Psychology by Robert S. Woodworth (top rated ebook readers .TXT) 📕

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.

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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