Lessons in Psychology

Front matter

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Preface

THE lessons are designed particularly for the use of teachers and those who are studying to be teachers. The principles of psychology, however, as here presented show the bearing of the subject in the affairs of daily life, and for this reason it is hoped that the book will be of interest as well to others.

Though it has not been customary to follow the plan of the Lesson-Unit in teaching above the grades, I have ventured to arrange my material according to it, since that material is for the most part elementary. And long experience has confirmed my opinion that it is helpful in all work in the classroom to follow in spirit, at least, each day the general plan of the three steps of preparation, presentation, and application.

In using the lessons in the classroom teachers will find many of them as given too long for one day's work. A week is not too much time to spend in reaching, for example, the law of associations here developed in the first lesson. For the formulation of this law pupils will be interested to trace in class and outside many trains of association and to talk about them familiarly as they do about the facts of nature or mathematics. And in most of the subjects, indeed, pupils may spend profitably a much longer time than one lesson in watching, giving, and discussing their experience before they are led to generalize.

A great amount of practice is necessary, moreover, to accustom one's self, say, to trace trains of association, to find first members, to realize when one has omitted members,— in short, to become really familiar with the process of watching the stream of thought from the standpoint of

4 Preface

associations and to establish the habit of observation. The lessons are quite without meaning unless this detailed observation is persistently continued.

Psychology to be of value to a teacher or to any one else must be a habit of mind. Such a knowledge as one gains in reading a technical book on the subject when one says of a fact, " Yes; that is true; I'll remember it," might be called an assenting knowledge. A few facts gained in this way no doubt become available in guiding daily life, but not a large enough number to pay for the time spent in this mode of study.

If, on the other hand, a person sets earnestly to work to master his own thought processes, the ways of his mind, he will soon accumulate a mass of observations, which indeed " are not in themselves science, but without which there is no science " for him. The kind of knowledge of psychology that he can make out of this material is the kind that is valuable, the kind that is available daily and hourly in the schoolroom and everywhere. It is not just formal, academic information about a text-book, it is rather knowledge of the subject in our hearts and liveswilled, professional wisdom.

The lessons are offered then, not with the aim to present theories of psychology, nor yet to record the progress that has been made in the science. There has been no attempt even to classify the material logically. The purpose of the book is rather to indicate one way in which by the study of his own experience a person may gain a working idea of some of the simple, general, and commonly accepted truths of mind.

Chapter I The Law Of Associations

Preparation Step.— I. There is no better place to begin the study of psychology than your own mind, and no better method to follow than that of constant observation of what takes place there. Suppose then that you study your stream of thought, say, from the standpoint of the law of associations.

II. Surely you have noticed occasional trains of association. To gain a working idea, however, of the law, you must make a business of watching what passes through your mind. For convenience in analyzing it, regard your stream of consciousness as though it were all made up of successive trains of associations, each one interrupting the preceding one, and trace, trace, trace your fleeting thoughts morning, noon, and night !

III. After having observed these trains of associations for a time, begin to write out lists of them. Recall the ideas that have helped to make your stream of thought for the last half hour and write them out somewhat in this way: (I just looked to see what time it was.)

(1.) A visual image of the clock-face;

(2. Thought words) Eight o'clock; I must do my

errands ;

(3.) A secondary (recalled) visual

image of a shop I must visit.

Another series :

(1.) Temperature sensations of hot

coffee* in my mouth and throat ; (2. Thought words) How good this hot coffee is! (3. Thought words) It is such a luxury to have it hot.

A third series :

(1.) Organic sensations in my lungs;

(2. Thought words) This room is very close;

(3. Thought words) 111 open the window;

(4.) Group of secondary (recalled, in-

ner) muscular sensations making the idea of myself as turning and opening the window.

A fourth series:

(1.) A group of sound sensations;

(2. Thought words) Miss S. is opening the door;

(3.) Group of secondary color sensations

making an image of Miss S. opening the door;

(4. Thought words) She always opens the door so gently.

Trace in this way twenty trains of association an hour.

IV. For convenience in tracing your thoughts count each outer experience as No. 1. Almost always No. 2 will be thought words naming, or identifying No. 1. Then may follow secondary visual images or images in the terms of any sense or more thought words. We may have any number almost of trains of association on the same subject, and also we may change the subject in each successive member of a train of associations. You will notice, moreover, that sometimes the series are very long, sometimes so short and quick, so fleeting that they hardly seem to have been in consciousness at all.

