The conception of mental disorder here presented inevitably leads to certain
views regarding the causes which give rise to it. Since mental health is
dependent on capacity for adjustment being equal to the demands made upon
it, mental disorder must always be due to failure to maintain this
relationship between capacity and needs. The causes of insanity must
therefore be of two kinds:
First, those which make the task of adjustment so difficult as to overtax
the capacity.
Second, those which lessen the capacity so that it is unequal to the demands
made upon it.
The third section of the paper is a brief discussion of what these causes
are and how we should deal with them. Author's Abstract.
A STUDY OF SEXUAL TENDENCIES IN MONKEYS AND BABOONS. By G. V. Hamilton.
Journal of Animal Behavior, September-October, 1914, vol. 4, No. 5, pp.
295-318.
The writer asserts that the work and problems in sexuality in human beings
place upon the animal behaviorist an obligation to lay the necessary
foundations for a scientific and thoroughly comprehensive investigation of
sexual life. This has led him to formulate the following two problems in
animal behavior: (1) Are there any types of infra-human primate behavior
which cannot be regarded as expressions of a tendency to seek sexual
satisfaction, but which have the essential objective characteristics of
sexual activity? (2) Do such sexual reaction-types as homosexual
intercourse, efforts to copulate with non-primate animals and masturbation
normally occur among any of the primates, and if so, what is their
biological significance?
The author presents a list of the subjects (monkeys and baboons) employed in
his study; gives a description of the environmental conditions in his
laboratory which is in the midst of a live oak woods In Montecito,
California, about five miles from Santa Barbara; gives a list of the types
of situations that were arranged by the observer or encountered by the
subjects in consequence of their spontaneous activities, and under each
description of a typical situation one or more detailed descriptions of
typical responses thereto; and finally offers the classification of sexual
tendencies as expressions of reactive tendencies observed.
The author then enters into a discussion of the use of the term reactive
tendency, and explains that this term, according to his definition, is meant
to explain something more specific than an inclination to direct activity
toward one of a limited number of general ends, and to include both the
innate and the acquired features of an individual's reactive mechanism.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account