Psychology by Robert S. Woodworth (intellectual books to read .TXT) 📖

some emotional state, common to all of them. The common emotion cannot be anger, or hunger, or discomfort or pain. To name it grief or sorrow would fit the crying of adults better than that of little children. The best guess is that the emotional state in crying is the feeling of helplessness. The cry of anger is the cry of helpless anger; anger that is not helpless expresses itself in some other way than crying; and the same is true of hunger, pain and discomfort. Crying is the reaction appropriate to a condition where the individual cannot help himself--where he wants something but is powerless to get it. The helpless baby sets up a wail that brings some one to his assistance; that is the utility of crying, though the baby, at first, does not have this result in view, but simply cries because he is hungry and helpless, uncomfortable and {145} helpless, thwarted and helpless. The child cries less as he grows older, because he learns more and more to help himself.

With the vocal element of crying goes movement of the arms and legs, which also has utility in attracting attention; but what may be the utility of shedding copious tears remains a mystery, in spite of several ingenious hypotheses that have been advanced to explain it.

Fatigue, rest and sleep.

That fatigue, primarily an organic state, gives rise to fatigue sensations and to a neural adjustment for rest--a disinclination to work any longer--and that drowsiness is a somewhat different organic state that gives an inclination to sleep--all this has been sufficiently set forth in earlier chapters. Going to sleep is a definite act, an instinctive response to the drowsy state. In the way of preparatory reactions, we find many interesting performances in birds and mammals, such as the curling up of the dog or cat to sleep, the roosting of hens, the standing on one leg of some birds; and we see characteristic positions adopted by human beings, but do not know how far these are instinctive and how far acquired. Closing the eyes is undoubtedly a native preparatory reaction for sleep.

Like the other responses to organic needs, rest and sleep figure pretty largely in the behavior of the adult, as in finding or providing a good place to sleep. Certainly if fatigue and sleep could be eliminated, as some over-enthusiastic workers have pretended to hope, life would be radically changed.

Instinctive Responses to Other Persons

We are next to look for action and emotion aroused by persons, specifically--not by persons and things alike. Fear can be aroused by persons, but also by things. In a social animal, such as man, almost any instinct comes to have {146} social bearings. Eating and drinking become social matters, and all the organic instincts figure in the placing and making of a home. Home is a place of shelter against heat and cold, it is a refuge from danger, it is where you eat and where you sleep. It meets all these organic needs but--it is specially where "your people" are.

Home is a place where unlike persons foregather, male with female, adults with children, and thus it symbolizes the "family instincts", mating and child-care, which are responses to persons unlike in sex or age. But home also illustrates very well the herd instinct, which is a response to like persons, "birds of a feather flocking together". It is not the single home that illustrates this, but the almost universal grouping of homes into villages or cities.

The herd instinct or gregarious instinct.

It might be argued that a city or village was the result of economic causes, or, in the olden days, a means of protection against enemies, and not a direct satisfaction of any instinct in man to flock together. But often a family who know perfectly well that their economic advantage demands their remaining where they are, in some isolated country spot, will pull up stakes and accept an inferior economic status in the city, just because the country is too lonely for them. One woman, typical of a great many, declined to work in a comfortable and beautiful place in the country, because "she didn't want to see trees and rocks, she wanted to see people". There is no doubt that man belongs by nature with the deer or wolf rather than with solitary animals such as the lion. He is a gregarious creature.

The gregarious instinct does not by any manner of means account for all of man's social behavior. It brings men together and so gives a chance for social doings, but these doings are learned, not provided ready-made by the instinct. About all we can lay to the herd instinct is uneasiness when {147} alone, seeking company, remaining in company, and following the rest as they move from place to place. The feeling of loneliness or lonesomeness goes with being alone, and a feeling of satisfaction goes with being in company.

Probably there is one more fact that belongs under the herd instinct. A child is lonely even in company, unless he is allowed to participate in what the others are doing. Sometimes you see an adult who is gregarious but not sociable, who insists on living in the city and wishes to see the people, but has little desire to talk to any one or to take part in any social activities; but he is the exception. As a rule, people wish not only to be together but to do something together. So much as this may be ascribed to the instinct, but no more. "Let's get together and do something"--that is as far as the gregarious instinct goes. What we shall do depends on other motives, and on learning as well as instinct.

The mating instinct.

