Fact and Fable in Psychology

by Joseph Jastrow

I

Those who are actively engaged in educational pursuits are called upon from time to time to consider the nature of the difficulties in the imparting of knowledge, the psychological impediments that stand in the way of successful instruction. These are many and various; and pertain as well to the givers as to the receivers of learning. This large and well threshed field I have no intention of gleaning once more; I desire simply to draw attention to one form of difficulty on the part of the learner, which has been brought home to me so frequently and at times so forcibly, that I should be inclined to select it as the most salient stumbling-block in the successful acquisition of those branches of study which it falls to my lot to expound.

This characteristic, which may be called mental prepossession, is well illustrated in the following narrative, the truth of which, however, is not guaranteed. The story dates from the exciting days when the American public was completely fascinated by the mental gymnastics of the "spelling bee;" and relates that towards the close of a very fierce contest with the alphabet, when only a few stalwart champions remained to encounter the erratic eccentricities of English orthography, the conductor of the "bee" announced with an air of grave importance a word that he felt quite certain would retire not a few of the spelling virtuosi. He then asked their closest attention to his precise pronunciation, and solemnly gave utterance to what for all the world sounded like cat. Each hearer attempted to spell this extraordinarily difficult word with a suitably unusual rearrangement of the letters suggested by the sound, and when each effort had in turn been pronounced a failure, the information was given that the correct spelling was c-a-t. Hæc fabula docet that when one expects a difficulty he is apt to find it or to make it. Believing the problem to be unusual, he applies unusual methods to its solution; believing it to be complex, he overlooks the simple means by which its mysteries may be unlocked. It matters little how this reputation has come about, whether as the result of personal prejudice or of inherited tradition, whether suggested by the technicality of the subject or the awkwardness of the treatment, whether by the use of a few unusual terms or operations, or by any one of the countless methods, conscious and unconscious, by which such impressions are formed,—the result will be much the same.

Many a student approaches a study such as psychology or logic with an unshakable conviction that he is about to consider matters abstruse and difficult; things totally unrelated to what he has studied elsewhere or experienced before, and accordingly requiring an exercise of the mental faculties as different as possible from that to which he has been accustomed. It is not altogether strange that such notions should be current, because the tradition to that effect is ancient and strong, and originated in times when scholars generally, and philosophers perhaps more than others, took pride in exclusive erudition, in the possession of a more or less esoteric wisdom quite unrelated to the knowing and the thinking of οἱ πολλοί [Greek: hoi polloi]. It requires the combined operation of long periods of time and of persistent effort to weaken such beliefs; and it is only within recent times that the notion has been successfully disseminated that the processes considered in psychology and logic derive their validity from our daily experience, and require for their comprehension no mental gymnastics or intellectual contortions; that in brief these sciences simply aim to systematize and improve, to interpret and explain the every-day processes by which knowledge is gained. This, at all events, is one of their functions, and one profitably emphasized in the introductory study of their scope and content.

When one has once formed the impression, or has had it produced or suggested for him, that the study or the task he is about to attack is a difficult one, his mental powers are at once sufficiently reduced to make it really difficult; the signal is given of an approaching intricate turn in the road, the brakes are turned on, and the train of thought creeps along slowly. Mental prepossession leads to mental inertia. The same question which the student would answer readily and fully when asked by a friend as an item of general information, becomes utterly beyond his comprehension when it appears in the text-book, the title-page of which bears the ominous name of one or other of the studies reputed as difficult. The mind is not properly set; there is little receptiveness, little alertness. When we are asked in a conundrum-like tone, why one thing is like another, we ignore obvious and simple resemblances, and look about for obscure ones. The student who labors under the illusion that psychology is a maze of conundrums, employs mental processes appropriate to such a pursuit. The schoolboy finds it impossible to answer a question in arithmetic during the geography lesson, and the same lack of adaptability is shown by his older counterpart when he greets the answer to a very simple question (which, however, he himself failed to answer) with the all too familiar, "Oh, of course I knew that." Perhaps the most extreme instance of the many that I could cite is that of a student so irresponsive and apparently at sea regarding the topic under discussion—the senses—as to force me to ask him, "With what do you hear?" and who answered with perfect sincerity, "I don't know." This was a psychological question, and as such became as difficult as the spelling of cat at the end of a "spelling bee."

When the student has been made to feel that the questions he is asked can be answered from his everyday experience, and that common sense is often quite as serviceable a guide as special knowledge, a progress ensues in every way satisfactory. Such a conviction, however, is not a matter of verbal acknowledgment; it yields slowly to explanation and proceeds somewhat unconsciously and inwardly. Moreover, it is a trait very sensitive to the power of contagion, so that a comparatively small proportion of the class may successfully spread this mental attitude to the whole number. A question which two or three have failed to answer becomes invested with a spurious difficulty which makes it a deep mystery to all the others.

This mental prepossession may at times have quite different and curious results. When, for instance, the goal to be reached is given, when the answer may be looked up in the back of the book, it is surprising what peculiar and irrational steps will be taken to secure and justify the answer so given. This is all the more striking when the answer happens to be wrong; however simply such error may be discovered, the prepossessed mind will work away until by a more or less roundabout procedure the desired answer is reached. A noted professor of chemistry has an apt illustration of such a case. In a chemical test his assistant by mistake referred the class to the wrong bottle, so that the substance which the correct liquid would have dissolved could not be at all dissolved in the liquid actually used. However, on the professor's next round in his laboratory nearly every student assured him that the substance had dissolved, and a few went so far as to describe the precise manner of its dissolution.

It is quite clear that illustrations of mental prepossession, as also of inertia, may be found in many of the industries and occupations of life. The bicycle has added a very characteristic one. At a certain stage in the acquisition of the art of cycling, there comes a time when every obstacle and irregularity in the road absorbs the attention of the rider with a fascination that is quite irresistible. The rider is so possessed with the idea that he or she is going to run into the post or the curb or a rut or another vehicle, that the dreaded calamity may actually ensue. When the attention can be directed to the clear pathway, and the obstacles driven out from the focus of attention, the difficulty is surmounted. So in jumping or running and in other athletic trials, the entertainment of the notion of a possible failure to reach the mark lessens the intensity of one's effort, and prevents the accomplishment of one's best. He who hesitates is lost, because the hesitation makes possible the suggestion of a failure, the prepossession by a sense of difficulty.