IV. Inherited Tendencies
Human behavior is best understood as a system of responses to stimulus: for the most part, we choose to do the things we do, and we are largely consistent in those choices. While observation may suggest inconsistency - we observe that people do one thing at one time and a different thing at another - that is because our observation is superficial and incomplete. That is, the actor is consistent, but the observer fails to recognize the difference in circumstances between one moment and another.
In order to make a study of human behavior, we must be attentive to the specific details of the situation and the manner in which behavior is in response to those conditions. Failure to do so will yield individual conclusion based on incorrect assumptions and result in an unsystematic approach to psychology that regards human behavior as erratic - for its own failure to be thorough in its observations.
Psychology is therefore a study of cause and effect, or stimulus and response. For individual tissues, we can see the relationship between cause and effect quite clearly. We can stimulate a nerve electrically and see a muscle contract, and can witness that this is entirely predictable and consistent. For the human mind, however, the stimulus and response relationship is very complex.
Pyle gives a few examples of ways in which people behave in ways that are easily explained and in patterns that are easily predictable. But there are also instances in which human behavior is difficult to explain or predict because of the subtle differences in individual situations - some of which are drawn from cues in the external environment, others of which are internal impulses based on things that cannot be known or observed to another person.
And in order to have a clear conception of the conditions that evoke human behavior, it is first important to separate the behavior that is the conscious choice of the individual and that which is not a conscious choice, at least at its most fundamental levels.
Instincts and Habits
One source of difficulty in understanding behavior is distinguishing between instinct and learned behavior. Instincts are largely hereditary responses over which we have little control, whereas learned behavior is a response to which a person becomes conditioned over time.
(EN: This leaves out extemporaneous behavior, which may be a logical or emotional reaction to something that has not been previously experienced. That is a much more difficult category to define as it combines automatic reactions, habitual reactions, and reactions that are determined in the moment, often without much deliberation.)
Instincts are something we have in common with animals. An infant closes its fingers when it feels something touch its palm in the same way that a chicken scratches when it feels sand or gravel beneath its feet. These acts are automatic, do not need to be learned, and do not reflect any previous experience.
Learned behaviors are distinctly human: we do not have an instinctual ability to use a typewriter or play a piano, but must take pains to learn how to operate these devices. They are intentional activities to which we must, at least at first, devote mental effort until we have learned to do them, at which point we can repeat them without concentration.
Habits are a subset of learned behaviors that are generally simple actions rather than complex ones, and which are done automatically in response to stimulus without a thought of the desired consequence. Whether a habit is beneficial or harmful is incidental - the fact that we do things without conscious thought is what distinguishes habits from other learned behaviors that are undertaken with intention and purpose.
In general, a habit is a behavior learned in a situation - whether singular or repetitive - that achieved a positive outcome. It is triggered by certain stimuli without analysis and performed without consideration of the outcome, on faith that the situation and outcome are similar to those of the event that caused the habit to be formed.
Habits are often developed consciously. Basic education and training are methods of recognizing conditions and performing actions accordingly - in effect, building a library of stimulus-response pairs that we can leverage to achieve positive results routinely without the necessity of considering what needs to be done in each instance.
(EN: Pyle muses that there may be instincts that are not manifested immediately after birth, but appear later in life. They may manifest themselves in childhood or even adulthood. This suggests a warning about assuming any behavior is learned simply because it appears later in life. However, he is unable to provide a single example. So my sense is that the theory is plausible, but should not be assumed.)
There is a brief consideration of emotional reactions: anger, jealously, love, fear, and other emotions appear to be universal among all cultures of the human race, and as such they are considered to be instinctual. However, the behaviors by which these emotions are expressed are very different among cultures, so it is reckoned that while the arousal of emotion is instinctual, the actions that precipitate are likely learned: whether a person who experiences fear attacks or runs away is a matter of his experience. His reaction may be extemporaneous, learned, or habitual - but is in any case not instinctive.
Classification of Instincts
Pyle groups instincts into three classes:
- Individual - Support the survival of the individual
- Social- Support the function of a group
- Environmental - Reactions to changes in external factors
He suggests that there are two other groups on instincts that are not discussed in this book: those closely related to infancy and sexual reproduction. (EN: Which seems a bit odd to me because both are highly significant to understanding behavior, but I expect developmental psychology is simply too large an area that was poorly understood and sexual matters are distasteful to an author of the Victorian era.)
Before detailing each, Pyle concedes that "the psychology of the instincts is indefinite and obscure" and there had not been much in the way of laboratory experiments at his time - so much of the knowledge draws hypotheses from general observation and what follows is a framework that needs to be tested and refined before it can be of much practical value.
Individual Instincts
Civilization has existed for perhaps two thousand years. Given than man has existed for a few million years, the ways of civilization are a very recent development and humanity has not evolved much. We choose to be civilized human beings, but in our genes ewe are brutish savages, and our innate psychological tendencies are in line with our pre-civilized selves.
