WALLIN, J. E. WALLACE, The Education of Handicapped Children (Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1924). WOODROW, H. H., Brightness and Dullness in Children (Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Co., 1919). WOODRUFF, L. L., Foundations of Biology (New York, Macmillan Co., 1922), pp. 236-237. CHAPTER VII INSTINCTS The child comes into the world with a given structure and certain preformed bonds. The sum total of his unlearned equipment of reflexes, instincts, and capacities is called the original nature of man. This unlearned equipment of struc ture and preformed bonds or innate neural connections provides the basis for learning. Instincts are generally regarded as tendencies to respond in a certain way without previous experience or training (1). Various other definitions and descriptions of instinctive behavior are given (2,3,4,5,7,8,9,10,11,12,13). A knowledge of the origin of fundamental activities and the criteria of instincts will enable the student to discriminate better between reflex and instinctive actions (14,15,16). The genetic studies of instinct by Watson and others challenge their existence (17,18,19). If the interpretations of the nursery studies of instincts are correct, much of our educational psychology will have to be recast. For the "instinct" psychologist, education's chief business is the stimulation, modification and guidance of original instinctive tendencies; for the "anti-instinct" psychologist, it is the conditioning of reflexes. The number (20), classification (21,22,23,24), and modification of instincts (25,26) are discussed in detail. Instincts are powerful drives to action (27,28,29,30,31,32). Thus the fighting and rivalry instincts have been given credit for accomplishing nine-tenths of the world's work. For centuries it was believed that wars were the inevitable result of man's fighting tendencies. This assumption has been proved a myth (34). 1. Instinct Defined [JAMES, William, Psychology, Briefer Course, p. 391. New York, 1892.1 Instinct is usually defined as the faculty of acting in such a way as to produce certain ends, without foresight of the ends, and without previous education in the performance. 2. Conception of Instinct 1914.] [WATSON, J. B., Behavior, p. 106. Henry Holt & Co., 1914.] An instinct is a series of chained reflexes. 3. Conception of Instinct [WATSON, J. B., Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist, pp. 252–253. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Co., 1924.] We should define instinct as an hereditary pattern reaction, the separate elements of which are movements principally of the striped muscles. It might otherwise be expressed as a combination of explicit congenital responses unfolding serially under appropriate stimulation. 4. Have We Any Instincts? [WATSON, J. B, "What the Nursery Has to Say About Instincts," Pedagogical Seminary and Journal of Genetic Psychology, June, 1925, p. 293.] In man's repertoire of structure and chemical compounds there is nothing corresponding to what is called "instinct." We do not need instincts, as all we mean by it is a result largely of training. There is no such thing as inheritance of capacity, talent, temperament, mental constitution, and characteristics. All these depend on training. Man is a whole animal. When he reacts, he reacts with each and every part of his body. Differences in structure and differences in early training will account for all differences in later behavior. 5. Instinct [DEWEY, John, Democracy and Education, p. 73. Copyright, 1916, by the Macmillan Co. Reprinted by permission.] There are, indeed, a great number of original native tendencies, instinctive modes of action, based on the original connec tions of neurones in the central nervous system. These are impulsive tendencies of the eyes to follow and fixate light; of the neck muscles to turn toward light and sound; of the hands to reach and grasp; and turn and twist and thump; of the vocal apparatus to make sounds; of the mouth to spew out unpleasant substances; to gag and to curl the lip, and so on in almost indefinite number. But these tendencies (a) instead of being a small number sharply marked off from one another, are of an indefinite variety, interweaving with one another in all kinds of subtle ways. (b) Instead of being latent intellectual powers, requiring only exercise for their perfecting, they are tendencies to respond in certain ways to changes in the environment so as to bring about other changes. 6. Definitions of Instinct [MCDOUGALL, William, Outline of Psychology, pp. 71, 110, 118-119. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1923.] Instinct (abstractly conceived with a capital letter) is native or inborn capacity for purposive action (p. 71). Instinct is an innate disposition which determines the organism to perceive (to pay attention to) any object of a certain class, and to experience in its presence a certain emotional excitement and an impulse to action which find expression in a specific mode of behavior in relation to that object (p. 110). An instinct is to be defined and recognized not by the kind of movements in which it finds expression, but by the kind of change of the animal's situation which its movements, whatever they be, tend to bring about and which, when it is achieved, brings the train of behavior to a close (pp. 118-119). 7. Instinct Defined [MCDOUGALL, William, "The Use and Abuse of Instinct in Social Psychology," Journal of Abnormal Psychology and Social Psychology, December, 1921-March, 1922; Vol. 16, p. 300.] An instinct is an innate disposition which when brought into play, generates an impulse, an urge, a striving, or a desire for some change in the situation that evoked it, an impulse which keeps the organism uneasy, restless, striving in this way and that so long as it is not inhibited by a stronger impulse or satisfied by the attainment of its natural goal, the changed situation of a specific kind. 8. View of Instinct [THORNDIKE, E. L., Educational Psychology, Briefer Course, p. 4. New York, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1914.] Three terms, reflexes, instincts, and inborn capacities, divide the work of naming these unlearned tendencies. When the tendency concerns a very definite and uniform response to a very simple sensory situation, and when the connection between the situation and the response is very hard to modify and is also very strong so that it is almost inevitable, the connection or response to which it leads is called a reflex. . . . When the response is more indefinite, the situation more complex and the connection more modifiable, instinct becomes the customary term. . . . When the tendency is to an extremely indefinite response or set of responses to a very complex situation, and when the connection's final degree of strength is commonly due to very large contributions from training, it has seemed more appropriate to replace reflex and instinct by some term like capacity, or tendency, or potentiality. 9. Instincts Are Chain Reflexes [SMITH, Stevenson, and GUTHRIE, Edwin R., General Psychology in Terms of Behavior, pp. 54-56. New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1924.] No response was ever given that does not in turn cause the stimulation of some sense organ. The contraction of a muscle stimulates the muscle spindles that are contained in it. The secretion of saliva or tears stimulates adjacent touch organs. Vocalization stimulates the ear of the person who makes the sound as well as the proprioceptors in the contracting muscles. Scratching, clenching the fist, sneezing, winking, swallowing, breathing, or a response of any sort whatever, produces its characteristic stimulus. Stimuli furnished by responses are called movement-produced stimuli. Many responses cause new stimuli from the external world to act upon us. If we open our eyes, turn our head, touch the stove, walk from place to place, open a book, light a cigar, or call to a passerby, the act itself is productive of new stimuli. These stimuli from the external world that result from responses are also called movement-produced stimuli. Movement-produced stimuli in their turn result in movements, and these movements cause further stimulation. In this way a chain of reflexes once begun may maintain itself by its own movement-produced stimuli. When the chain of stimuli |