Psychology - Robert S. Woodworth (trending books to read TXT) 📗

just share of the proceeds. He must be interested in the purposes of the concern and in the operations on which he is engaged. Best of all, perhaps, some responsibility and initiative must be delegated to him. When the master, not contented with setting the main goal, insists on bossing every detail, continually interfering in the servant's work, the servant has the least possible chance of adopting the job as his own. But where the master is able, in the first place, to show the servant the objective need and value of the goal, and to leave the initiative in respect to ways and means to the servant, looking to him for results, the servant often responds by throwing himself into the enterprise as if it were his own--as, indeed, it properly is in such a case.

"Initiative"--that high-grade trait that is so much in demand--seems to be partly a matter of imagination and partly of will. It demands inventiveness in seeing what can be done, zest for action, and an independent and masterful spirit.

The physician who treats "nervous" or neurotic cases has this problem of getting action from his patients. Strange as it may seem, these cases, while bemoaning their unfortunate condition, cling to it as if it had its compensations, and do not wholeheartedly will to get well. They have {546} slumped into the attitude of invalidism, and need reorientation towards the goal of health and accomplishment. How to bring this about is the great problem. Much depends here on the personality of the physician, and different physicians (as well as mental healers outside the medical profession) employ different technique with more or less of success. The first necessity is to win the patient's confidence; after that, some use persuasion, some suggestion, some psychoanalysis, some (non-medical practitioners) use metaphysical doctrines designed to lead the patient to "hitch his wagon to a star". On the intellectual side, these methods agree in giving the patient a new perspective, in which weakness, ill health and maladaptation are seen to be small, insignificant and unnecessary, and health and achievement desirable and according to the nature of things; while on the side of impulse they probably come together in appealing to the masterful and self-assertive tendency, either by putting the subject on his mettle, or by leading him to partake of the determined, masterful attitude of the physician, or by making him feel that he is one with the great forces of the universe. Methods that psychologically are very similar to these are employed by the clergyman in dealing with morally flabby or maladjusted individuals; and the courts are beginning to approach the delinquent from the same angle. All the facts seem to indicate that the way to get action is to have a goal that "fires the imagination" and enlists the masterful tendencies of human nature.

The Influence of Suggestion

Can the will of one person be controlled by that of another, through hypnotism or any similar practice? This question is often asked anxiously by those who fear that crime or misconduct willed by one person may be passively executed by another.

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Hypnosis is a sleeplike and passive state that is nevertheless attentive and concentrated. It appears as if the subject were awake at just one point, namely at the point of relation with the hypnotizer. To stimuli from other sources, external or internal, he is inaccessible. His field of activity is narrowed down to a point, though at that point he may be intensely active.

The depth of the hypnotic state varies from shallow to profound. Comparatively few individuals can be deeply hypnotized, but many can be got into a mild receptive state, in which they accept the suggestions of the hypnotizer more readily than in the fully awaking state. The waking person is alert, suspicious, assertive, while the hypnotized subject is passive and submissive. The subject's coöperation is necessary, in general, in order to bring on the hypnotic state, whether shallow or deep.

The means of inducing hypnosis are many and varied, but they all consist in shoving aside extraneous thoughts and stimuli, and getting the subject into a quiet, receptive attitude, with attention sharply focussed upon the operator.

When the subject is in this state, the "suggestions" of the operator are accepted with less criticism and resistance than in the fully waking state. In deep hypnosis, gross illusions and even hallucinations can be produced. The operator hands the subject a bottle of ammonia, with the assurance that it is the perfume of roses, and the subject smells of it with every appearance of enjoyment. The operator points to what he says is a statue of Apollo in the corner, and the subject apparently sees one there.

Loss of sensation can also be suggested and accepted. Being assured that his hand has lost its sensation and cannot feel a pin prick, the subject allows his hand to be pricked with no sign of pain. Paralysis of the arm or leg can be similarly suggested and accepted.

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Acts may be suggested and performed. The subject is handed a cardboard sword with the assurance that that is a sword, and directed to attack some person present, which he does with the appearance of serious intent.

Now, however, let the subject be given a real sword with the same command as before. Result--the subject wakes up! This suggestion was too much; it aroused dormant tendencies, broadened out the field of activity, and so produced the waking condition. A suggestion that runs counter to the subject's organized character and tendencies cannot get by without arousing them and so awakening the subject. Consequently, there does not seem to be much real danger of crimes being performed by innocent persons under hypnosis.

In mild hypnosis, the above striking phenomena are not produced, but suggestions of curative value may be conveyed, and so taken to heart that they produce real results. The drowsy state of a child just falling to sleep can be similarly utilized for implanting suggestions of value. One little boy had a nervous twitching of the face that was very annoying. His father, just as the child was dropping off to sleep, conveyed the suggestion that the child didn't like this twitching; and this suggestion, repeated night after night, in a few days caused the twitching almost wholly to disappear.

