An Introduction to Psychology

Susan S. Brierley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367149918
• eBook ISBN: 9780429620324
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Originally published in 1921, this introduction to psychology includes chapters on the definitions and methods related to psychology; organism and environnment; and instinct and intelligence.

AN INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY

PART I
THE SCOPE AND METHOD OF PSYCHOLOGY

CHAPTER I

DEFINITIONS

THE student taking up different text-books of psychology will find various definitions of the subject, and none that we can offer will meet with universal acceptance among psychologists. To those who pin their faith to definitions this may appear to be a serious matter, and it would certainly be an advantage if we could state in precise and generally accepted terms the exact nature of the facts with which our science is concerned. These differences of opinion, however, do not persist because psychologists are more muddle-headed than other people. There are very good reasons for the divergent views. Some of these reasons are in a sense extraneous, arising from the historical relations of the science to other branches of thought as, for example, ethics and metaphysics.

Until comparatively recent times, inquiry into what human nature is has been deeply coloured by prejudice as to what it ought to be, and we can even now hardly look upon our concrete problems with anything approaching the dispassionate attitude with which we examine physical and chemical facts. To a large extent moreover, psychology is still too intimately connected with philosophical theories. All sciences lie under the shadow of metaphysics in their infancy; they only succeed in establishing and developing themselves as they break away from its influence, becoming concrete and experimental. Psychology is the youngest member of the family to assert its independence, being yet indeed little more than a fledgling.

A more significant reason for the lack of general agreement as to the definition of psychology is that a definition often does more than point to the concrete facts with which the science is concerned—it may imply some theory as to the essential nature of those facts.

It is very easy to provide a list of the concrete problems upon which psychologists are actually engaged, as we try to do in Chapter III; there is no quarrel here. It is when we try to sum these up in general terms that difficulties of theory, of interpretation, arise. When we say that psychology is the study of “the soul”, of “the mind”, of “consciousness”, of “behaviour”, the question of what we mean by these terms is raised at once, and it is here that psychologists join issue. It is in the final interpretations of our science that the great difficulties lie, and these cannot be solved until we know very much more about the concrete facts and their detailed relations. Hence it is more important to press on with the study of the concrete problems which lie waiting for us on every hand than to spend our time in barren discussions as to the precise scope and meaning of our science. The essential nature of the facts with which psychology deals and its precise relation to other sciences are more likely to be revealed in patient experiment than in mere debate.

Yet we must have some quite tentative working definition, the value and limitations of which will become clearer as we go further. Perhaps the most useful definition of psychology from which to begin is “the study of behaviour”; we may however, with advantage, briefly discuss one or two serious rivals to this point of view. And first, we may consider the definition “the study of consciousness.”1

PSYCHOLOGY AS THE STUDY OF CONSCIOUSNESS

There is little difficulty in understanding just what we mean by the term consciousness, for we all know what it is to be conscious, to be aware of something. We may be aware of the pen with which we write, of the ideas which we are expressing, of the movements we make in expressing them, of the pangs of hunger or the weariness which lead us to cease writing, of the sunset or houses and trees which we see from our window. We are, or can be, conscious of each of these in turn. We can even become greatly conscious of ourselves, as when we walk into Church or a public meeting late. Yet we cannot define consciousness, nor say in what it consists. We can simply point to it as a well recognised experience; and perhaps help in marking it out more clearly by referring to occasions when we are unconscious. We are, for example, unconscious in deep sleep or in a “faint.” We are unconscious of a particular past experience if we cannot now recall it in memory, the effort to “recall” it being just an effort to bring it to present consciousness. When we remember it we are aware of it.

There is thus little doubt as to the meaning of the term; but in spite of this, we cannot be satisfied with it as a definition of psychology, because we find that the facts of consciousness by themselves are insufficient for the purposes of science. We may give a full description of our feelings, wishes and ideas, and all the ever-changing phenomena of conscious life, as they actually do occur; but this is mere history, and science cannot be content with a simple chronicle. We wish to go deeper, to discover the “how” of the facts, and to find the underlying tendencies and essential sequences. To achieve this we are compelled to take into consideration many facts which lie outside the circle of consciousness, for the sequence of conscious experience is frequently influenced by unconscious processes of one kind or another.

