Human Nature and Conduct: An introduction to social psychologyDewey, John
Philosophy
Human Nature and Conduct: An introduction to social psychology
Dewey, John
Habit; Social psychology
Advance in insight and control came only when the mind turned squarely
around. After it had dawned upon inquirers that their alleged causal
forces were only names which condensed into a duplicate form a variety
of complex occurrences, they set about breaking up phenomena into minute
detail and searching for correlations, that is, for elements in other
gross phenomena which also varied. Correspondence of variations of
elements took the place of large and imposing forces. The psychology of
behavior is only beginning to undergo similar treatment. It is probable
that the vogue of sensation-psychology was due to the fact that it
seemed to promise a similar detailed treatment of personal phenomena.
But as yet we tend to regard sex, hunger, fear, and even much more
complex active interests as if they were lump forces, like the
combustion or gravity of old-fashioned physical science.
It is not hard to see how the notion of a single and separate tendency
grew up in the case of simpler acts like hunger and sex. The paths of
motor outlet or discharge are comparatively few and are fairly well
defined. Specific bodily organs are conspicuously involved. Hence there
is suggested the notion of a correspondingly separate psychic force or
impulse. There are two fallacies in this assumption. The first consists
in ignoring the fact that no activity (even one that is limited by
routine habit) is confined to the channel which is most flagrantly
involved in its execution. The whole organism is concerned in every act
to some extent and in some fashion, internal organs as well as muscular,
those of circulation, secretion, etc. Since the total state of the
organism is never exactly twice alike, in so far the phenomena of hunger
and sex are never twice the same in fact. The difference may be
negligible for some purposes, and yet give the key for the purposes of a
psychological analysis which shall terminate in a correct judgment of
value. Even physiologically the context of organic changes accompanying
an act of hunger or sex makes the difference between a normal and a
morbid phenomenon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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