Suggestion often succeeds in a waking state. In a certain test for "suggestibility", the task is set of copying a series of lines. The first line is short, the second longer, the third longer still, the rest all of the same length, but the more suggestible individual keeps on making each succeeding line longer. There are, however, various tests for suggestibility, and an individual who succumbs to one does not necessarily succumb to another, so that it may be doubted whether we should baldly speak of one individual as more suggestible than another.

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Suggestion may be exerted by a person, or by the circumstances. If by a person, the more "prestige" he enjoys in the estimation of the subject, the greater his power of suggestion. A prestige person is one to whom you are submissive. A child is so dependent on older people, and so much accustomed to "being told", that he is specially susceptible to prestige suggestion.

Suggestion exerted by the circumstances is about the same as what is often called "auto-suggestion" or "self-suggestion". A man falls and hurts his hip, and, finding his leg difficult to move, conceives that it is paralyzed, and may continue paralyzed for some time.

"Counter-suggestion" applies to cases where a suggestion produces the result contrary to what is suggested. You suggest to a person that he should do a certain thing, and immediately he is set against that act, though, left to himself, he would have performed it. Or, you advance a certain opinion and at once your hearer takes the other side of the question. Quite often skilful counter-suggestion can secure action, from children or adults, which could not be had by positive suggestion or direct command.

If suggestion succeeds by arousing the submissive tendency, counter-suggestion succeeds by arousing the assertive tendency. Suggestion works when it gets response without awakening the resistance which might be expected, and counter-suggestion when it arouses so much resistance that the suggestion itself does not have the influence which might be expected. In terms of stimulus and response, suggestion works when a particular stimulus (what is suggested) arouses response without other stimuli being able to contribute to the response; and counter-suggestion works when a stimulus (what is suggested, again) is itself prevented from contributing to the response. In counter-suggestion, response to the suggestion itself is inhibited, and in positive {550} suggestion response to other stimuli is inhibited. Both involve narrowness of response, and are opposed to what we commonly speak of as "good judgment", the taking of all relevant stimuli into account, and letting the response be aroused by the combination.

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EXERCISES

1. Outline the chapter.

2. Which of the previous chapters have the closest contacts with the present chapter?

3. How does the popular conception of hypnotism differ from the scientific?

4. List 8 acts performed during the day, and arrange them in order from the most involuntary to the most voluntary.

5. Analyze a complex performance so as to show what in it is voluntary and what involuntary.

6. Mention an instance of practice changing a voluntary performance into an involuntary, and one of practice changing an involuntary performance into a voluntary.

7. If an individual is influenced by two opposing motives, must he act according to the stronger of the two?

8. Illustrate, in the case of anger, several ways of dealing with a rejected motive. i.e., in what different ways can anger be controlled?

9. How would you represent purpose in neural terms? How does it compare with "mental set"?

REFERENCES

On the importance of self-assertion (and of submission) in will, and on the relation of conduct to impulse and to reasoning, see McDougall's Social Psychology, Chapter IX, on "Volition", and Supplementary Chapter I, on "Theories of Action".

For a practical study of the question, how to secure action, see Walter Dill Scott's Increasing Human Efficiency in Business, 1911.

On hypnotism, see Albert Moll's Hypnotism, translated by A. F. Hopkirk; or James's Chapter XXVII in his Principles of Psychology, 1890.

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CHAPTER XXI

PERSONALITY

THE INDIVIDUAL AS A WHOLE, INTEGRATED OR PARTIALLY DISSOCIATED

People differ not only in intelligence and efficiency, but in an intangible something referred to as "personality". If your acquaintance is applying for a certain position, and has named you as one of his references, you will be asked by the appointing officer to tell what you know of the candidate's experience, his knowledge and skill in the field where he desires a position, his character and habits, and his personality; and in replying you state, if you conscientiously can, that the candidate has a pleasing and forceful personality, that he gets on well with superiors, equals and inferiors, is coöperative, energetic, ambitious without being selfish, clean, modest, brave, self-reliant, cheerful, optimistic, equal-tempered; and you perhaps include here traits that might also be classed under the head of "character", as honesty, truthfulness, industry, reliability, and traits that might be classed under physique, as good appearance and carriage, commanding presence, a "strong face", and even neatness and good taste in dress. Here we have an array of traits that are of great importance to the individual's success in his work, in his social relationships and in his family life; and it is a proof of how much remains to be accomplished in psychology that we cannot as yet present anything like a real scientific analysis of personality, nor show on what elementary factors it depends.

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Factors in Personality

If we do attempt some sort of analysis, we have first to notice that personality depends in part on physique. In ordinary life, mental and physical traits are not sharply distinguished, and probably they cannot be distinguished except in the abstract. The mere size of a person affects his attitude towards other people and their attitude towards him--and