truth applies not merely to the end, but to the reaction as a whole. . . . An instinctive reaction directs itself upon the situation which arouses it. Under certain circumstances, obstacles interfering with its progression are set aside, while the tendency persists, with varied effort and by varying means, until the end is attained. Consider the building of a nest. One cannot say at any particular stage in its construction that the bird will now make this or that movement; one can say, however, that the bird must now fulfill this or that requirement. . . 2. While reflexes are typically "passive" modes of behavior, which depend upon the fact that some stimulation has taken place, instinctive behavior is, by contrast, significantly "active" in its search for stimuli. The bird seeks the material for its nest, and the predatory animal stalks its game. 3. Instinctive activity is constantly controlled by the senseorgans. The situation which presents itself to the sense-organs, after a movement has taken place, determines the continuation of the movement; but success and error are differentiated, so that varied activities may lead to a single goal. From all of which it appears that the instinctive activities are much more like voluntary activities than they are like pure reflexes. At any rate, they possess the same forward direction that is characteristic of voluntary action. One might object that such a formal direction could only be given if the animal already knew the goal towards which he was striving. In the case of voluntary action this knowledge is presupposed, but not so in the case of instinct, where the animal must direct his course without any previous knowledge of the end. . . . One can quite well be directed forward without knowing anything of the goal which one is approaching. One can wait, and yet not know what one is waiting for. The present situation appears, therefore, not as one that is constituted thus-and-so but as one that is constantly undergoing change. It is not a state but a transition; not a being, but a becoming. 17. Are There Any Instincts? [WATSON, John B., "What the Nursery Has to Say About Instincts," Pedagogical Seminary and The Journal of Genetic Psychology, June, 1925, Vol. 32, No. 2, pp. 293-327.] It is not easy to answer this question. Up to the advent of the behaviorist, man was supposed to be a creature of many complicated instincts. A group of older writers, under the sway of the newly created theories of Darwin, vied with one another in finding new and perfect instincts in both man and animals. William James made a careful selection from among these asserted instincts and gave man the following list: Climbing, imitation, emulation and rivalry, pugnacity, anger, resentment, sympathy, hunting, fear, appropriation, acquisitiveness, kleptomania, constructiveness, play, curiosity, sociability, shyness, cleanliness, modesty, shame, love, jealousy, parental love. James claims that no other mammal, not even the monkey, can lay claim to so large a list. The behaviorist finds himself wholly unable to agree with James and other psychologists who claim that man has unlearned activities of these complicated kinds. . . . No subject in psychology to-day is more written about than the so-called instincts. . . . The articles in general are of the armchair variety written by men who have never watched the whole life history of animals and the early childhood of the human young. Philosophy will never answer any questions about instincts. The questions asked are factual ones-to be answered only by genetic observation. Let me hasten to add that the behaviorist's knowledge of instinct also suffers from lack of observed facts but you cannot accuse him of going beyond natural science in his inferences. ... During the past 25 years the students of animal behavior have been gathering a sound body of facts about the young of nearly every species of animal except that of man. We have lived with young monkeys, we have watched the growth of young rats, rabbits, guinea pigs, and birds of many species. We have watched them develop daily in our laboratories from the moment of birth to maturity. To check up our laboratory results we have watched many of them grow up in their native habitat― in a natural environment. These studies have enabled us to reach a fair understanding of both the unlearned and learned equipment of many species of animals. They have taught us that no one by watching the performance of the adult can determine what part of a complicated series of acts belongs in the unlearned category and what part belongs in the category of the learned. Best of all, they have given us a method that we can apply to the study of the human young. Finally, animal studies have taught us that it is not safe to generalize from the data we gather on one species as to what will be true in another species. . . . Although our studies of man's birth equipment have only begun, we can get a fair picture of the type of activity to be seen and of the method of studying this equipment. . At birth or soon thereafter we find nearly all of the socalled clinical neurological signs or reflexes established, such as the reaction of the pupil to light, the patellar reflex and others. We find the birth cry followed forever