The savage is, like most animals, concerned with his own survival. Any other creature, including those of his own kind, pose a potential threat to his safety and well being. Our response is apprehension, a low grade of fear, and our instincts in response are to flee or fight when we perceive a potential threat to show likelihood of harming us.
Danger that arises slowly is not immediately noticed, but arouses suspicions when we recognize its potential. We have in those instances the opportunity to employ our minds to consider a response, and to consider whether our perception of threat is rational. When danger arises quickly, we respond quickly, and generally out of our baser instincts. It is in these instances that the irrational and brutish qualities of our nature are most evident.
(EN: This is worth considering because there is the perspective that the manner in which people react to sudden crises shows "their true nature" and many assessments of psychology and morality are based on disaster scenarios. When in reality, our nature is not to be in crisis, and to use our rational minds, such that the disaster-scenario approach to diagnosing human behavior is inherently flawed - though it may give us an understanding of behavior in a crisis, it is not a valid assessment of normal non-crisis behavior.)
The maturation process of a civilized man involves to a great extent the reprogramming of these instinctive reactions. Children are prone to many fears: fear of darkness, loud noises, strangers, and the like. They are prone to flight or in some instances to attack the cause of their distress. Adults first learn not to be distressed - to remain calm and collected in darkness - and later learn different ways of responding to perceived threats - to greet rather than flee a stranger.
Fighting is not always attacking a source of danger, but attacking an obstacle to success. Emotions such as anger, envy, and jealousy arise when we perceive another creature (or even an inanimate object) as being obstructive to our interests. These emotions are most often directed at other human beings, who in their quest for success are acting in ways that are obstructive to ourselves. And again, cooperation is a social skill that must be learned by a creature who is inclined to automatically regard others as competitors or obstructions.
In rearing children, the most difficult tasks for a parent is overcoming these individualistic instincts so that children may develop the skills that are necessary to be productive in group living. These tendencies are so deeply rooted in our very nature that it is difficult to get control of them, and it may require some introspection and restraint for a person who recognizes the right thing to do but struggles to find the desire to do it.
Pyle regards it as being "doubtful" that man in his present state of evolution can completely subordinate his flight-or-fight instincts to more social patterns of behavior - again, civilization has not been around quite long enough for us to evolve. It may take millions of years for these instincts to breed out of the human species, and until then we must work to suppress or redirect them.
Social Instincts
Much of social behavior is learned behavior - habits that we form in order to live in a social group. While there are social instincts that seem innate, they are not so pervasive as some theorists have suggested. When one winnows out all the behavior that is learned rather than instinctive, there are very few actual social instincts in mankind and they are not as strong as the individual instincts.
The most basic social instinct is proximity: people who occupy the same space tend to gravitate toward one another up to a certain level of proximity. Two people who are in a large room will stand near to one another - if they are strangers, they will close the distance to between four and six feet - rather than remaining at opposite sides of a large space.
(EN: A great deal more has been discovered about physical proximity, but four to six feet is essentially correct for strangers - it is close enough to interact but far enough to evade a physical attack. The more comfortable people are with one another the closer the distance will be, subject to some cultural variations, but the general tendency for proximity is evident in all cultures.)
We are also inclined to interact with those whom we perceive to be similar to us. The "gang" phenomenon in cities and the manner in which children associate in schools demonstrates this aptly: those of a similar gender, race, social class, and other qualities that are readily apparent tend to group together. And they generally tend to exclude those who do not have those qualities: a gang of English upper-class boys does not admit into their company working-class Irish boys, nor vice-versa.
There is some argument over whether the members of a group are more collaborative or competitive in their nature, as they can be seen at times to be either. It is possible that this is an inherent conflict in a collaborative social instinct and a competitive individual instinct.
It is also noted that common activities promote group cohesion, whether the activity is undertaken for a functional purpose (two men work together to be more effective at a task) or a social one (the activity is merely an excuse to interact).
In the author's time, as in the present one, the schoolhouse is the venue in which social skills are developed - which again are learned behaviors but often leverage the basic proximity/ganging/collaborative instincts. There is limited social interaction in the home, and limited exposure to the community, until the child begins attending school, and as such "education" is as much a process of socialization as it is of developing practical individual skills.
Environmental Instincts
Pyle gives short shrift to environmental instincts. By definition, they are automatic reactions to changes in the external environment which lead us to interact in certain ways.
(EN: Scanning ahead to the two items in the next section that are defined as environmental instincts, wandering and collecting, it seems likely these are merely individual instincts that pertain to interacting with objects and spaces rather than people - but their motivation remains individual in nature.)
Examples of Instincts
(EN: There is no break here, but the remainder of the chapter seems devoted to exploring some of the social and environmental instincts that Pyle named in the process of classifying them above - so separation seems appropriate.)
