Handbook of Social Psychology

Kimball Young

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136275739
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This is Volume V in of eighteen a series on the Sociology of Behaviour and Psychology. Originally published in 1946, this is the second edition of the book provides a handbook of Social Psychology.

Part One

SOME BASIC RELATIONS OF PERSONALITY
TO SOCIETY AND CULTURE

SOCIAL life is by no means a human invention. The foundations of society lie in the prehuman animal species. Especially important for the social psychologist are the findings of research on the social relations among monkeys and apes, since these present a picture of many fundamental forms of social relation: sexual, familial, conflictive, and co-operative. Important phases of prehuman social life are treated in Chapter II. Yet interaction among human beings is far more complex than among the lower animals. Culture, or group-sanctioned habits, attitudes, and ideas, influences our relations with our fellows. A broad over-all description of the effects of variation in culture upon personality is given in Chapter III.

Despite the importance of social and cultural influences on the individual, the human organism is a dynamic, not a passive, element in adaptation. Original drives and emotions provide the basic inception of adjustment to the physical and social-cultural environment. These impulsions, however, soon begin to be modified and elaborated by learning. Not only are the initial drives and emotions elaborated, but the adaptive reflexes are overlaid with conditioned responses. Drives and some features of social learning are discussed in Chapters IV and V.

Upon the basis of facts about society, culture, motivations, and learning, two chapters, VI and VII, are given over to tracing the interactional processes involved in the rise of the personality, or social self. But, since what a person thinks, feels, and does is conditioned by culturized ideas, attitudes, and values derived from his particular society, two additional chapters, VIII and IX, show how the content of thought and action—pur stereotypes, myths, opinions, and judgments—are largely the product of our culture. Finally, every student of social behavior recognizes the special place which personal dominance has in all societies. The concluding chapter in Part One analyzes in some detail the role of leadership in directing and controlling human adaptation.

Chapter II

ANIMAL PROTOTYPES OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR

THE often quoted dictum of the English historian William Stubbs that “the roots of the present lie deep in the past” is, of course, as true with ret erence to biological and social-psychological matters as it is in the field of human institutions. Certainly social life did not begin with man; it was only expanded and greatly enriched by him. In fact, the study of social life among various animal species has importance beyond that of merely furnishing interesting analogies with our own society. If we are to accept the general principle of continuity in species and in behavior, some attention must be given to the inception of those features of adaptation which characterize mankind everywhere.

From an examination of the vast literature of what is sometimes called “animal sociology” a number of basic questions arise: (1) What is the nature of social relations? (2) At what point in the evolutionary history of animal forms did social reactions arise? (3) What relation have these initial forms to the subsequent ones seen in man and his near relatives, the other primate species?

We have already indicated that society implies interaction, that is, the interplay of two or more members of a species in which the action of one influences or qualifies the action of the other. Yet to uncover the point of origin of social relationships is not so easy as to define the essentials of such contacts once they are observed. But a number of important facts from biological history may be set down to aid us in getting at reasonably adequate answers to the second and third questions noted above, which are our concern at this point.

(1) The biological principle of gradual increase in complexity of structure and function may be accepted, and in this development the effects of many of the prior structures and functions are found to be the bases upon which later elaborations of adaptive capacity are founded. Moreover, changes in the relations between organism and environment are evidently due to a combination of external and internal (intraindividual) forces. The problem of the relative place of mutations and of possible hereditary accumulations arising from gradual adaptive modifications in the individual has not been settled. But no one would gainsay that great changes in the environment have had a part in giving new pitch and direction to the evolutionary processes. Thus no one doubts that, after the basic vertebrate structure evolved in an aquatic environment, climatic and other external changes—for example, those which altered the ratio of land and water surfaces and perhaps produced certain seasonal variations—had a place in inducing modifications resulting in the appearance of the amphibian forms, which were capable of living either in the water or on the land. The paired fins of the fishes became altered to appendages suitable for land locomotion. In this same period also, and in association with this adaptation to a dual environment, the egg sac of the fishes and the amphibians emerged gradually into the internally contained uterine sac, which gave rise to the true placental-uterine method of reproduction. So, too, at about this same time—estimated to be 150,000,000 years ago—there occurred the differentiation into reptilian and warm-blooded mammalian forms. Other changes, of course, took place, such as the shift in food from insects to vegetation, and later, in some forms, to flesh diets, and finally in the higher forms to omnivorous sources of sustenance. Still later the arboreal life of the early anthropoids, for instance, gave way—for some species-—to living on the ground again, and this shift in basic habitat, in turn, induced other important changes, as we shall note.:

