Psychology Part 57

The term "will" is used to designate the response to external obstruction as well as the response to internal conflict. In fact, nothing is so characteristically "will" as the overcoming of resistance that checks progress towards a desired result. As "decision" is the response to internal conflict of tendencies, so "effort" is the response to external {536} resistance encountered in executing a desire that has been adopted. The obstruction may be purely physical, as the underbrush that impedes your progress through the woods; or it may be another person's will running counter to yours; or it may be of the nature of distraction of attention from the end in view.

The resistance may also be internal, and consist in your own lack of skill in executing your intentions, or in the disturbing effect of some desire which, though rejected, has not gone to sleep but still pulls you another way than the way you have decided to go.

In all these cases, the individual is moving towards a certain goal, but encounters obstruction; and his response is effort, or increased energy put into his movement towards the goal. So long as the tendency towards a goal finds smooth going, there is not the same determination that appears as soon as an obstruction is encountered. The "will", in common usage, will not brook resistance--the "indomitable will".

Now effort and determination, in our chapter on the native impulses, were put under the head of the a.s.sertive or masterful tendency; and it does seem that "will", in this sense, is almost the same thing as the instinct of self-a.s.sertion. Certainly, in the case of adults, an obstruction puts the individual "on his mettle", and superimposes the mastery motive upon whatever motive it may have been that originally prompted the action.

The mastery motive came clearly to light in an experiment designed to investigate "will action". The subject of the experiment was first given a long course of training in responding to certain stimulus words by other certain words that were constantly paired with them; and when his habits of response were thus well fixed, his task was changed so that now he must respond to any word or syllable by any {537} other that _rhymed_ with it. A series of stimuli now began with words for which no specific response habit had been formed, and to these the subject reacted with no great difficulty. But then, unexpectedly, he got a stimulus word to which he had a fixed habit of response, and before he could catch himself he had made the habitual response, and so failed to give a rhyme as he had intended. This check sometimes made him really angry, and at least it brought him up to attention with a feeling which he expressed in the words, "I can and will do this thing". He was thus put on his guard, gave closer attention to what he was doing, and was usually able to overcome the counter tendency of habit and do what he meant to do. Some subjects, who adapted themselves readily and fully to the rhyming task, i.e., who got up a good "mental set" for this sort of reaction, made few errors and did not experience this feeling of effort and determination; for them the effort was unnecessary; but the average person needed the extra energy in order to overcome the resistances and accomplish his intentions.

Other good instances of effort are found in the overcoming of distraction, described under the head of attention, [Footnote: See p.

259.] and in the work of the beginner at any job. When the beginner has pa.s.sed the first cautious, exploratory stage of learning, he begins to "put on steam". He pounds the typewriter, if that is what he is learning, spells the words aloud, and in other ways betrays the great effort he is making.

Ask a child just learning to write why he grasps the pencil so tightly, why he bends so closely over the desk, why he purses his lips, knits his brow, and twists his foot around the leg of his chair, and he might answer, very truly, that it is because he cannot do this job easily and has to _try hard_. All these unnecessary muscular movements and tensions {538} show the _access of energy_ that has been liberated in his brain by the obstruction encountered.

Any learner, once he has mastered the difficulties of the task, reaches an easy-running stage in which effort is no longer required, unless for making a record or in some way surpa.s.sing himself. With reference to effort, then, we may speak of three stages of practice: the initial, exploratory stage, the awkward and effortful stage, and the skilled and free-running stage. These are identical with the three stages in the development of attention to a subject, which were described [Footnote: See p.258] as the stage of spontaneous attention or curiosity; the stage of forced attention, or effortful attention, controlled by such motives as fear or self-a.s.sertion; and the final stage of objective interest and absorption in the subject, which is evidently the same as the free-running condition.

Effort is not a good in itself; it is an unpleasant condition; but it is a natural response to difficulty and is often necessary in order to get the individual into the free-running condition which is both efficient and pleasant. It is often required to get the individual out of the easy-going condition into the free-running condition, which is something entirely different. In free-running action there may be even more energy expended than in effortful action, but it is better directed and produces no strains and jolts.