Exploration
Human begins have a great love of wandering, which may be the vestige of a migratory instinct. Though we take great comfort in the home and familiar environs, we every so often are stricken by the urge to roam and explore - for no other reason than simply to roam and explore.
Vagabonds and runaways are often the result of this instinct. Though they are sometimes produced by a desire to permanently escape an unpleasant situation, they are more often simply a person who became restless and felt the desire to explore.
The exploration instinct is often transalated through rearing and education to become a curiosity about intellectual manners, or a fascination with exploring the environment in a more explicitly limited way in terms of range and duration.
Excursions, vacations, and even picnics are examples of socially accepted methods of temporary wandering for the purpose of exploration, and exploration itself can become a method of teaching.
Collecting
Another instinctive behavior of mankind is to seek out, obtain, and gather in a safe place objects that take our attention. Take a child on a walk through the woods and she will invariably bring home some stone, leaf, twig, or flower that took her attention. They are particularly fond of doing the very same thing in markets and stores, and become quite upset if they are impeded.
The original instinct was likely to gather food or to collect objects that could be used for some functional purpose. And people are still fond of amassing a store of objects, though it is usually rationalized by the notion that they are planning for a future needs they will often have difficulty identifying the precise need they are predicting.
The desire for wealth, almost universal, is an example of this very tendency. While hoarding money is quite sensible to provide for future needs, those who amass wealth often do so without a thought, except perhaps one of horror, of the manner in which it will be later consumed. Misers are infamous for living in the manner of paupers for the sake of collecting money.
The hobby of collecting makes the instinct quite unmistakable: a person collects doorknobs, thimbles, teapots, or other objects in far greater number than they will ever require for functional use - and will often refuse to use the objects for any practical purposes, seeking to maintain them in pristine condition. Some do not even admire their collections, but merely enjoy the process of locating and obtaining the items.
Imitation
Imitation is a significant trait of social animals, whose young are not equipped with instincts that enable the to perform the basic actions necessary for survival, but must instead learn them by observing and copying the behavior of others.
A few hours observing infants and toddlers ought to be sufficient proof of the strength of this tendency. Children mimic motions without understanding their significance, but eventually are able to connect them to situations in which performing those actions provides a functional benefit.
Particularly in early life, it seems that as soon as a child gets the idea of an act, he performs it if he is able. It takes time before he develops the impulse control to consider an action without actually performing it.
Neither does the instinct to imitate cease in childhood, but remains through us throughout our adult lives. Young adults through the very elderly seek to learn by observing others, and show a great facility for so doing. The quickest way to teach someone to do something is not to describe it, but to demonstrate it so that they may observe and imitate.
Imitation is a human trait. We can recognize imitative behavior in lower mammals, and they can at times seem quite clever in doing so, but it is seldom more than mirroring. They do not seem to have the ability to apply the actions they imitate in other situations, which suggests that they mimic but do not learn.
(EN: This is likely subject to some argument, as many dog enthusiasts tell of behaviors that show some indication of understanding and learning, though these tend to be very simple - such as a dog that learns how to operate a doorknob. This cannot be quickly dismissed as imitation because it is clear that the dog has a clear objective and has associated a behavior that is highly unnatural, which it performs to achieve it even in the absence of humans to model it, which likewise suggests memory and association. That is not to say that canines are educable by any human standard, but most can learn to do a few dozen uncanny "tricks" that are different to instinctual behaviors for their own species.)
Imitation is not limited to physical activities, but can also be observed in habits of thinking. Most people who are "religious" have not come to hold religious attitudes of their own cognition, and many have not read the scriptures of their own religion. They are merely imitating the fragments of ideas that they have heard others express, and often augmenting it with compatible ideas from outside of the canon.
Play
Play is a method of practicing and modeling behavior outside of a situation in which it is necessary or appropriate. Certain mammal species can be observed to mimic fighting - they will nip at one another, but are not engaged in actual combat.
In its most primitive stages play is a method of imitation, but as a child develops their play becomes largely self-directed. They are able to invent their own amusements at first by modifying or combining activities, but in time become creators of original play activities.
Play is largely valued as practice: physical play enables us to develop motor skills, to control the motion of our bodies, and mental play enables us to develop cognitive skills for the evaluation of ideas.
There's a rather long meandering about the manner in which play or elements of play are used in education to "make a game of learning" for students. It is reported not only to be good for the morale of children, but highly effective as a method of teaching concepts and skills in an active manner.
Play is not limited to childhood, and is a significant part of the creative power of adults. Many great inventions have come of curious adults playing with ideas, building models, and otherwise examining things with no specific purpose in mind except to amuse themselves.
(EN: This assertion concerns me because it misrepresents creativity as unstructured. I cannot discard the notion that some creative ideas come from goofing around and stumbling upon something, but the greater part of innovation comes from purpose-oriented exploration rather than unstructured play. Both have their value, but to engage in play with the intent of discovery is seldom fruitful.)