The Foundations of Personality

by Abraham Myerson

The persons in his world have become quite individual; mother is now not alone, for father is recognized with pleasure as one who likewise is desirable. He carries one on his shoulder so that a pleasurable excitement results; he plays with one, holds out strings and toys and other instruments for the obtaining of experience. Usually both of these great personages are friendly, their faces wear a smile or a tender look, and our little one is so organized that smiles and tender looks awaken comfortable feelings and he smiles in return. The smile is perhaps the first great message one human being sends to another; it says, "See, I am friendly, I wish you well." Later on in the history of the child, he will learn much about smiles of other kinds, but at this stage they are all pleasant. Though his parents are usually friendly and give, now and then they deprive, and they look different; they say, "No, no!" This "no, no" is social inhibition, it is backed up by the power of deprivation, punishment, disapproval; it has its power in a something in our nature that gives society its power over us. From now there steps in a factor in the development of character of which we have already spoken, a group of desires that have their source in the emotional response of the child to the parent, in the emotional response of an individual to his group. Out of the social pressure arises the desire to please, to win approval, to get justification, and these struggle in the mind of the child with other desires.

We said the child seeks experience,—but not only on his own initiative. The father stands against the wall, perhaps with one foot crossing the other. Soon he feels a pressure and looks down; there is the little one standing in his imitation of the same position. Imitation, in my belief, is secondary to a desire for experience. The child does not imitate everything; he is equipped to notice only simple things, and these he imitates. Why? The desire to experience what others are experiencing is a basic desire; it expresses both a feeling of fellowship and a competitive feeling. We do not feel a strong tendency to imitate those we dislike or despise, or do not respect, we tend to imitate those we love and respect, those for whom we have a fellow feeling. Part of the fellow feeling is an impulse to imitate and to receive in a positive way the suggestion offered by their conduct and manners.

Analogous to imitation, and part of the social instinct, is a credulity, a willingness to accept as if personally experienced things stated. Part of the seeking of experience is the asking of questions, because the mind seeks a cause for every effect, a something to work from. Indeed, one of the main mental activities lies in the explaining of things; an unrest is felt in the presence of the "not understood" which is not stilled until the unknown is referred back to a thing understood or accepted without question. The child finds himself in a world with laid-down beliefs and with explanations of one kind or another for everything. His group differs from other groups in its explanations and beliefs; his family even may be peculiar in these matters. He asks, he is answered and enjoined to believe. Without credulity there could be no organization of society, no rituals, no ceremonials, no religions and customs,—but without the questioning spirit there could be no progress. Most of the men and women of this world have much credulity and only a feeble questioning tendency, but there are a few who from the start subject the answers given them to a rigid scrutiny and who test belief by results. Let any one read the beliefs of savages, let him study the beliefs of the civilized in the spirit in which he would test the statement of the performance of an automobile, and he can but marvel at man's credulity. Belief and the acceptance of authority are the conservative forces of society, and they have their origin in the nursery when the child asks, "Why does the moon get smaller?" and the mother answers, "Because, dear, God cuts a piece off every day to make the stars with." The authorities, recognizing that their power lay in unquestioning belief, have always sanctified it and made the pious, non-skeptical type the ideal and punished the non-believer with death or ostracism. Fortunately for the race, the skeptic, if silenced, modifies the strength of the belief he attacks and in the course of time even they who have defended begin to shift from it and it becomes refuted. Beliefs, as Lecky[1] so well pointed out, are not so of ten destroyed as become obsolete.

[1] Lecky: "History of European Morals." As he points out, the belief in witchcraft never was disproved, it simply died because science made it impossible to believe that witches could disorganize natural laws.

It may seem as if imitation were a separate principle in mental growth, and there have been many to state this. As is well known Tarde made it a leading factor in human development. It seems to me that it is linked up with desire for experience, desire for fellowship, and also with a strongly competitive feeling, which is early manifest in children and which may be called "a want of what the other fellow has." Children at the age of a year and up may be perfectly pleased with what they have until they see another child playing with something,—something perhaps identical with their own. They then betray a decided, uncontrollable desire for the other child's toy; they are no longer content with their own, and by one means or another they seek to get it,—by forcible means, by wheedling or coaxing, or by tormenting their parents. The disappearance of contentment through the competitive feeling, the competitive nature of desire, the role that envy plays in the happiness and effort of man, is a thesis emphasized by every moralist and philosopher since the beginning of things. In the strivings of every man, though he admit it or not, one of the secret springs of his energy is this law of desire, that a large part of its power and persistence is in the competitive feeling, is in envy and the wish to taste what others are experiencing.