Intelligence, in the sense of adaptability and "seeing the point", may often take the place of effort. Consider the way two different people react to a sticking door: the one puts in more strength and forces it, the other by a deft thrust to the side opens it without much extra force. You can't say absolutely which mode of attack is better, for your stubborn one may waste his strength on an obstruction that really cannot be forced, while your clever one may waste his {539} time on a door that needs only a bit of a push. Persistence _plus_ adaptability is what efficient activity demands.

Thought and Action

"Men of thought" and "men of action" are sometimes contrasted--which is hardly fair to either, since the great man of action must have the imagination to conceive a plan, and must know exactly what he is aiming to accomplish, while the great thinker must be persistent in thinking and must get into action by way of writing or somehow making his thoughts count in the world. But we do find men who are impatient of thought and want to get into action at once, even without knowing just what they are about, and other men who seem quite contented to think and plan, without any definite intention of ever putting their plans into execution. The former type, the impulsive individual, is not difficult to understand, his behavior fits in so well with the primitive trial-and-error sort of activity; but the mere thinker seems an anomaly, in view of the general psychological principle that thought tends toward motor action.

In accounting for the inactive thinker, we have to remember, first, that some inhibition of immediate action is often necessary, in order to have time to think the matter over; this prudent att.i.tude becomes a habit with some individuals. Besides, there are the negative motives of fear, shyness and laziness that tend to deter from the actual execution of a plan. Hamlet's "conscience" that makes "cowards of us all", so that "the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pith and moment . . .

lose the name of action" turns out, if we look a few lines further back, to be the "dread of something" unknown, that "puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of". {540} Fear--fear of unforeseen consequences, fear of committing ourselves, fear of ridicule--is one great inhibiter of action, and inertia is another, since it is much less strenuous to sit in the armchair and plan than to get out and put the plan into effect.

Besides this, some people who are good at planning come to take so much pride and satisfaction in the thinking part of an enterprise that they do not feel the need for action. Moreover, you can "plan" in a large way, without bothering about details, but once you start to execute your plan you encounter details and preliminaries which are apt to rob the enterprise of its zest. Here is where persistence and effort are needed.

_Abulia_--"no will"--is an abnormal degree of lack of zest for action.

Along with it go timidity and lack of social force, p.r.o.neness to rumination and daydreaming, and often a feeling of being compelled to perform useless acts, such as doing everything three times or continual washing of the hands. Abulia is not just a comfortable laziness, but is attended by a sense of humiliation and inferiority.

It shows itself in excessive hesitation and vacillation and in failure to accomplish anything of consequence. Sometimes the subject expends much effort, but fails to direct the effort towards the execution of his purposes. Some authorities have ascribed abulia to inertia or "low mental tension", some to an overdose of fear and caution, some to the paralyzing effect of suppressed desires still living in the "unconscious". Mild degrees of it, such as are not uncommon, seem sometimes to be due to the hiatus that is bound to exist between the end one has in view and the means one must take to start towards that end. One has zest for reaching the goal, but not for the preliminaries.

An author, whose case was studied because he was accomplishing so little, was found to follow a daily program about as follows. He would get up in the morning full of {541} confidence that this was going to be a good day, with much progress made in his book. Before starting to write, however, he must first have his breakfast, and then a little fresh air, just to prepare himself for energetic work. On returning from his walk, he thought it best to rest for a few moments, and then one or two other little matters seemed to demand attention; by the time these were done, the morning was so far gone that there was no time for a really good effort, so he optimistically postponed the writing till the afternoon, when the same sort of thing happened, and the great performance had to be put over till the next day. This man did better under a regime prescribed by his medical adviser, who commanded him to write for two hours immediately after rising, and make this his day's work--no more and no less than two hours. The definiteness of this task prevented dawdling.

