middle division of the autonomic and the other two. Suppose the upper
division is active, as in comfortable digestion, when an angering
stimulus supervenes; then, as we have seen, digestion halts, the upper
autonomic is shunted out of action by the middle division. In the same
way, sex appetite is shunted out by anger.
The Emotional State as a Preparatory Reaction
An emotion is often spoken of as a disturbance of the normal quiet
state, and as if it represented a breakdown of the organism's
machinery. Anger or fear is often a nuisance in civilized life, and
any strong emotion is apt to disturb mental work or skilled manual
work. But if we think ourselves back into a primitive condition of
life, when anger means a fight, we see that the organic response in
anger makes a first-class preparation for the fight. Rapid
circulation, abundant muscular fuel, protection from fatigue--these
are all positively useful; and the halting of digestion is useful also
in relieving the circulation from taking care of an activity that can
afford to wait.
What we have been calling the "organic state in anger" occurs also in
_fear_ of the strong type (as distinguished from {126} fear
paralysis), and in certain other states that are not exactly either
fear or anger, such as the state of a football player before the game,
or the state of a student about to take an examination. It is the
state of _excitement_ or of being "all keyed up". So far as known, the
organic response (including the adrenal secretion) is the same in
these various instances of excitement: anger, fear, zeal and so on.
When an individual is in this organic state, his muscles will work
harder and longer than is otherwise possible; and thus are explained
those remarkable cases of extraordinary strength and endurance in
great emergencies, as in escaping from a fire or from a bombarded
city.
The fear-anger state of the organism, being certainly a state of
preparedness for attack or defense, suggests the following
generalization: "Any emotion represents internal preparation for some
type of overt action." This holds good, at least, for food appetite
and sex appetite. Regarding the other emotions, we know too little of
the internal responses that may occur, to judge whether or not they
have any utility as preparatory reactions.
"Expressive Movements," Another Sort of Preparatory Reactions
Though we know little of any internal response in many of the
emotions, we almost always find some characteristic external movement,
such as smiling, scowling, pouting, sneering, sobbing, screaming,
shouting or dancing. By aid of such "expressive movements" we are
sometimes able to judge the emotional state of another person. But
what is the sense of these movements? At first thought, the question
itself is senseless, the movements are so much a matter of course,
while on second thought they certainly do seem odd. What sense is
there is protruding the lips when sulky, {127} or in drawing up the
corners of the mouth and showing the canine teeth in contempt? Perhaps
they are just odd tricks of instinct--for we agreed in the preceding
chapter not to assume all instinctive responses to be useful. Darwin,
however, after studying a great many of these expressive movements,
both in men and in animals, reached the conclusion that, if not of
present utility, they were survivals of acts that had been useful
earlier in the life of the individual or of the race.
Shaking the head from side to side, in negation or unwillingness,
dates back to the nursing period of the individual's life, when this
movement was made in rejecting undesired food. Directly useful in this
case, it was carried over to analogous situations that aroused the
child's reluctance.
Showing the teeth in scorn dates back, according to Darwin, to a
prehuman stage of development, and is seen in its useful form in
animals like the dog or gorilla that have large canine teeth. Baring
the teeth in these animals is a preparation for using the teeth; and
often, also, it frightens the enemy away and saves the bother of
actually attacking "small fry". The movement, Darwin urges, has
survived in the race, even after fighting with the teeth has largely
disappeared.
Many other expressive movements are traced back in a similar way,
though it must be admitted that the racial survivals are usually less
convincing than those from the infancy of the individual. The nasal
expression in disgust was originally a defensive movement against bad
odors; and the set lips of determination went primarily with the set
glottis and rigid chest that are useful in lifting heavy weights or in
other severe muscular efforts. Such movements, directly useful in
certain simple situations, become linked up with analogous situations
in the course of the {128} individual's experience. Many of them,
certainly, we can regard as preparatory reactions.
Do Sensations of These Various Preparatory Reactions
Constitute the Conscious State of Emotion?
No one can doubt that some of the bodily changes that occur during an
emotion make themselves felt as sensations. Try this experiment:
pretend to be angry--it is not hard!--go through the motions of being
angry, and notice what sensations you get. Some from the clenched
fist, no doubt; some from the contorted face; some from the neck,
which is stiff and quivering. In genuine anger, you could sense also
the disturbed breathing, violent heart beat, hot face. The internal
responses of the adrenal glands and liver you could not expect to
sense directly; but the resulting readiness of the limb muscles for
extreme activity is sometimes sensed as a feeling of tremendous
muscular power.
Now lump together all these sensations of bodily changes, and ask
yourself whether this mass of sensations is not identical with the
angry state of mind. Think all these sensations away, and ask yourself
whether any angry feeling remains. What else, if anything, can you
detect in the conscious emotional state besides these blended
sensations produced by internal and external muscular and glandular
responses?
