PERSEVERANCE REACTIONS IN PRIMATES AND RODENTS 3 



are apt to consist of, (a) various non-adaptive activities, and 

 (b) a more or less accidental activity which terminates reaction 

 by withdrawing the subject from the stimuli supplied by the 

 situation. If the situation be frequently encountered the sub- 

 ject tends more or less gradually to abandon the non-adaptive 

 activities and to develop a habit of manifesting only the adaptive 

 one whenever the situation is encountered anew. It is in this 

 familiar circumstance that the behaviorist finds many of his 

 problems. Unfortunately, the non-adaptive activities, which are 

 accounted " errors," are usually given no more attention than is 

 involved in recording their number, duration, distribution and 

 mode (gradualness or abruptness) of disappearance. The ex- 

 perimenter's interest is apt to center in what is significant for 

 estimating the reactive value of the stimuli involved in terms 

 of the subject's sensory equipment or of its capacity to learn. 

 That behaviorists have displayed so little interest in the quali- 

 tative aspect of " errors " (non-adaptive activities) is in part 

 due, I believe, to the influence of pedagogical traditions which 

 direct attention toward the positive determinants of learning. 



My interest in the qualitative aspect of non-adaptive activi- 

 ties is largely due to the fact that I have approached the study 

 of behavior from the standpoint of the clinical psychopatholo- 

 gist. In spite of the fact that I have never been able to assim- 

 ilate the doctrines of the Vienna and Zurich schools of psycho- 

 analysis to my own experience and conceptions without many 

 heretical reservations and qualifications, I am indebted to these 

 doctrines for- certain behavioristic concepts which, it seems to 

 me, underlie them. If I do not misconceive Freud's and Jung's 

 writings they assume that even,' reaction, no matter how in- 

 appropriate it may be as an attempt at adjustment to the par- 

 ticular situation that elicits it, is the expression of an innate 

 tendency which enters as a functional unit into the composition 

 of the organism's total reactive equipment. Although a given 

 reaction may prove to be inimical to the welfare of both the 

 individual and his race, the tendency of which it is an expression 

 possesses in itself conservative value either for the individual 

 or for his race, or for both. 



The innate tendencies of an organism are disclosed in the 

 first instance, of course, by his reactions and are identified 

 through studies of them. But reactions do not alwavs stand 



