14. Genetic Study of the Emotions

[WATSON, J. B., "A Schematic Outline of the Emotions," Psychological Review, May, 1919, Vol. 26, pp. 165-177.]

What is an Emotion? Hard and fast definitions are not possible in the psychology of emotion, but formulations are possible and sometimes help us to assemble our facts. A formulation which will fit a part of the emotional group of reactions may be stated as follows: An emotion is an hereditary patternreaction involving profound changes of the bodily mechanism as a whole, but particularly of the visceral and glandular systems. By pattern-reaction we mean that the separate details of response appear with some constancy, with some regularity and in approximately the same sequential order each time the exciting stimulus is presented. It is obvious that if this formulation is to fit the facts, the general condition of the organism must be such that the stimulus can produce its effect. A child alone in a house on a stormy night with only a dim candle burning may display the reaction of fear at the mournful hoot of an owl. If the parents are at hand and the room is well lighted, the stimulus may pass unreacted to. Stimulus then in this sense is used in a broad way to refer not only to the exciting object but also to the general setting. There is implied also the fact that the general state of the organism must be sensitive (capable of being stimulated) to this form of stimulus at the moment. This condition is very important. A young man may be extremely sensitive to the blandishments of every female he meets while in the unmarried state and may show considerable excitement and over-reaction on such occasions. In most cases, he becomes considerably less sensitive after being happily married. This formulation may seem somewhat roundabout-somewhat like saying that a stimulus is an emotional stimulus only when one gets the pattern-reaction, but this is very nearly the case. Possibly we can illustrate most easily what we mean by choosing an example from animal life. When the naturalist comes suddenly upon a young sooty tern under four days of age, it lies stock still (it is capable of very rapid locomotion). It can be pushed about or rolled over without explicit forms of response appearing. The moment the intruder moves away, the fledgling may hop to its feet and dash away or give one of its instinctive cries. The pattern-reaction, i.e., the explicit observable pattern, is very simple indeed-a death feint or posture. Such a type of response is quite common in the animal world.

In order to bring about such a tremendous variation in behavior in an animal usually so active there must be a profound modification of the organic process. The locus of the effect (the implicit side), lies principally in the visceral system. Often, however, the skeletal musculature is involved in the pattern. A serviceable way to mark off an emotional reaction from an instinctive reaction is to include in the formulation of emotion a factor which may be stated as follows: The shock of an emotional stimulus throws the organism for the moment at least into a chaotic state. When in the state of shock the subject makes few adjustments to objects in his environment. In contrast to this stand the instincts. The subject under the influence of an instinctive stimulus usually does something: He throws his hand up for defense, blinks his eyes or ducks his head; he runs away; he bites, scratches, kicks and grasps whatever his hand touches. This distinction cannot be applied in every case of emotional activity, as we shall see in our next paragraph. In any event it cannot be pushed too far. We might express it in another way by saying that in emotion the radius of action lies within the individual's own organism; whereas in instinct the radius of action is enlarged to such an extent that the individual as a whole may make adjustments to the objects in his environment.

Additional Formulations.-The above formulation fits of course only the more stereotyped forms of emotional response. When we take into account the whole group of phenomena in which we see emotional manifestations in adults, a pronounced modification is necessary. Apparently the pattern as a whole gets broken up. At any rate it largely disappears (the parts never wholly disappear) except under unusual conditions and there can be noted only a reinforcement or inhibition of the habit and instinctive (exaggerated and depressed reflexes) activities taking place at the moment. We mean to imply here only the generally observed facts typified by such popular expressions as "He is working at a low ebb to-day," "His tone is low," "He's a gloom"; in psychopathology when this phase is more marked, depressions are spoken of. The opposite picture is popularly portrayed by such expressions as "Jones is full of pep to-day," "He is excited," "happy," "He is working with a punch"; in psychopathology, the exaggerated type of this behavior is termed manic. It will be noted that these expressions refer to the activity level at which all of an individual's acts are accomplished, i.e., they do not refer to the pattern

type of emotion. Only in pathological cases, or in the case of normals in periods of a cataclysmic nature such as war, earthquake, and the sudden death of loved ones, do we get a complete return to the original and more infantile type of emotional

response.

Observation would seem to suggest the following formulation: Organized activity (hereditary and acquired) may go on and usually does go on at a given level. We may call the most usual, the normal level, or level of equilibrium. It varies with different individuals and one can determine it even with respect to a single individual only after observing him for a considerable time. We may note further that an individual at one time may exhibit more energy, push, or pep, than normal; we may call this the excited level. Again at times he works at a level lower than normal; we may call this the depressed level. Without neurologizing too much, we may venture the assumption that in adults environmental factors have brought about the partial inhibition of the more external features of the primitive pattern types of emotion. The implicit, mainly glandular and smooth muscular side of the pattern, remains. The emotionally exciting object releases important internal secretions which, without initiating new part reactions, reinforce or inhibit those actually in progress. This hypothesis would account for changes in level. Only in rare cases do we see mere changes in level. Usually when such changes occur certain auxiliary or additional part reactions appear such as we see in whistling while at work, keeping time with the feet, drumming on the table, biting the finger nails. .

