Psychology Part 19

EXERCISES

1. Make an outline of the chapter, in the form of a table, which shall show for each instinct: (a) the natural stimulus, (b) the native motor response, (c) the end-result that the instinct tends towards, in its adult as well as its native condition, and (d) the emotion, if any, that goes with the activity of the instinct.

2. An adult tendency or propensity may be simply an unmodified instinct, or it may be derived from instincts by combination, etc.

Try to identify each of the following as an instinct, or to a.n.a.lyze it into two or more instincts:

(a) Love for adventure.

(b) Patriotism.

(c) A father's pride in his children.

(d) Love for travel.

(e) Insubordination.

(f) Love for dancing.

3. Which of the instincts are most concerned in making people work?

4. Show how self-a.s.sertion finds gratification in the life-work of

an actor.

a physician.

a housekeeper.

a teacher.

a railroad engineer.

5. Arrange the following impulses and emotions in the order of the frequency of their occurrence in your ordinary day's work and play:

(a) Fear.

(b) Anger.

(c) Disgust (d) Curiosity.

(e) Self-a.s.sertion.

(f) Submission.

(g) The tendency to protect or "mother" another.

6. How do "practical jokes" lend support to the view that laughter is primarily aroused by a sense of one's own superiority?

7. Get together a dozen jokes or funny stories, and see how many of them can be placed with the practical jokes in this respect.

8. Mention some laughter-stimuli that do not lend support to the theory mentioned in Exercise 6.

9. What instincts find outlet in (a) dress, (b) automobiling, (c) athletics, (d) social conversation?

{171}

REFERENCES

McDougall's _Social Psychology_ gives, in Chapters III and IV, an inventory of the instinctive equipment of mankind, and in Chapter V attempts to a.n.a.lyze many complex human emotions and propensities into their native elements.

Thorndike, in his _Educational Psychology, Briefer Course_, 1914, Chapters, II-V, attempts a more precise a.n.a.lysis of stimulus and response.

Watson's _Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist_, 1919, attempts in Chapter VI to show that there are only three primary emotions, fear, rage and love; and in Chapter VII gives a critical review of the work on human instincts.

H. C. Warren, in Chapter VI of his _Human Psychology_, 1919, gives a brief survey of the reflexes and instincts.

{172}

CHAPTER IX

THE FEELINGS

PLEASANTNESS AND UNPLEASANTNESS, AND OTHER STATES OF FEELINGS AND THEIR INFLUENCE UPON BEHAVIOR

Feeling is subjective and una.n.a.lyzed. It is conscious, and an "unconscious feeling" would be a contradiction in terms. But, while conscious, it is not cognitive; it is not "knowing something", even about your subjective condition; it is simply "the way you feel". As soon as you begin to a.n.a.lyze it, and say, "I feel badly here or there, in this way or in that", you _know_ something about your subjective condition, but the feeling has evaporated for the instant. In pa.s.sing over into definite knowledge of facts, it has ceased to be feeling.

Feeling is an undercurrent of consciousness, or we might call it a background. The foreground consists of what you are taking notice of or thinking about, or of what you are intending to do; that is to say, the foreground is cognitive or impulsive, or it may be both at once, as when we are intent on throwing this stone and hitting that tree. In the background lies the conscious subjective condition. Behind facts observed and acts intended lies the state of the individual's feeling, sometimes calm, sometimes excited, sometimes expectant, sometimes gloomy, sometimes buoyant.

The number of different ways of feeling must be very great, and it would be no great task to find a hundred different words, some of them no doubt partly synonymous, to complete the sentence, "I feel _______". All the {173} emotions, as "stirred-up states of mind", belong under the general head of the feelings.

But when the psychologist speaks of _the feelings_, he usually means the _elementary_ feelings. An emotion is far from elementary. If you accept the James-Lange theory, you think of an emotion as a blend of organic sensations; and if you reject that theory, you would still probably agree that such an emotion as anger or fear seems a big, complex state of feeling. It seems more complex than such a sensation as red, warm, or bitter, which are called elementary sensations because no one has ever succeeded in decomposing them into simpler sensations. Now, the question is whether any feelings can be indicated that are as elementary as these simple sensations.

Pleasantness and Unpleasantness Are Simple Feelings

No one has ever been able to break up the feelings of pleasantness and unpleasantness into anything simpler. "Pleasure" and "displeasure" are not always so simple; they are names for whole states of mind which may be very complex, including sensations and thoughts in addition to the feelings of pleasantness and unpleasantness. "Pain" does not make a satisfactory subst.i.tute for the long word "unpleasantness", because "pain", as we shall see in the next chapter, is properly the name of a certain sensation, and feelings are to be distinguished from sensations. Red, warm and bitter, along with many others, are sensations, but pleasantness and unpleasantness are not sensations.

How, then, do the elementary feelings differ from sensations? In the first place, sensations submit readily to being picked out and observed, and in fact become more vivid when they are brought into the "foreground", while feelings grow vague and lose their character when thus singled {174} out for examination. Attend to the noises in the street and they stand out clearly, attend to the internal sensation of breathing and it stands out clearly, but attend to your pleasant state of feeling and it retreats out of sight.

In the second place, sensations are "localized"; you can tell pretty well where they seem to come from. Sensations of light, sound and smell are localized outside the body, sensations of touch are localized on the skin (or sometimes outside), taste sensations are localized in the mouth, organic and muscular sensations in some part of the body. On the other hand, pleasantness and unpleasantness are much less definitely localized; they seem to be "in us", without being in any special part of us.

In the third place, feelings differ from sensations in having no known sense organs. There is no special sense organ or set of sense organs for the feeling of pleasantness or unpleasantness, as there is for warmth or cold. Some sensations are pleasant, to be sure, and some unpleasant; but there is no one kind of sense organ that has the monopoly of either sort of feeling.

Feeling-Tone of Sensations

The pleasantness or unpleasantness characteristic of many sensations is called their "feeling-tone", and sensations that are markedly pleasant or unpleasant are said to have a strong or p.r.o.nounced feeling-tone. Bitter is intrinsically unpleasant, sweet pleasant, the salty taste, when not too strong, neither one nor the other, so that it has no definite feeling-tone. Odors, as well as tastes, usually have a rather definite feeling-tone. Of sounds, smooth tones are pleasant, grating noises unpleasant. Bright colors are pleasant, while dull shades are sometimes unpleasant, sometimes merely indifferent or lacking in feeling-tone. Pain is usually unpleasant, moderate warmth and cold pleasant, simple touch {175} indifferent. Very intense sensations of any kind are likely to be unpleasant.

The statements made above as to the subjectivity and non-localization of feeling do not apply altogether to the feeling-tone of sensations.

The pleasantness or unpleasantness of a sensation is localized with the sensation and seems to belong to the object rather than to ourselves. The unpleasantness of a toothache seems to be in the tooth rather than simply "in us". The pleasantness of a sweet taste is localized in the mouth, and we even think of the sweet substance as being objectively pleasant. We say that it is a "pleasant day", and that there is a "pleasant tang in the air", as if the pleasantness were an objective fact.

By arguing with a person, however, you can get him to admit that, while the day is pleasant _to him_, and the tang in the air pleasant to him, they may be unpleasant to another person; and he will admit that a sweet substance, ordinarily pleasant, is unpleasant when he has had too much of sweet things to eat. So you can make him realize that pleasantness and unpleasantness depend on the individual and his condition, and are subjective rather than objective. Show a group of people a bit of color, and you will find them agreeing much better as to what color that is than as to how pleasant it is. Feeling-tone is subjective in the sense that people disagree about it.

Theories of Feelings