How to Use Your Mind: A Psychology of Study: Being a Manual for the Use of Students and Teachers in the Administration of Supervised StudyKitson, Harry Dexter
Science
How to Use Your Mind: A Psychology of Study: Being a Manual for the Use of Students and Teachers in the Administration of Supervised Study
Kitson, Harry Dexter
Study skills
We should not be deceived by the glibness of the above statements into
assuming that the development of interest is an easy matter. It
requires adherence to certain definite psychological laws which we may
call the laws of interest. The first may be stated as follows: _In
order to develop interest in a subject, secure information about it_.
The force of this law will be apparent as soon as we analyze one of our
already-developed interests. Let us take one that is quite common--the
interest which a typical young girl takes in a movie star. Her interest
in him comes largely from what she has been able to learn about him;
the names of the productions in which he has appeared, his age, the
color of his automobile, his favorite novel. Her interest may be said
actually to consist, at least in part, of these facts. The astute press
agent knows the force of this law, and at well-timed intervals he lets
slip through bits of information about the star, which fan the interest
of the fair devotee to a still whiter heat.
The relation of information to interest is still further illustrated by
the case of the typical university professor or scientist. He is
interested in certain objects of research--infusoria, electrons, plant
ecology,--because he knows so much about them. His interest may be
said to _consist_ partly of the body of knowledge that he possesses. He
was not always interested in the specific, obscure field, but by
saturating himself in facts about it, he has developed an interest in
it amounting to passionate absorption, which manifests itself in
"absent-mindedness" of such profundity as to make him often an object
of wonder and ridicule.
Let us demonstrate the application of the law again showing how
interest may be developed in a specific college subject. Let us choose
one that is generally regarded as so "difficult" and "abstract" that
not many people are interested in it--philology, the study of language
as a science. Let us imagine that we are trying to interest a student
of law in this. As a first step we shall select some legal term and
show what philology can tell about it. A term frequently encountered in
law is indenture--a certain form of contract. Philological researches
have uncovered an interesting history regarding this word. It seems
that in olden days when two persons made an agreement they wrote it on
two pieces of paper, then notched the edges so that when placed
together, the notches on the edge of one paper would just match those
of the other. This protected both parties against substitution of a
fraudulent contract at time of fulfillment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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