The Science of Human Nature: A Psychology for BeginnersPyle, William Henry
Science
The Science of Human Nature: A Psychology for Beginners
Pyle, William Henry
Educational psychology; Psychology
One of the tasks of education is to build up sets or attitudes,
permanent prejudices, to be constant factors in guiding association and,
consequently, action. We wish to build up permanent attitudes toward
truth, honesty, industry, sympathy, zeal, persistence, etc. It is
evident that attitude is merely an aspect of habit. It is an habitual
way of reacting to a definite and typical situation. This habitual way
is strengthened by repetition, so that set or attitude finally, after
years of repetition, becomes a part of our nature. Our prejudices become
as strong, seemingly, as our instinctive tendencies. After a man has
thought in a particular groove for years, it is about as sure that he
will come to certain definite conclusions on matters in the line of his
thought as that he would give typical instinctive or even reflex
reactions. We know the direction association will take for a
Presbyterian in religious matters, for a Democrat in political matters,
with about as much certainty as we know what their actions will be in
situations that evoke instinctive reactions.
=Thinking and Reasoning.= Thinking is the passing of ideas in the mind.
This flow of ideas is in accordance with the laws of association above
discussed. The order in which the ideas come is the order fixed by
experience, the order as determined by the various factors above
enumerated.
In early life, one's mind is chiefly perceptual, it is what we see and
hear and taste and smell. As one grows older his mind grows more and
more ideational. With increasing age, a larger and larger percentage of
our mental life is made up of ideas, of memories. The child lives in the
present, in a world of perceptions. A man is not so much tied down to
the present; he lives in memory and anticipation. He thinks more than
does the child. A man is content to sit down in his chair and think for
hours at a time, a child is not. This thinking is the passing of ideas,
now one, then another and another. These ideas are the survivals or
revivals of our past experience. The order of their coming depends on
our past experience.
As I sit here and write, there surge up out of my past, ideas of creeks
and rivers and hills, horses and cows and dogs, boys and girls, men and
women, work and play, school days, friends,--an endless chain of ideas.
This "flow" of ideas is often started by a perception. For
illustration, I see a letter on the table, a letter from my brother. I
then have a visual image of my brother. I think of him as I saw him
last. I think of what he said. I think of his children, of his home, of
his boyhood, and our early life together. Then I think of our mother and
the old home, and so on and on. Presently I glance at a history among my
books, and immediately think of Greece and Athens and the Acropolis,
Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates, schoolmates and teachers, and friends
connected in one way or another with my college study of Greek.
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