Psychology : $b A study of mental lifeWoodworth, Robert Sessions
Science
Psychology : $b A study of mental life
Woodworth, Robert Sessions
Psychology
We are next to look for action and emotion aroused by persons,
specifically--not by persons and things alike. Fear can be aroused by
persons, but also by things. In a social animal, such as man, almost
any instinct comes to have {146} social bearings. Eating and drinking
become social matters, and all the organic instincts figure in the
placing and making of a home. Home is a place of shelter against heat
and cold, it is a refuge from danger, it is where you eat and where
you sleep. It meets all these organic needs but--it is specially where
"your people" are.
Home is a place where _unlike_ persons foregather, male with female,
adults with children, and thus it symbolizes the "family instincts",
mating and child-care, which are responses to persons unlike in sex or
age. But home also illustrates very well the herd instinct, which is a
response to like persons, "birds of a feather flocking together". It
is not the single home that illustrates this, but the almost universal
grouping of homes into villages or cities.
The herd instinct or gregarious instinct.
It might be argued that a city or village was the result of economic
causes, or, in the olden days, a means of protection against enemies,
and not a direct satisfaction of any instinct in man to flock
together. But often a family who know perfectly well that their
economic advantage demands their remaining where they are, in some
isolated country spot, will pull up stakes and accept an inferior
economic status in the city, just because the country is too lonely
for them. One woman, typical of a great many, declined to work in a
comfortable and beautiful place in the country, because "she didn't
want to see trees and rocks, she wanted to see people". There is no
doubt that man belongs by nature with the deer or wolf rather than
with solitary animals such as the lion. He is a gregarious creature.
The gregarious instinct does not by any manner of means account for
all of man's social behavior. It brings men together and so gives a
chance for social doings, but these doings are learned, not provided
ready-made by the instinct. About all we can lay to the herd instinct
is uneasiness when {147} alone, seeking company, remaining in company,
and following the rest as they move from place to place. The feeling
of loneliness or lonesomeness goes with being alone, and a feeling of
satisfaction goes with being in company.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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