BIOLOGY IN HUMAN AFFAIRS 



the problem of human instincts, one of the most contro- 

 versial issues in present-day psychology. 



The point of view made popular by William James, that 

 man has many well-defined instincts — more than other 

 animals, rather than fewer — was generally accepted by 

 educational psychologists for a quarter of a century. 

 The long list of human instincts compiled by James was 

 followed in 1906 by the similar though somewhat briefer 

 list of McDougall. McDougall's presentation of the in- 

 stinct problem, which for a decade or more greatly in- 

 fluenced thinking in educational as well as in social 

 psychology, had much in common with that of James. 

 Both regarded instincts as primary determiners of a great 

 fraction of human behavior, as psychobiological forces 

 which give direction to all our striving. According to 

 McDougall the essential nature of an instinct is not to be 

 sought in the exact mode of response to a particular 

 stimulus, but in its goal-seeking and purposive character 

 which may cause it to find expression now in one type of 

 response and now in another. Then in 1913 followed 

 Thorndike's treatment of the subject, somewhat more 

 in the vein of James than of McDougall, but resembling 

 both in the extended list of instincts posited. For Thorn- 

 dike, however, an instinct is an innate bond between a 

 specific stimulus and a specific response, and not the 

 generalized psychophysical disposition assumed by Mc- 

 Dougall. Instincts in McDougall's sense he regards as 

 pseudo-entities that have no existence in reality. The 

 important thing to know is the particular response that 

 follows or tends to follow a particular stimulus. Thorn- 

 dike's psychology of instinct, like his psychology of learn- 

 ing and of intelligence, is a bond psychology. It is thus 

 essentially a revamping into biological terminology of 

 the older association psychology given vogue by Locke, 

 Hume, the two Mills, and Herbart. 



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