Other writers have noted a curious tendency to "fight shy" of the pa.s.sage actually being written and let the thoughts move ahead and plan out the later pa.s.sages. Sometimes it is necessary to trick yourself if you are to get anything done; you say, "I can't write this properly just now; I'll just sketch out a preliminary draft"--on which understanding you may be able to write, whereas you could not if you thought you were writing "for keeps"; but when you have got well started and warmed to the task, you may find your work good enough to keep, after all. Judging by these mild cases, abulia may be due partly to distaste for the details of actual performance, and partly to a dread of committing oneself to anything that has the stamp of finality.

Securing Action

No chapter in psychology offers more in the way of practical applications than this chapter on the will--if we only {542} knew more on the subject! How to get action, either from yourself, or from others if you are responsible for their action, is a big practical problem. A few hints on the matter are suggested by what precedes.

How to get action from yourself--how to liberate your latent energies and accomplish what you are capable of accomplishing. A definite purpose is the first requirement; without that one merely drifts, with no persistency and no great energy. The goal should be something that appeals vitally to you, and something which you can attain; not too distant a goal; or, if the ultimate goal is distant, there must be mileposts along the way which you can take as more immediate goals; for a goal that can be reached by immediate action enlists more present effort. The student puts more energy into his study when the examination is close at hand; and, although this is regrettable, it reveals a fact in human nature that can be utilized in the management of yourself or others. A well defined and clearly visible goal is a much better energy-releaser than vague "good intentions".

The more clearly you can see and measure your approach towards the goal, the more action; thus it has been found in many different lines that the "practice curve method" of training gives quicker and better results than ordinary drill. In the practice curve [Footnote: See p.

321.] you have a picture of your progress; you are encouraged by seeing how far you have advanced, and stimulated to surpa.s.s your past record, and thus your immediate goal is made very definite. You cannot do so well when you simply "do your best" as when you set out to reach a certain level, high enough to tax your powers without being quite out of reach. You cannot jump so high in the empty air as you can to clear a bar; and, to secure your very best endeavor, the bar must not be so low {543} that you can clear it easily, nor so high that you cannot clear it at all.

The goal should be heartily adopted as _your_ goal, which is to say that the self-a.s.sertive motive should be harnessed into service. The importance of this motive in securing action is seen in the strong effect of compet.i.tion to arouse great activity. The runner cannot make as good speed when running "against time" as when competing directly, neck to neck, with other runners. Hence, to get full action from yourself, find worthy compet.i.tors. And for the same reason, accept responsibility. This puts you on your mettle. To shun compet.i.tion and responsibility is characteristic of abulia. Other strong motives, such as the economic motive or the s.e.x motive (seen in the energetic work of a young man whose goal is marriage to a certain young woman) can also be enlisted in many cases. But, for the best results, there should be, in addition to these extraneous motives, a genuine interest in the work itself.

Do not say, "I will try". Say, "I will do it". The time for trying, or effort, is when obstruction is actually encountered. You cannot really try then, unless you are already fully determined to reach the goal.

Getting action from other people is the business of parents, teachers, bosses, officers, and to some extent of every one who wishes to influence another. In war, the problem of "morale" is as important as the problem of equipment, and it was so recognized by all the armies engaged in the Great War. Each side sought to keep the morale of its own soldiers at a high level, and to depress the morale of the enemy.

Good morale means more than willingness for duty; it means "pep", or positive zest for action. Some of the means used to promote morale were the following. The soldier must believe in the justness of his cause; that is, he must make victory his own goal, and be {544} whole-hearted in this resolve. He must believe in the coming success of his side. He must be brought to attach himself firmly to the social group of which he forms a part. He must be so absorbed in the activities of this group as to forget, in large measure, his own private concerns. Not only must he be enthusiastic for cause and country, but he must be strong for his division, regiment and company.

