METHODS OF EXHIBITING REACTIVE TENDENCIES 13 



gradually perfected his method, the while applying it to various 

 ontogenetic stages in man, cat, dog, and monkey, to defective 

 and deranged human adults, and to many and diverse types 

 of animal. 



The Hamilton method, which, in the opinion of the writer, 

 is equal in importance to any method of studying behavior yet 

 proposed, has been almost wholly neglected by comparative 

 psychologists and its results are very imperfectly known. 



While Cole and Hamilton were busy with their new methods,. 

 Carr and Hunter 2 were perfecting, in the study of the white rat, 

 what has appropriately been termed the method of delayed 

 reaction. It is a simple and ingenious way of testing for idea- 

 tion. Like Hamilton's, Hunter's contribution to our science is' 

 important methodologically as well as for its factual materials. 

 But whereas Hamilton's method of quadruple choices is suited 

 to reveal reactive tendencies and to exhibit their genetic rela- 

 tions, Hunter's serves primarily as a test of the ability of an 

 organism to respond to a situation from which the significant 

 feature (stimulus) has vanished. 



For purposes apparently foreign to the interests of both Hamil- 

 ton and Hunter, the writer a few years ago devised yet another 

 method of studying ideational and other reactive tendencies. 

 It has been called the method of multiple choices. It was 

 planned as a means of gathering strictly comparable data of 

 reaction from diverse types of organism, stages of development, 

 and conditions of normality or abnormality. It was the writer's 

 hope and conviction that most varied scientific materials should 

 be assembled systematically in the interest of genetic descrip- 

 tion. The method is therefore appropriate to human psychology 

 and to infrahuman, to child psychology and to psychopathology. 



To sum up: — for reasons which are obvious to every careful 

 student of behavioristic method and result, Hamilton's method 

 of quadruple choices is a preeminently valuable means of dis- 

 playing reactive tendencies; Hunter's is an uniquely serviceable 

 test of ability to respond appropriately to controllable absent 

 stimuli; and the writer's is a promising mode of evoking varied 

 types of response and of reactive tendency for purposes of classi- 

 fication an d more detailed analysis. 



2 The method is hereafter referred to as Hunter's because he alone has pub- 

 lished concerning it. 