V. What the relation is between brain and mind nobody has ever determined. It seems certain that when thoughts are in the mind the blood is circulating in the brain, and for given thoughts in consciousness the same part of the brain apparently is always flushed and stimulated. Do you remember the appearance in the sky of the aurora borealist A recent writer has likened to the motion of this flitting, quivering light the shimmer and play of the activity of blood in the brain and of its accompanying mentality, one as subtle as the other. But though the relation between brain and mind cannot be explained, one must realize that the sensation blue is different from the vibration of brain-cells, that a mental state is different from the activity of matter.

Presentation Step.— I. When we examine the parts of one of these trains of association we are led to the question, why should one group of sensations follow another? Why, for example, should a certain group of color sensations which makes the clock face be followed by the thought words, It is eight o'clock? Why did I not think instead, It rains, or China ?

The reason seems to be that sometime in the past I have had this certain grouping of color sensations in my mind before with the thought words, It is eight o'clock. Sometime before, also, I had thought, At eight o'clock I shall go out to do some errands. So now that I think, Eight o'clock, the thought follows, I must do my errands. And as I examine the members two and two of my trains of association, I find in each case that some or all of the elements composing them have been in my mind together before; I have been conscious of them as near in previous time relations.

The law of associations then is, Mental elements that have been together in mind before will return together when some of them return, or, " When part of an idea appears in consciousness, the whole appears.' '

II. Whatever other relations may be superadded, all thought seems to be governed by this law. But though stated ib the terms of ideas, the law is really a description of the way in which the elements of the brain and the body are stimulated and respond. As Professor Titchener says, " When two or three parts of the brain have been excited together, in perception, a habit of co-excitation or joint excitation is set up; so that if, later on, one of the parts is excited alone the others will be involved also,— and involved the more certainly, the more habitual the connection has been in perception. ' '

The law is fundamentally one governing bodily elements, the Law of Habit.

Application Step.— I. Watch your thoughts constantly; jot down lists and think the law of associations with each list. You cannot do this work by accident — you have to think about it and make an effort to do it.

II. Watch different people to see how different their response is under apparently the same stimulus. Watch evidences of associations in children as shown in their speech and acts. Watch animals to see to what extent they are governed by the law of associations.

III. In sleep the minimum of blood is sent to the brain and the mind is least active. We have not so many associations, " we are only a fraction of ourselves/ ' Trace the associations in dreams.

IV. Observe associations in conversations that you carry on and overhear. How much could you understand or say if it were not for associations?

V. In the terms of associations, what is the process of reading? Is it not the process of having trains of association, the first member of each of which is a visual image of one or more script or printed words? There is no thought in a book, surely, no mental states like those in a mind— " All we get from a book is what we bring to it " arranged in new relations.

VI. Think over the* gifts or photographs you have given to friends lately. From the standpoint of associations, why did you give them?

VII. Observe the kind of sensations that make up the members of the trains of association. Are there visual images, or groups of color sensations— so many that you think habitually in the terms of sight? In other words, are you eye-minded? Or do you think more often in thought words, that is, groups of secondary sound or touch sensations? Determine whether your type is visual, auditory, or tactual.

A STUDY OP IDENTICAL ELEMENTS IN TRAINS OP ASSOCIATION

Preparation Step.— I. There will be suggestions for our work in the schematic representation of the associations between mental states. Let us picture these relations.

II. Recall and write lists of trains of association that you have had to-day about the weather, the temperature, the appearance of the sky, of the mountains; those that you have thought about your meals, your food; those starting in aches and pains, in hunger and thirst; those that you have noticed in connection with conversations.

III. Write lists of the sensations that make up each member of the trains of associations : For example,

'noisy,

crunching (made by wheels on snow), (1. Sound sensations,) -^ creaking,

squeaking, loud sounds, high" pitched;

C Words incipiently spoken (2. Thought words,) How J in the terms of the muscold it must be! ] cles of the throat and

(^ tongue ;

r Grays, reds,

browns (so grouped as to form the snow-covered street).

(3. Secondary visual image,)

and so on, for many trains.