What these are will become clear to us as our study proceeds, but we shall see that they are essential elements in the complete story of mental life; and without them we cannot arrive at any understanding of the general tendencies of conscious experience. A definition which finds room for these unconscious factors is that which expresses psychology in terms of behaviour.

PSYCHOLOGY AS THE STUDY OF BEHAVIOUR

Even those who consider conscious phenomena to be the proper concern of psychology have had to recognise the study of behaviour as a method of the science. We cannot observe consciousness directly save in ourselves, and our knowledge of the inner experience of other people is gained indirectly. We watch what others do, listen to what they say and the way in which they say it, and thus try to come to some understanding of their thoughts, feelings and purposes. The very language we use to describe our awareness of things and people is itself a form of behaviour; there is indeed as much to be learned from the way in which we speak as from the words we say; as much from the things we leave unsaid as from the statements we volunteer. We are, moreover, interested in the life of those who have no language, or none adequate for the proper description of their experience,—the child and the animal,—and here we have no method but that of the study of behaviour.

If we adopt this definition of psychology, however, we have still to make clear (as far as may be done at this stage of our inquiry) what we mean by “behaviour”.

We may usefully take as a starting-point the interpretation offered by McDougall, who stands for the view that behaviour is “purposive activity”. “We all recognise broadly that the things which make up our world of perceptible objects fall into two great classes, namely, inert things, whose movements and changes seem to be strictly determined according to mechanical laws, and living things, which behave or exhibit behaviour. And when we say that they exhibit behaviour, we mean that they seem to have an intrinsic power of self-determination, and to pursue actively or with effort their own welfare or their own ends or purposes”.

“The manifestation of purpose and the striving to achieve an end is, then, the mark of behaviour; and behaviour is the characteristic of living things. This criterion of life is one of which we all make use, but most of us have not reflected upon it, and we may dwell upon it for a moment with advantage. Take a billiard ball from the pocket and place it upon the table. It remains at rest, and would continue to remain so for an indefinitely long time, if no force were applied to it, no work done upon it. Push it in any direction, and its movement in that direction persists until its momentum is exhausted, or until it is deflected by the resistance of the cushion and follows a new path mechanically determined. This is a type of mechanical movement. Now contrast this with an instance of behaviour. Take a timid animal, such as a guinea-pig, from its hole or nest and put it upon the grass-plot. Instead of remaining at rest it turns back to its hole; push it in any other direction, and as soon as you withdraw your hand it turns back to its hole: place any obstacle in its way, and it seeks to circumvent or surmount it, restlessly persisting until it achieves its end or until its energy is exhausted. That is an example of behaviour from the middle region of the scale of complexity; consideration of it reveals very clearly the great difference between behaviour and mechanical process. As an instance higher in the scale of complexity, consider a dog taken from its home and shut up at some distant place. There, no matter how kindly treated, he remains restless, trying constantly to escape, and, perhaps, refusing food and wasting away; when released, he sets out for home, and runs many miles across country without stopping till he reaches it, following perhaps a direct route if the country is familiar to him, or perhaps only reaching home after much wandering hither and thither. As an example from the upper end of the scale of behaviour, consider the case of a man who loves his native land, but who, in order to earn his daily bread, has accepted a position in some distant country. There he faithfully performs the tasks he has undertaken; but always his dominant purpose is to save enough money to enable him to return and to make a home in his native land: this is the prime motive of all his behaviour, to which all other motives are subordinated. We best understand this last behaviour if the exile tells us that he constantly pictures to himself his beloved native place and the enjoyments that he hopes to find there. For we know well what it is to foresee an event and ardently to desire it. Even if the exile be but a dull-minded peasant, incapable of explicitly anticipating the delights of his return, who seems to be affected merely by a home-sickness which he cannot express or justify in words, we still feel that we can in some measure understand his state and his behaviour. We feel this also of the dog in the foregoing instance, and in a less degree of the animal of our first example. For we, too, have experienced a vague and formless unrest, an impulsion to strive persistently towards an end which we can neither formulate nor rationally justify; we, too, have experienced how obstruction to such activity does but accentuate our impulse, how successful progress towards the end brings us a vague though profound satisfaction, and how achievement of the end can alone relieve our inward unrest”.