afterward by breathing, the heartbeat and all circulatory phenomena, such as vasomotor constriction (decrease in diameter of vessels) and dilatation, pulse beat, etc. Beginning with the alimentary tract, we find sucking, tongue movements, and swallowing. We find hunger contractions, digestion, necessitating glandular reactions in the whole alimentary tract and elimination (defæcation, urination, sweat). The acts of smiling, sneezing, and hiccoughing belong in part at least to the alimentary canal system. We find general movements of the trunk, head and neck best observed, so far as the trunk is concerned, when the infant suspends himself with the hands. Rhythmical "climbing" movements then appear. We can see the trunk at work in breathing, when the infant cries, during defæcation and urination, when turning over or when the head is raised or turned. We find the arms, wrist, hands and fingers in almost ceaseless activity (the thumb rarely taking part until later). In this activity especially are to be noted: grasping, opening and closing hands repeatedly, "slashing" about of the whole arm, putting hand or fingers into mouth, throwing arm and fingers to face when nose is held. We find the legs, ankles, foot and fingers in almost ceaseless movement except in sleep and even during sleep if external (and internal) stimuli are present. The knee can be bent, leg moved at hip, ankle turned, toes spread, etc. If the bottom of the foot is touched, there is a characteristic movement of the toes (Babinski reflex); if the left knee is pinched the right foot is brought up to the point of stimulation and vice versa. Other activities appear at a later stage-such as blinking, reaching, handling, handedness, crawling, standing, sitting up, walking, running, jumping. In the great majority of these later activities it is difficult to say how much of the act as a whole is due to training or conditioning. A considerable part is unquestionably due to the growth changes in structure, and the rest is due to training and conditioning. . . . Actual observation (of infants) thus makes it impossible for us any longer to entertain the concept of instinct. We have seen that every act has a genetic history. . . . In order that you may more easily grasp one of the central principles of behaviorism-viz., that all complex behavior is a growth or development out of simple resources, I want to introduce here the notion of "activity stream. . . ." We have passed in review many of the known facts on the early behavior of the human infant. Let us draw a diagram [Fig. 11] to represent the whole increasing complexity of man's organization. This picture will be very incomplete for several reasons. In the first place we have room on the chart to show only a few of those activities. In the second place our studies are not complete enough to draw an adequate chart even if we had the space, and finally we will not have the time to take up in these lectures man's visceral and emotional equipment, his manual habits and his language habits. In spite of these handicaps, though, try to think of a complete life chart-of the ceaseless stream of activity beginning when the egg is fertilized and ever becoming more complex as age increases. Some of the unlearned acts we perform are shortlived-they stay in the stream only a little time-such, for example, as suckling, unlearned grasping (as opposed to learned grasping and manipulation), extension of the great toe (Babinski), etc., then disappear forever from the stream. Try to think of others beginning later in life, e.g., blinking, menstruation, etc., and remaining in the stream-blinking until death; menstruation until, say, 45-55 years, then disappearing. But try hardest of all to think of each unlearned act as becoming conditioned shortly after birth-even our respiration and circulation. Try to remember, too, that the unlearned movements of arms, hands, trunks, legs, feet and toes become organized quickly into our stabilized habits, some of which remain in the stream throughout life, others staying in only a short time and then disappearing forever. For example, our 2-year habits must give place to 3- and 4-year habits. . . . 18. Instincts in the Nursery [WATSON, John B., "What the Nursery Has to Say About Instincts" (Powell Lecture in Psychology at Clark University, January 16, 1925), Pedagogical Seminary and The Journal of Genetic Psychology, June, 1925, Vol. 32, pp. 293-327.] Man is an animal born with certain definite types of structure. Having that kind of structure, he is forced to respond to stimuli at birth in certain ways (for example: breathing, heart 60 DAYS 120 DAYS 180 DAYS 240 DAYS 300DAYS 360 DAYS 2YEARS SYEARS YEARS SYEARS FERTILIZATION FIG. 11. THE ACTIVITY STREAM. Rough diagram showing increasing complexity of certain human ac tion systems. The black solid line shows the unlearned beginning of each system. The dotted line shows how each system is made complex by conditioning it. Some of the systems apparently are not modified. They exist in the stream throughout life without increasing in complexity. The chart is neither complete nor accurate. Until more thorough genetic work has been done, a chart of this kind cannot be used as a measuring rod of what to expect of infants of different ages. |