A basic law of desire lies in an observation of Lotze, elaborated by William James. We may talk of selfishness and altruism as if they were entirely separate qualities of human nature. But what seems to be true is that one is an extension of the other, that is, we are always concerned with the ego feeling, but in the one case the ego feeling is narrow and in the other case it includes others as part of the ego. Lotze's observations on clothes shows that we expend ego feeling in all directions, that we tend to be as tall as our top hats and as penetrating as our walking sticks, that the man who has a club in his hand has a tactile sense to the very end of the club. James in his marvelous chapter on the various selves points out that a man's interests and affections are his selves, and that they enclose one another like the petals of a rose. We may speak of unipetalar selves, who include only their own bodies in self-feeling; of bipetalar selves who include in it their families, and from there on we go to selves who include their work, their community, their nation, until we reach those very rare souls whose petals cover all living things. So men extend their self-feeling, if ambitious, to their work, to their achievements,—if paternal to their children; if domestic, to wife and home; if patriotic to the nation, etc. Development lies in the extension of the self-feeling and in the increase of its intensity. But the obstacle lies in the competitive feelings, in that dualism of man's nature that makes him yearn not only for fellowship, but also for superiority. These desires are in eternal opposition, but are not necessarily antagonistic, any more than are the thumb and the little finger as they meet in some task, any more than are excitation and inhibition. Every function in our lives has its check and balance, and fellowship, yearning and superiority urge one another.

From the cradle to the grave, we desire fellowship as an addition to our gregarious feeling. We ask for approval, for we expand under sympathy and contract under cold criticism. Nothing is so pleasant as "appreciation," which means taking us at our own valuation or adding to it,, and there is no complaint so common as, "They don't understand me," which merely means, "They blame me without understanding that I really seek the good, that I am really good, though perhaps I seem not to be." The child who hurts its thumb runs to its mother for sympathy, and the pain is compensated for, at least in part, by that sympathy. Throughout life we desire sympathy for our hurts, except where that sympathy brings with it a feeling of inferiority. To be helped by others in one way or another is the practical result of this aspect of fellowship.

(There is a convincing physical element in the feelings and desires of man, evidenced in language and phrase. Superiority equals aboveness, inferiority equals beneathness; sympathy equals the same feeling. To criticize is to "belittle" and to cause the feeling of littleness; to praise is "to make a man expand," to enlarge him. Blame hurts one's feelings,—"He wounded me," etc.)

At the same time we are strangely affected by the condition of others. Where no competitive-jealousy complex is at work, we laugh with other people in their happiness, we are moved to tears by suffering; we admire vigor, beauty and the fine qualities of others; we accept their purposes and beliefs; we are glad to agree with the stranger or the friend and hate to disagree. We establish within ourselves codes and standards largely because we wish to accept and believe and act in the same way as do those we want as fellows. Having set up that code as conscience or ideals, it helps us to govern our lives, it gives a stability in that we tend at once to resist jealousy, envy, the "wrong" emotions and actions. "Helping others" becomes a great motive in life, responding to misery with tears, consolation and kindness, reacting to the good deeds of others with praise. To be generous and charitable becomes method for the extension of fellowship.

Asking for help in its varied form of praise, appreciation and kindness, giving help as appreciation and kindness, are the weak and strong aspects of the fellowship feelings. It is a cynical view of life, perhaps, but it is probably true that the weak phase is more common and more constant than the second. Almost everybody loves praise and appreciation, for these enlarge the ego feeling, and some, perhaps most, like to be helped, though here, as was above stated, there is a feeling of inferiority aroused which may be painful. Relatively there are few who are ready to praise, especially those with whom they are in close contact and with whom they are in a sort of rivalry. The same is true of genuine appreciation, of real warm fellow feeling; the leader, the hero, the great man receives that but not the fellow next door. As for giving, charity, kindness, these are common enough in a sporadic fashion, but rarely are they sustained and constant, and often they have to depend on the desire "not to be outdone," not to seem inferior,—have, as it were, to be shamed into activity. For there is competition even in fellowship.