If you conclude that the conscious emotion consists wholly of these
sensations, then you are an adherent of the famous James-Lange theory
of the emotions; if you find any other component present in the
emotion, you will find this theory unacceptable.
{129}
The James-Lange Theory of the Emotions
The American psychologist James, and the Danish psychologist Lange,
independently of each other, put forward this theory in the early
eighties of the last century, and it has ever since remained a great
topic for discussion. According to the theory, the emotion is the _way
the body feels_ while executing the various internal and expressive
movements that occur on such occasions. The "stirred-up state of mind"
is the complex sensation of the stirred-up state of the body. Just as
fatigue or hunger is a complex of bodily sensations, so is anger, fear
or grief, according to the theory.
James says, we do not tremble because we are afraid, but are afraid
because we tremble. By that he means that the conscious state of being
afraid is composed of the sensations of trembling (along with the
sensations of other muscular and glandular responses). He means that
the mental state of recognizing the presence of danger is not the
stirred-up state of fear, until it has produced the trembling and
other similar responses and got back the sensations of them. "Without
the bodily states following on the perception"--i.e., perception of
the external fact that arouses the whole emotional reaction--"the
latter would be purely cognitive in form, pale, colorless, destitute
of emotional warmth. We might then see the bear, and judge it best to
run, receive the insult, and deem it right to strike, but we should
not actually _feel_ afraid or angry."
It has proved very difficult to submit this theory to a satisfactory
test. The only real test would be to cut off sensations from the
interior of the trunk entirely; in which case, if the theory is right,
the conscious emotion should fail to appear, or at least lack much of
its "emotional warmth". Evidence of this sort has been slow in coming
in. One or {130} two persons have turned up at nerve clinics,
complaining that they no longer had any emotions, and were found to
have lost internal bodily sensation. These cases strongly support the
theory, but others have tended in the opposite direction. The fact
that the internal response is the same in anger, and in fear of the
energetic type, shows that the difference between these emotions must
be sought elsewhere. Possibly sufficient difference could be found in
the expressive movements, or in minor internal responses not yet
discovered. If not, the theory would certainly seem to have broken
down at this point.
In any case, there is no denying the service done by the James-Lange
theory in calling attention to bodily sensations as real components of
the conscious emotional state.
Emotion and Impulse
Most people are rather impatient with the James-Lange theory, finding
it wholly unsatisfactory, though unable to locate the trouble
precisely. They know the theory does not ring true to them, that is
all. Now the trouble lies just here: what they mean by "being afraid"
is "wanting to get away from the danger", what they mean by "being
angry" is "wanting to strike the offending person", and in general
what they mean by any of the named "emotions" is not a particular sort
of "stirred-up conscious state", but an _impulse_ towards a certain
action or a certain result. Evidently it would be absurd to say we
want to get away from the bear because we tremble, or that until we
started to tremble we should be perfectly indifferent whether the bear
got us or not.
The tendency to escape is aroused directly by the perception of
danger; of that there can be no doubt. It does not depend on
trembling, but for that matter neither does it depend on _feeling_
afraid. Sometimes we recoil from a {131} sudden danger before
experiencing any thrill of fear, and are frightened and tremble the
next moment, after we have escaped. The stirred-up state develops more
slowly than the tendency to escape. The seen danger directly arouses
an adjustment towards the end-result of escape, and both the
preparatory bodily responses and the feeling of fear develop after
this adjustment has been set up. If the end-result is reached
instantly, the preparatory reactions and the feeling may not develop
at all, or they may put in an appearance after the main act is all
over. There is nothing in all this that speaks either for or against
the James-Lange theory.
These statements need further elucidation, however. Notice, first,
that psychology makes a perfectly proper and important distinction
between emotion and impulse. In terms of consciousness, emotion is
"feeling somehow", and impulse is "wanting to do something". In
behavior terms, emotion is an organic state, and impulse an adjustment
of the nerve centers towards a certain reaction. An impulse is a
conscious tendency.
Since emotion and impulse so often go together, common sense does not
bother to distinguish them, and the common names for the "emotions"
are more properly names of impulses. Fear means the impulse to escape,
rather than any specific stirred-up state. Psychology has, indeed,
made a mistake in taking over these names from common speech and
trying to use them as names of specific emotional states. We were
having some difficulty, a few moments ago, in finding any great
distinction between fear and anger, considered as emotional
states--just because we were overlooking the obvious fact that "fear"
is an impulse to escape from something, while "anger" is an impulse to
get at something and attack it. The adjustments are very different,
but the organic states are much alike.