IV. What do you mean when you say that A's portrait is a good likeness, that it looks like his face?

The face, to you, is really a group of color sensations arranged, or grouped in a definite way; the portrait also is a group of color sensations combined as nearly as the artist can combine them in the same way that the similar colors are grouped to make A's face. There are certain colors and arrangements that are identical in your mind to the two. In an oil painting, for example, there are probably both colors and arrangements that are common to face and portrait. In a blue-print, on the other hand, there are no colors in common, but the arrangement of blues may have so much that is identical with the arrangement of colors in the face that it is an excellent likeness.

When we say that two different people resemble each other, we really mean that their faces, reduced to color elements and grouping, have certain points in common, certain sensations ©r arrangements that are identical.

And so it is with all experiences that we call similar. All similarity reduces to few or many identical elements among diverse elements.

Presentation Step.— I. Write (a) the lists and (fe) the elements for several trains of association somewhat as follows :

(a) List:

(1.) Visual image of a calendar;

(2. Thought words) The eighth; I must send something

for lyTs birthday; (3.) What shall I send?

(4.) Secondary visual image of a box

of souvenirs ; (5.) I might send that pillow-cover.

(6) The elements of this list in the order and relation that they came to my mind are :

(1. Visual image of a calendar:)

(3. Thought word*:)

(Stream of Thought.)

(Grays reds, (so grouped as to form 8.)

The eighth. I must send something for M's birthday.

. What shall I send?

Greens, grays, reds, browns

I might send that . pillow-cover.

1 (4. Secondary sight

2 sensations making a [ box of souvenirs:)

That is, I have now in mind as a primary experience a visual image of a calendar. This image is composed of grays so grouped as to form a figure eight. When I have had that grouping in mind before it was part of another mental state which was then completed by the thought words, " The eighth, I must send something for M's birthday." The thought of sending a gift had before been in my mind as part of another mental state which was then completed by the thought of deciding what I should send. So that now when I think, " I must send something/ ' the thought follows, " What shall I send?" and so on.

The elements identical to two mental states are pictured as common to two braces.

II. A second graphic analysis:

(Stream of Thought.)

(1. Visual Image of a stranger's face:)

flesh tints, browns, grays (so grouped as to make . part of Ruth S's face.)

flesh colors,

(2. Visual image of Ruth S's face:)

grays,

light browns (so grouped as to make the rest of Ruth's face.)

-

Ruth S. She's in New York. She can't be here;

I'll look again

more carefully. j

In the above series I saw a stranger whose face resembled Ruth S's face, that is, had elements in common with it. When I saw the first face, " quick as thought " Ruth's face flashed into my mind with the thoughts that followed.

III. A third graphic analysis:

(Stream of Thought.)

(1. Sound sensations:)

(3. Secondary visual image of the snowy street:)

noisy,

loud,

high in pitch,

crunching,

creaking,

squeaking; .

How cold it must be!

Grays, reds, browns.

IV. Each train of associations reduces to the general formula,

!} (4 ° and so on.

The thoughts b, c, d, e, are the results in mind of the excitation of the brain cells b', c', d', e'. The excitation of the brain cells follows the path established by the law of habit.

Application Step.— I. This plan of tracing and analyzing trains of association leads to closer observation of thoughts than that followed in the first lesson. By that plan members and elements may often be omitted or overlooked. By studying out always the elements of identity between each two groups, one finds a larger number of thoughts and thus learns more about his mind.

II. Professor Titchener calls these identical elements li stepping stones," as it is by means of them that we pass from one idea to another. Thomas Hobbes, a great English philosopher, showed that it is by these common elements that we may " perceive the way of this wild ranging of the mind, and the dependence of one thought upon another.' '

III. I may have had a hundred or more visual images of the capitol. But though I speak of them all as " the capitol," each one differs in some details from all the others. I do not think the same thoughts after any two of them. Each different visual image that I call " the capitol " has elements that have been in my mind before with thought words,— sometimes, perhaps, with " the east front ; ' ' again with, * * How badly discolored the south walls are!" And still again with, " I must return that book to the capitol library,' ' and so on. In each case the elements making the different visual images of the capitol had been in my mind before with the thought words that followed. Graphically I thought,

(1 . Visual image of the capitol,)

(1. Visual image of the capitol,)

f grays,

< (grouped to make

I the east front.)

The east front

grays,

(grouped to make the discolored i south side,)

The south side is badly discolored

(1. Visual image of the capitol,)

f grays,

< (grouped to make

[ the library windows.)

I must return that book to the capitol library.