Our

The Genetic Study of Emotion in the Child.-Unfortunately for the subject of psychology, few experiments have been made upon the emotional life of the child under anything like as favorable conditions as obtain in the study of animals. observations upon the child are similar to those which were made upon animals before Thorndike and Lloyd Morgan introduced the experimental method. Until very recently, in spite of volumes written upon it, it has been of the armchair variety. The superstition that the human infant is too fragile for study is giving way to a more sensible viewpoint. It has been proven practicable in some laboratories to take infants from birth and to study them from the same point of view that animals are studied, giving due consideration to those factors in behavior which do not appear in animal response. But unfortunately this work is handicapped because there are no facilities in maternity

wards for keeping the mother and child under close observation for years, a condition which is indispensable for real systematic work.

Summary of Positive Results, Early Types of Emotional Reactions. After observing a number of infants, especially during the first months of life, we suggest the following group of emotional reactions as belonging to the original and fundamental nature of man: fear, rage and love (using love in approximately the same sense that Freud uses sex).

Fear. What stimulus apart from all training will call out fear responses; what are these responses, and how early may they be called out? The principal situations which call out fear responses seem to be as follows: (1) To suddenly remove from the infant all means of support, as when one drops it from the hands to be caught by an assistant. (In the experiment the child is held over a bed upon which has been placed a soft feather pillow); (2) by loud sounds; (3) occasionally when an infant is just falling asleep or is just ready to waken, a sudden push or a slight shake is an adequate stimulus; (4) when an infant is just falling asleep, occasionally the sudden pulling of the blanket upon which it is lying will produce the fear responses. (2) and (3) above may be looked upon as belonging under (1). The responses are a sudden catching of the breath, clutching randomly with the hands (the grasping reflex invariably appearing when the child is dropped), blinking of the eyelids, puckering of the lips, then crying; in older children possibly flight and hiding (not yet observed by us as "original" reactions). In regard to the age at which fear responses first appear, we can state with some sureness that the above mentioned group of reactions appears at birth. It is often stated that children are instinctively afraid in the dark. While we shall advance our opinion with the greatest caution, we have not so far been able to gather any evidence to this effect. . . . When such reactions to darkness do appear they are due to other causes; darkness comes to be associated with absence of customary stimulation, noises, etc. (They should be looked upon as conditioned fear reactions.) From time immemorial children have been "scared" in the dark, either unintentionally or as a means of controlling them (this is especially true of children reared in the South).

Rage. In a similar way the question arises as to what is the original situation which brings out the activities seen in rage. Observation seems to show that the hampering of the infant's

movements is the factor which apart from all training brings out the movements characterized as rage. If the face or head is held, crying results, quickly followed by screaming. The body stiffens and fairly well coördinated slashing or striking movements of the hands and arms result; the feet and legs are drawn up and down; the breath is held until the child's face is flushed. In older children the slashing movements of the arms and legs are better coördinated and appear as kicking, slapping, and pushing. These reactions continue until the irritating situation is relieved and sometimes do not cease then. Almost any child from birth can be thrown into a rage if its arms are held tightly to its sides; sometimes even if the elbow joint is clasped tightly between the fingers the response appears; at times just the placing of the head between cotton pads will produce it. This was noticed repeatedly when testing eye coördinations in infants under ten days of age. The slight constraint put upon the head by the soft pads would often result in a disturbance so great that the experiment had to be discontinued for a time.

Love. The original situation which calls out the observable love responses seems to be the stroking or manipulation of some erogenous zone, tickling, shaking, gentle rocking, patting, and turning upon the stomach across the attendant's knee. The response varies—if the infant is crying, crying ceases, a smile may appear, attempts at gurgling, cooing and, finally, in slightly older children, the extension of the arms which we should class as the forerunner of the embrace in the acts of courtship. The smile and the laugh which Freud connects with the release of repression (we are not denying in the case of adults that this may be true) we should thus class as original reaction tendencies intimately connected, in our opinion at least, from infancy with the stimulation of the erogenous zones.

These types fit fairly well the general formulation. There is a reaction pattern, there is a definite stimulus which has its peculiarly exciting character (the reason for which must be sought in biology), the radius of action is small, no particular adjustment is made to any object in the environment. It is admitted however that the responses contain both explicit and implicit components, that is, involve the skeletal musculature, the visceral system, the smooth muscles and glands. It is probable though that if the exciting stimulus were sufficiently strong, e. g., strong enough to produce "shock," or if continued for a sufficient length of time, the subject would tend to take on more and more the purely vegetative type of existence