Much depends on the officers that directly command him. He must have confidence in them, see that they know their business, and that they are looking out for the welfare of their men as well as expecting much from them. Compet.i.tion between companies, regiments, and arms of the service was a strong force tending towards rapid progress in training and good service in the field. Interest in the actual technical work that was being done, and seeing that one's immediate group was accomplishing something towards the winning of the war was a powerful spur, while a sense of the uselessness of the work in hand strongly depressed the morale of a group. "Nothing succeeds like success"; morale was at its best when the army was advancing and seemingly nearing the goal. Morale was also wonderfully good when the enemy was advancing, provided your side was holding well with a good prospect of bringing the enemy to a halt and baffling his offensive. On the other hand, nothing was so hard on morale as the failure of an ambitious offensive of one's own side; the sense of futility and hopelessness then reached its maximum--except, of course, for the case of obviously approaching defeat. The conditions of trench warfare imposed a strain on morale: no progress, in spite of the danger and hardship, no chance to get at the enemy or do anything positive.

The manager of an industrial enterprise has the same problem of morale to meet. It is his business to get action from people who come into the enterprise as servants. The {545} main difficulty with the master-servant relation is that the servant has so little play for his own self-a.s.sertion. The master sets the goal, and the servant has submissively to accept it. This is not his enterprise, and therefore he is likely to show little "pep" in his work. He can be driven to a certain extent by fear and economic want; but better results, and the best social condition generally, can be expected from such management as enlists the individual's own will. He must be made to feel that the enterprise is his, after all. He must feel that he is fairly treated, and that he receives a just share of the proceeds. He must be interested in the purposes of the concern and in the operations on which he is engaged. Best of all, perhaps, some responsibility and initiative must be delegated to him. When the master, not contented with setting the main goal, insists on bossing every detail, continually interfering in the servant's work, the servant has the least possible chance of adopting the job as _his own_. But where the master is able, in the first place, to show the servant the objective need and value of the goal, and to leave the initiative in respect to ways and means to the servant, looking to him for results, the servant often responds by throwing himself into the enterprise as if it were his own--as, indeed, it properly is in such a case.

"Initiative"--that high-grade trait that is so much in demand--seems to be partly a matter of imagination and partly of will. It demands inventiveness in seeing what can be done, zest for action, and an independent and masterful spirit.

The physician who treats "nervous" or neurotic cases has this problem of getting action from his patients. Strange as it may seem, these cases, while bemoaning their unfortunate condition, cling to it as if it had its compensations, and do not wholeheartedly _will to get well_. They have {546} slumped into the att.i.tude of invalidism, and need reorientation towards the goal of health and accomplishment. How to bring this about is the great problem. Much depends here on the personality of the physician, and different physicians (as well as mental healers outside the medical profession) employ different technique with more or less of success. The first necessity is to win the patient's confidence; after that, some use persuasion, some suggestion, some psychoa.n.a.lysis, some (non-medical pract.i.tioners) use metaphysical doctrines designed to lead the patient to "hitch his wagon to a star". On the intellectual side, these methods agree in giving the patient a new perspective, in which weakness, ill health and maladaptation are seen to be small, insignificant and unnecessary, and health and achievement desirable and according to the nature of things; while on the side of impulse they probably come together in appealing to the masterful and self-a.s.sertive tendency, either by putting the subject on his mettle, or by leading him to partake of the determined, masterful att.i.tude of the physician, or by making him feel that he is one with the great forces of the universe. Methods that psychologically are very similar to these are employed by the clergyman in dealing with morally flabby or maladjusted individuals; and the courts are beginning to approach the delinquent from the same angle. All the facts seem to indicate that the way to get action is to have a goal that "fires the imagination" and enlists the masterful tendencies of human nature.

The Influence of Suggestion

Can the will of one person be controlled by that of another, through hypnotism or any similar practice? This question is often asked anxiously by those who fear that crime or misconduct willed by one person may be pa.s.sively executed by another.

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Hypnosis is a sleeplike and pa.s.sive state that is nevertheless attentive and concentrated. It appears as if the subject were awake at just one point, namely at the point of relation with the hypnotizer.