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The organic state in fear or anger cannot generate the escape or
fighting tendency, since the two tendencies are so different in spite
of the likeness of the organic state. The tendencies are aroused
directly by the perception of the dangerous or offensive object. The
order of events is as follows. The stimulus that sets the whole
process going is, let us say, a bear in the woods. First response:
seeing the bear. Second response: recognizing the dangerous situation.
Third response: adjustment towards escape. Fourth response (unless
escape is immediate): internal preparatory reactions, adrenal, etc.;
also, probably, external expressive movements and movements steered in
the general direction of escape. Fifth response: conscious stirred-up
state consisting of blended sensations of all these preparatory
reactions. Sixth response (by good luck): definitive escape reaction.
Seventh response: satisfaction and quiescence.
[Illustration: Fig. 24.--Here the stimulus-response diagram is
complicated to take account of the emotional state. The ellipse here
stands for the brain. S arouses T, a tendency towards the response R.
But T also arouses P, a bodily state of preparedness, and sensations
(E) of this bodily state, together with T, constitute the conscious
state of the individual while he is tending towards the response, or
end-result, R.]
Emotion Sometimes Generates Impulse
Typically, impulse generates emotion. The reaction tendency is primary
and the emotion secondary.
But suppose the organic state of fear to be {133} present--never mind
how it got there--might it not act like hunger or fatigue, and
generate a fear impulse? Could it not be that a person should first be
fearful, without knowing what he was afraid of and without really
having anything to be afraid of; and then, as it were, _find_
something to be afraid of, something to justify his frightened state?
This may be the way in which abnormal fears sometimes arise: a
naturally timid individual is thrown by some obscure stimulus into the
state of fear, and then attaches this fear to anything that suggests
itself, and so comes to be afraid of something that is really not very
terrific, such as the number two, "I mustn't do anything twice, that
would be dangerous; if I do happen to do it twice, I have to do it
once more to avoid the danger; and for fear of inadvertently stopping
with twice, it is best always to do everything three times and be
safe." That is the report of a naturally timorous young man. We all
know the somewhat similar experience of being "nervous" or "jumpy"
after escaping from some danger; the organic fear state, once aroused,
stays awhile, and predisposes us to make avoiding reactions. In the
same way, let a man be "all riled up" by something that has happened
at the office, and he is likely to take it out on his wife or
children. Slightly irritating performances of the children, that would
usually not arouse an angry reaction, do so this evening, because that
thing at the office has "made him so cross."
In the same way, let a group of people get into a very mirthful state
from hearing a string of good jokes, and a hearty laugh may be aroused
by a feeble effort that at other times would have fallen flat.
In such cases, the organic state, once set up in response to a certain
stimulus, persists after the reaction to that stimulus is finished and
predisposes the individual to make the same sort of reaction to other
stimuli.
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Emotion and Instinct
Anger, fear, lust, the comfortable state appropriate to digestion,
grief (the state of the weeping child), mirth or amusement, disgust,
curiosity, the "tender emotion" (felt most strongly by a mother
towards her baby), and probably a few others, are "primary emotions".
They occur, that is to say, by virtue of the native constitution, and
do not have to be learned or acquired through experience. They are
native states of mind; or, as modes of behavior, they are like
instincts in being native behavior.
One distinction between emotional and instinctive behavior is that the
emotion consists of internal responses, while the instinct is directed
outwards or at least involves action on external objects. Another
distinction is that the emotional response is something in the nature
of a preparatory reaction, while the instinct is directed towards the
end-reaction.
The close connection of emotion and instinct is fully as important to
notice as the distinction between them. Several of the primary
emotions are attached to specific instincts: thus, the emotion of fear
goes with the instinct to escape from danger, the emotion of anger
goes with the fighting instinct, the emotion of lust with the mating
instinct, tender emotion with the maternal instinct, curiosity with
the exploring instinct. Where we find emotion, we find also a tendency
to action that leads to some end-result.
It has been suggested, accordingly, that each primary emotion is
simply the "affective" phase of an instinct, and that every instinct
has its own peculiar emotion. This is a very attractive idea, but up
to the present it has not been worked out very satisfactorily. Some
instincts, such as that for walking, seem to have no specific emotion
attached to them. Others, like anger and fear, resemble each other
very {135} closely as organic states, though differing as impulses.
The really distinct emotions (not impulses) are much fewer than the
instincts.
The most important relationship between instinct and emotion is what
we have seen in the cases of anger and a few others, where the emotion
represents bodily readiness for the instinctive action.
The Higher Emotions
We have been confining our attention in this chapter to the primary
emotions. The probability is that the higher emotions, esthetic,
social, religious, are derived from the primary in the course of the
individual's experience.