Attraction towards the opposite sex is felt by a small number of children, by most young people beginning from 15 to 20 years of age, by a minority not till a few years later, and, by a small number, never at all. On account of the late maturing of this instinct, in man, instinctive behavior is here inextricably interwoven with what has been learned. A definite organic and emotional state, lust, goes with this instinct. Preparatory reactions, called "courtship", are very definitely organized in many animals, and often quite elaborate. In man, courtship is elaborate enough, but not definitely organized as an instinct; and yet it follows much the same line as we observe in animal courtship. It begins with admiring attention to one of the opposite sex, followed by efforts to attract that one's attention by "display" (strutting, decoration of the person, demonstrating one's prowess, especially in opposition to rivals). Then the male takes an aggressive attitude, the {148} female a coy attitude; the male woos, the female hangs back, and something analogous to pursuit and capture takes place, except that the capture may be heartily accepted by both parties.

The "survival value" of this instinct is absolute; without it the race would not long survive. But it has "play value" also, it contributes to the joy of living as well as to the struggle for survival. There is much in social intercourse, and in literature and art, that is motivated by the sex impulse. Some would-be psychologists have been so much impressed by the wide ramifications of the sex motive in human conduct that they have attributed to it all play, all enjoyment, all the softer and lighter side of life, even all the spiritual side of life. One need only run over the long list of instincts, especially those that still remain to be mentioned, in order to be convinced of the one-sidedness of such a view. On the other hand, some moralists have been so deeply impressed by the difficulties that arise out of the sex motive, as to consider it essentially gross and bad; but this is as false as the other view. The sex impulse is like a strong but skittish horse that is capable of doing excellent work but requires a strong hand at the reins and a clear head behind. It is a horse that does not always pull well in a team; yet it is capable of fine teamwork. It can be harnessed up with other tendencies, and when so combined contribute some of its motive force to quite a variety of human activities.

The parental or mothering instinct.

In many species of animals, though not by any means in all, one or both of the parents stays by the young till some degree of maturity is reached. In some kinds of fish, it is the male that cares for the young; in birds it is often both parents. In mammals it is always the mother. Instinctively, the mammalian mother feeds, warms and defends her young. Just as {149} instinctively, the human mother does the same. This instinctive reaction to the little baby is attended by a strong emotion, called, for want of a better name, the "tender emotion".

The strongest stimulus to arouse this instinct is the little, helpless baby. The older child has to take second place with the mother, so soon as there is a little baby there. After a child is weaned, and after he is able to get about and do for himself to quite an extent, he has less hold on the maternal instinct. The love and care that he may still get is less a simple matter of instinct.

Though the little baby is the strongest stimulus to this instinct, older children and even adults, provided they are like the baby in being winsome and helpless in some way, may arouse the same sort of feeling and behavior, tender feeling and protective behavior. A pet animal may arouse the same tendency, and a "darling little calf" or a "cute little baby elephant" may awaken something of the same thrill. Even a young plant may be tended with a devotion akin to the maternal. The fact seems to be here, as with other instincts, that objects similar to the natural stimulus may arouse the same impulse and emotion. Love between the sexes is often a compound of sex attraction and the mothering instinct; and it is interesting to watch a happily mated couple each mothering the other.

But is it allowable to speak of this instinct as present in the male human being, or in any one not a mother? Undoubtedly the woman who has recently become a mother is most susceptible to the appeal of a little baby, but the response of other women and of girls to a baby is so spontaneous that we cannot but call it instinctive. Men and boys have no special desire to feed or cuddle a little baby, and are quite contented to leave the care of the baby mostly to the "women folks". But they do object strongly to seeing the {150} baby hurt or ill-treated, and will respond by protecting it. Also, they like to watch the baby act, and like to help it along in its efforts to do things. This may be instinctive in the man; at least it reminds us of the behavior of a mother cat or dog or horse, when she plays with her young and stimulates them to action. When the mother cat brings a live mouse for her half-grown kittens to practise on, she is acting instinctively, and probably a man is obeying the same instinct when he brings the baby a toy and derives pleasure from watching the baby's attempts to use it.

The parental instinct would thus seem to lie at the root of education, considered as an enterprise of adults directed towards getting the young to acquire the behavior of the race; and it also lies at the root of charity, the desire to protect the helpless.

Is there any instinct in the child answering to the parental, any "filial" instinct, as it were? Psychologists have usually answered no, but possibly they have been misled by the word "filial"