The point of this brief excursus into evolutionary history is that biologic continuity is a fundamental matter. And it is just as basic when we come to examine some of the factors of reaction that are associated with the organism-environment adjustment. In the efforts to obtain food, mates, and protection the opposition or struggle of individuals and of species is well-known. But so, too, are forms of co-operation to be found in nature. Perhaps Charles Darwin overstressed open conflict for survival; but the work of Peter Kropotkin and a host of students of animal behavior since has shown us that mutual aid also plays a part in the development of both species and individuals.

As to the beginning of social interaction, conceived in the broad sense of oppositional or co-operative interplay, if we take into account what might be termed mass physiology, some forms of interaction are evident in the simplest types of life.¹ There is apparently a fundamental tendency for organisms to respond to one another in some form of co-operation or antagonism, either of which reactions modifies the adaptive picture as a whole. There seems to be a basic organic or protoplasmic foundation for these more or less automatic sociotaxic relationships.

There are, moreover, not only co-operative and oppositional reactions among individuals of the same species, but interdependencies among plants, among animals, and between plant and animal forms. The whole science of plant and animal ecology gives ample evidence of this.²

Illustrations without end could be provided to show that in nature there are interspecies communal relations without which there would be no survival. It is sufficient for us to repeat that such interdependencies are not Just the product of late evolution, but appear to be basic in plant and animal life, and that we may consider such phenomena as much a fundamental phase of nature as interindividual struggle, or as the relation of an individual to an inorganic environment toward which he must adjust himself if he is to survive.

If we may assume, then, that some form of interaction is found at all levels of evolution, we must ask another question: Are we to take it for granted that the rudimentary and early phases of such contact arc largely physicochemical and “instinctive” in the sense that the reactions are not learned? And is there a point at which tuition of learning enters into the situation?

With reference to the more rudimentary instances of interaction, it is usually assumed that most of the adjustments are the resultant of more or less automatic physicochemical forces which may broadly be denoted by one of the terms tropism, reflex, and instinct—depending on the relative complexity of the organic structures and functions involved in the adjustment. That is to say, there are certain more or less fixed patterns of adaptation— inflexible both as to situation and as to necessitous organic modifications— implicit in the adaptive process. But, as we examine the whole adaptive patterning along the evolutionary scale, we find more and more evidence both of individual variability in the adaptations and of the effects of learning.³

Viewing the entire range of animal species, we usually assume that the invertebrates represent a line of development in which the relation between organism and environment is rather inflexible, and that, on the other hand, the vertebrates reveal an ever-increasing degree of flexibility, individual variability, and capacity to profit by experience—that is, to learn. There is a large literature on the adaptive processes of the invertebrates, and a good deal of attention has been given to the social forms, especially among the bees, the ants, and the termites. Much more important to us are the data on the evolution of the social patterns in the higher vertebrates, particularly in the primate and other mammalian species. Let us examine some features of this development.