Primary emotions become refined, first by modifications of the motor
response, by which socially acceptable reactions are substituted for
the primitive crying, screaming, biting and scratching, guffawing,
dancing up and down in excitement, etc.; second by new attachments on
the side of the stimulus, such that the emotion is no longer called
out by the original simple type of situation (it takes a more serious
danger, a subtler bit of humor, to arouse the emotional response); and
third by combination of one emotion with another. An example of
compound emotion is the blend of tenderness and amusement awakened in
the friendly adult by the actions of a little child. Hate is perhaps a
compound of anger and fear, and pity a compound of grief and
tenderness. There are dozens of names of emotions in the
language--resentment, reverence, gratitude, disappointment,
etc.--which probably stand for compound emotions rather than for
primary emotions, but the derivation of each one of them from the
primary emotions is a difficult task. The emotional life cannot be
kept apart from the life of ideas, for the individual is a good deal
of a unit.
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EXERCISES
1. Outline the chapter.
2. Make a list of 20 words denoting various emotional states.
3. Trace the expressive facial movement of pouting back to its
probable origin in the history of the individual.
4. What internal nerves are concerned with digestion? With fear?
5. Show by diagrams the differences between (a) the common-sense
theory of the emotions, (b) the James-Lange theory, (c) the
James-Lange theory modified to take full account of the
reaction-tendency.
6. Make a list of objections to the James-Lange theory, and
scrutinize each objection carefully, to see
(a) whether it really attacks the theory, or misconceives it.
(b) whether it carries much or little weight.
7. Act out several emotions, (a) by facial expression alone, and
(b) by facial expression plus gestures, and let another person
guess what emotion you are trying to express. How many times does
he guess right under (a), and under (b)?
8. Discuss the relative practical importance of emotion and impulse.
REFERENCES
For the James-Lange theory, see the chapter on the emotions by William
James, in his _Principles of Psychology_, 1890, Vol. II, pp. 442-485.
For Darwin's views on expressive movements, see his _Expression of the
Emotions in Man and Animals_, first published in 1872.
For pictures of facial expression in various emotions, see Antoinette
Feleky, in the _Psychological Review_ for 1914, Vol. 21, pp. 33-41.
For the internal physiological changes, see Walter B. Cannon's _Bodily
Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage_, 1915.
For an interesting and important view of the close connection between
emotion and instinct, see William McDougall's _Introduction to Social
Psychology_, Chapter II.
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CHAPTER VIII
INVENTORY OF HUMAN INSTINCTS AND PRIMARY EMOTIONS
A LIST OF THE NATIVE STOCK OF TENDENCIES AND OF
THE EMOTIONS THAT SOMETIMES GO WITH THEM.
It would be a great mistake to suppose that instinct was important
only in animal or child psychology, because the human adult governed
his conduct entirely by reason and calculation of consequences. Man
does not outgrow instinct, any more than he outgrows emotion. He does
not outgrow the native reaction-tendencies. These primitive motives
remain in force, modified and combined in various ways, but not
eliminated nor even relegated to an unimportant place. Even in his
most intelligent actions, the adult is animated by motives that are
either plain instincts or else derivatives of the instincts. According
to some of the leaders in psychology, he has no other motives than
these; according to this book, as will be set forth later, there are
"native likes and dislikes" (for color, tone, number, persons, etc.)
to be placed beside the instincts as primary motives; but, according
to either view, the instincts are extraordinarily important in the
study of motivation, and a complete and accurate list of them is very
much to be desired. Life is a great masquerade of the instincts, and
it is not only entertaining to unmask them, but illuminating as well.
A complete account of an instinct would cover the following points:
the stimulus that naturally arouses it, the end-result at which it is
aimed, the preparatory reactions that occur, external and internal;
and also, from the {138} introspective side, the conscious impulse,
the peculiar emotional state (if any), and the special sort of
satisfaction that comes when the end-result is reached. Further, we
should know what modifications or disguises the instinct takes on in
the course of experience--what new stimuli acquire the power of
arousing it, what learned reactions are substituted for the native
preparatory and final reactions, and what combinations occur between
the instinct in question and other reaction-tendencies.
Besides all this, it would be very desirable to present convincing
evidence that each instinct listed is a genuine instinct, a part of
the native equipment, and not something built up by experience and
training. It is rather absurd, the free and easy way in which an
instinct is often assumed, simply to fit behavior which needs to be
explained--a money getting instinct, for example, or a teacher-hating
instinct. Since money and teachers do not exist in a state of nature,
there can be no instincts specifically related to them; and it is
incumbent on the psychologist to show how such acquired tendencies are
derived from the native tendencies.
The full program outlined above being much too extensive to follow out
completely in this chapter, we shall only mention a few salient points
under each instinct. We shall try to point out the primitive behavior
of the child, that reveals the instinct at its lowest terms, and give
some hint also of its importance in adult behavior.
Classification