IV. We have, in other words, what might be called multiple associations with the capitol, and not only with the capitol but with many, many other facts, people, and experiences of all kinds.

The business of education may be regarded as to develop proper multiple associations. Study each day's lesson that you teach with the idea of establishing the material in many trains of association, of ' * multiplying cues. ' '

V. What is the explanation of forgetting, say, a person's name? Is it not that we cannot recall a thought having elements identical with the mental state of which the name forms a part, that we cannot get on the right train of association ? In other words we cannot come upon a thought that has been in mind before with the name.

In our endeavor to find an identical element we go over the alphabet, recall the scenes and circumstances of meeting the person and all we know about him. Then perhaps an hour later, when we are thinking apparently of some- 1 thing wholly different, we come upon the identical element, and there is the name ! As the witty woman in ' ' Dr. North and his Friends " said, our thoughts are like Bo-Peep's sheep. " Let 'em alone and they'll come home, a-bringin' their tales behind them."

VI. It is convenient in observing and analyzing our thoughts to speak of them as though they were separate entities, just as we think of the separate atoms of matter, Our stream of thought, however, is not broken or divided into units, it is itself a unit; as Professor James says, * ' Thought is not jointed, it flows. ' '

VII. I must urge you to persevere in the practice of tracing trains of association and, also, artificial as it may seem at first, in seeking the identical elements between their different members. There is no kind of observation and study that shows us so much about our mind as this study of associations. If you were learning botany you would not find it trivial or irksome to analyze many plants minutely. Put the same amount of effort and patience in this work.

ANALYSIS OF ASSOCIATIONS

Preparation Step.— I. By describing and making explicit the condition and process which make possible your present thoughts you can vary your observation of associations.

II. Recall trains of association that you have had about music heard recently; about people's voices, sounds in the street, in the house. Recall what you have thought while reading newspapers, magazines, signs, bill-boards, letters; on seeing pictures, buildings, landscape, a river, a hill, a tree, a head, a face, mannerisms, expressions, gestures.

Watch the association of acts with thoughts; as, (1.) Visual image of a letter; (2.) I must mail that letter; (3.) I'll put it where I can see it when I go out; (4.) Secondary muscular sensations of placing the letter on the desk. (1.) Primary muscular sensations of rising; (2.) Secondary muscular sensations of reaching out my hand and placing the letter on the desk. (1.) Smell sensations of smoke; (2.) What can be burning? (3.) I'll see. (1.) Muscular sensations of rising; (2.) I'll look in the outer hall first,— and so on.

III. Do you remember the first time you saw moving pictures? An automobile? An electric launch? Recall your first experience in hearing a phonograph, a pianola, a telharmonium.

How did you identify these experiences? Did not some one have to tell you what each one was? Or, had you not read about a pianola, for example, picturing as you read how it would look and sound, so that when you saw something that looked like the picture you could think the word with the image again ?

Presentation Step.— I. Write (a) the list and (6) the schematic analysis of several series. For example,

(a) (1.) Sound sensations of wheels creaking in the snow; (2. Thought "words :) How cold it must be ! (3.) Secondary visual image, the frosty street outside.

f noisy sounds, crunching,^ (6) (1.) J creaking, loud, high in I pitch, squeaking;

r How cold it must be ! grays, reds, browns.

II. To make explicit the process by which it is possible for me to have these thoughts :

Long ago in my childhood and many times since, I remember to have heard this peculiar creaking, crunching sound of wheels in the snow when I have heard some one say and have thought, How cold it must be ! Now that I hear sounds of this peculiar quality again, I think (not, red chimneys, nor anything else, but just the thought that has been with this peculiar quality of sound before) How cold it must be ! When I have thought, How cold it must be ! before, I have seen the street as it looks on a frosty morning. So now that I think the words, How cold it must be ! they are at once followed by a secondary visual image of the frosty street.

III. Ag^in, I have the series, (1. A song in parts) musical sounds; (2.) Incipient humming of one of the parts with the singer; (3. Thought words) This humming is what listening is. I'm listening to one part.

I once learned that the process of hearing sounds, of listening is one of incipiently imitating the sounds in the throat. Wben I heard one part of the musical sounds, I incipiently reproduced the sounds in my throat; When I had had the thought of hearing that voice before at a certain time I had thought, I'll listen to it; so now that I hum to myself with the voice, I think, This humming is listening. I'm listening to one part.