“These, then, are indisputable instances of behaviour. They are only to be understood or explained after the analogy of our own experiences of effort or striving. No attempt to explain such facts mechanically has at present the least plausibility or can in any degree aid us in understanding or controlling them”.

“Now the same is true, though perhaps less obviously true, of still simpler forms of behaviour”.¹

Such a conception of behaviour and of the field of psychology seems upon the face of it fairly direct and simple, and it is a view that has great importance and value. In the first place, it emphasises the biological outlook which is an essential basis for modern psychological study. We shall see when we turn to such concrete problems as the emotions and the development of personality that our understanding of these problems begins when we learn to regard man, in common with other living creatures, as an expression of biological laws, and in particular when we learn to apply to him the concept of evolution. The theory of evolution laid the foundations of the scientific approach to the study of human nature. Any serious interpretation of psychology must be in harmony with this fundamental attitude; and this demand is fulfilled by the view we are considering. Other advantages of this view are that it starts from simple facts of immediate observation, and that it leads us to look upon the data of our science as the dynamic processes of life, continually changing and developing, rather than as separable and fixed mental “states” or “faculties”.

Moreover, as the few instances quoted above suggest, the purposive activity or behaviour in which we are interested shows a widely ranging scale of complexity. Different as the simple responses of the lowliest organisms and the typical life and works of man appear, they are kept apart by no unbridgeable chasm. They are merely the end-terms of a series of types of activity which shows unbroken continuity of development with various degrees of complexity. There is now no sufficient ground for holding that the behaviour of a man, of a dog, and of a unicellular organism differ absolutely in kind. There are very significant differences, but these are nowhere marked by absolute distinctions or sharp boundaries. And consciousness, or, rather, conscious activity, finds its own place at the upper end of this scale of behaviour, offering indeed the highest and the most fully developed expression of behaviour as it is here regarded, i.e. as purposive activity.

This we shall make clear in many ways as our discussion proceeds. It must be said, however, that we accept this view of behaviour as “purposive activity”, not as dogmatic and incontrovertible, but as a useful working attitude to the concrete problems upon which we are engaged. It is, indeed, more than probable that the distinction between “mechanical” action and “purposive” activity is not final and absolute, for the growth of knowledge is slowly bridging the apparent gap between many of the outward manifestations of the living and the non-living.

There is another possible definition which we may now profitably consider, viz. in terms of “mind”.

PSYCHOLOGY AS THE STUDY OF THE MIND

This view is widely accepted, and of considerable value. There are, however, possibilities of wide differences in its interpretation, and we must be very clear as to the sense in which we use the term “mind”. We must not allow the word itself to run away with us, and carry us beyond our proper province of immediate and concrete experience. We are not justified, from the psychological standpoint, in regarding “mind” as some mysterious independent entity distinct from “body”, yet existing in equally mysterious relation with “body”. We commonly make such a distinction, and the view is one of great importance in the history of thought. It is, however, an artificial distinction, and involves a begging of the question. We must, in a scientific inquiry, keep always close to the actual facts of experience. What we know is not “the mind”, but concrete mental events and tendencies,—our emotions, desires and images; the facts of hearing and seeing and speaking, and so on. The mind is, in other words, “the sum-total of the ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Preface
• Table of Contents
• Part I The Scope and Method of Psychology
• Part II Some General Problems of Psychology
• Suggestions for Reading
• Index