To stimuli from other sources, external or internal, he is inaccessible. His field of activity is narrowed down to a point, though at that point he may be intensely active.

The depth of the hypnotic state varies from shallow to profound.

Comparatively few individuals can be deeply hypnotized, but many can be got into a mild receptive state, in which they accept the suggestions of the hypnotizer more readily than in the fully awaking state. The waking person is alert, suspicious, a.s.sertive, while the hypnotized subject is pa.s.sive and submissive. The subject's cooperation is necessary, in general, in order to bring on the hypnotic state, whether shallow or deep.

The means of inducing hypnosis are many and varied, but they all consist in shoving aside extraneous thoughts and stimuli, and getting the subject into a quiet, receptive att.i.tude, with attention sharply focussed upon the operator.

When the subject is in this state, the "suggestions" of the operator are accepted with less criticism and resistance than in the fully waking state. In deep hypnosis, gross illusions and even hallucinations can be produced. The operator hands the subject a bottle of ammonia, with the a.s.surance that it is the perfume of roses, and the subject smells of it with every appearance of enjoyment. The operator points to what he says is a statue of Apollo in the corner, and the subject apparently sees one there.

Loss of sensation can also be suggested and accepted. Being a.s.sured that his hand has lost its sensation and cannot feel a pin p.r.i.c.k, the subject allows his hand to be p.r.i.c.ked with no sign of pain. Paralysis of the arm or leg can be similarly suggested and accepted.

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Acts may be suggested and performed. The subject is handed a cardboard sword with the a.s.surance that that is a sword, and directed to attack some person present, which he does with the appearance of serious intent.

Now, however, let the subject be given a real sword with the same command as before. Result--the subject wakes up! This suggestion was too much; it aroused dormant tendencies, broadened out the field of activity, and so produced the waking condition. A suggestion that runs counter to the subject's organized character and tendencies cannot get by without arousing them and so awakening the subject. Consequently, there does not seem to be much real danger of crimes being performed by innocent persons under hypnosis.

In mild hypnosis, the above striking phenomena are not produced, but suggestions of curative value may be conveyed, and so taken to heart that they produce real results. The drowsy state of a child just falling to sleep can be similarly utilized for implanting suggestions of value. One little boy had a nervous twitching of the face that was very annoying. His father, just as the child was dropping off to sleep, conveyed the suggestion that the child didn't like this twitching; and this suggestion, repeated night after night, in a few days caused the twitching almost wholly to disappear.

Suggestion often succeeds in a waking state. In a certain test for "suggestibility", the task is set of copying a series of lines. The first line is short, the second longer, the third longer still, the rest all of the same length, but the more suggestible individual keeps on making each succeeding line longer. There are, however, various tests for suggestibility, and an individual who succ.u.mbs to one does not necessarily succ.u.mb to another, so that it may be doubted whether we should baldly speak of one individual as more suggestible than another.

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Suggestion may be exerted by a person, or by the circ.u.mstances. If by a person, the more "prestige" he enjoys in the estimation of the subject, the greater his power of suggestion. A prestige person is one to whom you are submissive. A child is so dependent on older people, and so much accustomed to "being told", that he is specially susceptible to prestige suggestion.

Suggestion exerted by the circ.u.mstances is about the same as what is often called "auto-suggestion" or "self-suggestion". A man falls and hurts his hip, and, finding his leg difficult to move, conceives that it is paralyzed, and may continue paralyzed for some time.

"Counter-suggestion" applies to cases where a suggestion produces the result contrary to what is suggested. You suggest to a person that he should do a certain thing, and immediately he is set against that act, though, left to himself, he would have performed it. Or, you advance a certain opinion and at once your hearer takes the other side of the question. Quite often skilful counter-suggestion can secure action, from children or adults, which could not be had by positive suggestion or direct command.

If suggestion succeeds by arousing the submissive tendency, counter-suggestion succeeds by arousing the a.s.sertive tendency.