SOCIAL LIFE AMONG THE LOWER VERTEBRATES

When we examine the development of the vertebrate species, the place of social stimulation is evident all along the line. Of course, this is more apparent in some species than in others and particularly in the higher forms. There are some species in which the solitary “lone wolf” pattern is more clear than the communal. Broadly considered, one of the most important divisions of structure and function that make for interaction is sexual differentiation itself. And, when sex difference gets linked to intrauterine growth, it becomes even more significant. As we come to the warm-blooded forms, especially the birds and the mammals, we find increasing care of the offspring by the parents. In fact, the rudiments of more permanent association arise from (1) sexual reproduction, (2) dependency of the young on the mother for survival, involving feeding and protection, and (3) aggregative or communal living with a view to feeding, protection, and play. The social group itself becomes a factor in the evolution of the species, and there arises a new threshold for social stimulation and response. This development, moreover, is marked by a gradual decrease in the importance of instinct—that is, of more or less fixed or predetermined patterns of stimulus and response—and by an increase in the importance of maturation and of learning—especially learning from other members of one’s species. These modifications, of course, are linked to the growing domination of the higher brain centers, which provide a means of altering the adaptive processes.⁴ In other words, flexibility and learning come gradually to replace the fixity of reflexive behavior.

Social Factors in Lower Vertebrate Species. The extent of social stimulation and response among the lower vertebrates is not well known. There seems to be a seasonal or periodic aggregating of certain fishes, related no doubt to feeding and reproduction. The phrase “schools of fish” no doubt reflects the fact that certain species move in groups, and no doubt such massing influences the adaptive reactions. Whether there is any domination or subordination among these species is not fully known. Among the amphibians also there may be some interplay due to contact, including some ascendancy, and doubtless there is some vocal interstimulation in such species as the frogs, witnessed in the well-known comments about their so-called choral enterprises. But co-operation in feeding and maternal care are not apparent in either the fishes or the amphibians.

Among the reptilian species, however, we find nesting, some care and defense of the young, and attempts to control certain areas of movement. L. T. Evans’ study of what he terms the “social hierarchy” in certain lizards, Anolis carolinensis, shows that patterns of domination and subordination appear at this point in the animal scale. He writes:

“The urge to acquire and to hold a certain restricted territory is very marked. The resident male (that has been in a particular cage for 24 hours or more) wins in 91 per cent of the combats not only because he is heavier than the non-resident (42 per cent of such combats being won by the lighter males) but also because he fights harder to defend territory than the non-resident does to acquire it.”⁵

On the whole, the dominance is highly correlated with weight: the heaviest males are to be found at the top of the hierarchy of power, the lightest at the bottom.

These lower vertebrate species reveal some of the rudimentary forms of social relationship; more important and extensive evidence of such contacts is found among the birds and the mammals.

The Social Life of Birds. Though avian development from the reptilelike ancestry represents a distinct branching off from the evolutionary line which led to the mammals, the birds show some interesting social features. Even with sharp differences among the species, we do find evidence for some of the following generalizations. (1) There is flocking or aggregating for purposes of feeding, seasonal migration, and nesting and rearing of young. (2) Much of the mating is monogamous, though temporary,.and in some species pairing may persist through the period of nest-building, hatching, and caring for the young. (3) In many species, also, some form of dominance and subordination develops. At times this becomes an elaborate social pattern.

Thorlief Schjelderup-Ebbe has described the various orders of preference and domination among the birds.⁶ He relates many instances of what he terms “despotism” of one bird over another. A bird will show his ascendancy by pecking another, by changes in feathers, in emotional reaction, in “facial” appearance, and otherwise. The subordinate bird, in turn, demonstrates fear, submissiveness, avoidance, flight, and a variety of “expressive” reactions of the feathers, “face,” and posture. In some cases we find a gradation of control in which bird A dominates bird B, and the latter dominates bird C, which may in its turn actually dominate bird A. Schjelderup-Ebbe’s explanation of this triangular pattern is rather involved, but it is clear that a group of birds frequently reveals interactional patterns affecting feeding, mating, and other activities. In these relations, moreover, age, strength, and sex differences may play a part. In one species of sparrow the females take the domina...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Preface
• Table of Contents
• I. Personality, Society, and Culture
• Part One: Some Basic Relations of Personality to Society and Culture
• Part Two: Some Aspects of Human Conflict
• Part Three: Mass behavior
• Glossary
• Index of Names
• Index of Subjects