IV. Analyze thus many trains of association explaining with each two members that it is possible for them to come back together now because they have been together before and recall if possible the certain definite time when they were together formerly.

Application Step.— I. Think out associations in which you image different acts. The thoughts, for example, of the words that I am to write are followed by inconceivably fleeting secondary groups of touch, muscular, and joint sensations that make before I write each word the image of my act in writing. These associations were established when I learned to write.

II. Our muscles perform many acts for us as a result of established bodily associations, or habit, without conscious direction or with only a little thought. Watch these bodily associations constantly. •

III. What have you thought recently on seeing a flag? A steeple? College colors? Recall the time when these associations were established.

IV. Why build church steeples? What do they mean? Why put out flags? Of what value would a visible symbol be if nobody had any associations with it ?

V. If there were no visible signs, monuments, memorials of people, events, and ideals, from the standpoint of associations what should we miss?

VI. What is the value of associations to us emotionally and as related to interests?

VII. What difference does the work of Burns, Scott, and Carlyle make in our interest in Scotland? What associations have writers added to places in our own country? What associations has history established around places and people that you know ?

VIII. "The man who, from poverty of mental background, is stirred by none of these things " (associations that come on a visit to the homes of Milton, Wordsworth, and Shakespeare, to Stirling Castle,) " misses an influence on character and a stimulus to conduct which are of incalculable value. A soldier whom I met some time ago told me that, when he was a young subaltern, and was getting slack, as he expressed it, he was pulled together by a pithy but effective remark of his superior officer. * Take care,' he said: ' you're forgetting Wellington, and the history and traditions of the army.' There's many a lad who has been spurred to his best endeavor and restrained from a mean or ignoble act, by the flashing across his mind of the name and figure of one of his heroes in history or in fiction*" J[" Psychology for Teachers," C. Lloyd Morgan.)

CORRELATIONS

Preparation Step.— I. The law of habit governs the way in which our thoughts come back always. There is often, moreover, besides the relationship of mere contiguity, or nearness between mental states, another relation superadded.

II. The following lists will serve to illustrate this kind of relation :

Ob (1.) Smell sensations;

(2. Thought word) perfumery; (3.) Where does it come from? (4.) I'll look around the car to see.

6. (1.) Visual image;

(2.) That is a young Italian girl in the seat back of me. (3.) Maybe she has some perfumery on.

c. (1.) Sound sensations;

(2. Thought words) What sweet voices those Italians have !

d. (1.) Visual image of bent handle of a mirror; (2.) That must be to rest the mirror on.

e. (1.) Visual image of a young lady;

(2.) Secondary yisual image of Ruth S. ;

(3. Thought words) Ruth S. ; But Ruth S. is in New

York. She can't be here; (4.) I'll look again more closely.

f. (1.) Visual image of the same young lady; (2.) No style about her hair and hat;

(3.) Ruth is so good looking ! (4.) This is surely not she.

g. (1.) Visual image of part of a pin;

(2.) Secondary visual image of the rest of it.

Presentation Step.— I. In a, between 1 and 2, the relation in my thought is more than just that of contiguity; it is one of cause and effect. Between 2 and 3, there is superadded the relation of source, and also in b, 2 and 3 ; between a, 3 and 4, the relation is purpose; between c, 1 and 2, substance and attribute ; between d, 1 and 2, design ;

between e, 1 and 2, resemblance; between /, 2 and 3, contrast, and between g, 1 and 2, subordination (part and whole).

II. In mere nearness, contiguity of mental states, there is no real relation. The correlations indicated above, on the other hand, are real mental relations.

III. As to their nature, they have been regarded by some writers as differing from contiguity in kind ; by others, as complex evolutions of simple contiguity. Whatever their origin may be, correlations are real experiences, and they are the relations, the associations, of the higher forms of thought.

IV. Because these -associations face both ways (we may pass from cause to effect or effect to cause, from part to whole or whole to part) they are correlations.

The principal correlations that the intelligence finds among its objects are those of:

1. . Coexistence

2. Succession

3. Subordination ■<

4. Resemblance

5. Causation

6. Design-utility.

time coinherence

time space

r genus and species essence and property whole and part quantity proportion

C resemblance J identity I difference

(J. M. Baldwin, Psychology.")

Hand-book of

Application Step.— I. Watch constantly for correlations in your trains of association.