Good examples of ideomotor action can be observed among the audience at an athletic contest. You are watching one of your team do the pole vault, for instance, and are so much absorbed in his performance and so desirous for him to succeed that you identify yourself with him to a degree. He is rising to clear the high bar, and the thought of his clearing it, monopolizing your mind and leaving no room for the inhibitory thought that the performer is down there in the field and you up here in the stand, causes you to make an incipient leg movement as if you yourself were vaulting.
Voluntary action, in the fullest sense, occurs when you realize the situation and are definitely conscious of yourself, that is to say, when you differentiate yourself clearly out of the total situation, and not only imagine some change to be made, but think of that change as to be produced by you, without at the same time having any contrary thought to inhibit actual execution.
Conflict and Decision
It appears that in our "digging" we have now struck another vein, for here we have the fact of one tendency running contrary to another and inhibiting it. Conflict of desires and the consequent necessity of choosing between [{529}] them, is thus brought vividly to our attention. Every one would at once agree that "will" and "choice" belong closely together. The most distinctly voluntary acts occur when two alternatives are thought of, and one of them is chosen.
Organized as we are by nature, that is to say, on a large scale, but incompletely--environed as we are, with multitudinous stimuli constantly playing on us and arousing contrary tendencies--we cannot hope to escape conflict of motives and the necessity of making decisions. Every decision made, every conflict resolved, is a step in the further organization of the individual. It may be a step in a good direction, or in a bad direction, but it is a step in organizing the individual's reaction-tendencies into what we call his character--the more or less organized sum total of his native and acquired tendencies to reaction, with emphasis on those reactions that affect his life and social relations in a broad way.
The lowest animals, having few reaction tendencies, and being responsive to only a narrow environment, show little sign of internal conflict, and when it does occur it is resolved very simply by the advantage going to one of the opposing tendencies, with perhaps a shift later to the other, in the way described in our earlier consideration of attention. [Footnote: [See p. 251.]] This type of decision is fundamental. In the behavior of higher animals, we sometimes detect signs of a longer-persisting conflict, as between curiosity and fear, when a wild creature seems poised between his inclination to approach and examine a strange object and his inclination to run away, veering now towards the one and now towards the other alternative, and unable, as it seems, to reach a decision.
Conflict between the enterprising tendency to explore, manipulate or somehow launch forth into the new, and the negative tendencies of fear, inertia, shyness, etc., is [{530}] something that recurs again and again in human experience, as illustrated by making up your mind to get up in the morning, or to plunge into the cold water, or to speak up and have your say in a general conversation. There is a hesitancy in such cases, due to a positive and a negative tendency. The conflict may be resolved in favor of the negative tendency by simple prolongation of the hesitation till the occasion for action has passed, or it may be resolved in favor of the positive tendency when this is strong enough for an instant to enable the individual to commit himself to the enterprise, after which he usually stays committed. The positive motive must for an instant be stronger than the negative, in order to get action.
A somewhat different type of conflict, which may be called vacillation, occurs when two positive tendencies are aroused that are inconsistent with each other, so that gratification of the one entails renunciation of the other. Old Buridan's celebrated problem of the ass, placed equally distant from two equally attractive bundles of hay, and whether he would starve to death from the exact balance of the two opposing tendencies, is a sort of parable to fit this case. Probably the poor ass did not starve--unless he richly deserved his name--but he may conceivably have ended the very uncomfortable state of vacillation by running away altogether, as a human being, who is really more subject to vacillation than any other creature, is sometimes so much disturbed at having to decide between two invitations for the same day as to decline both, and go fishing. Vacillation is certainly a very unpleasant state of mind. We want action, or else we want peace, but vacillation gives us neither. In spite of its irksomeness, we seem sometimes almost powerless to end it, because as soon as we have about decided on the one alternative, what we shall miss by not choosing the other comes vividly to mind, and swings the pendulum its way.
However it comes about that a decision is reached, it usually is reached, and the curious fact then is that it usually sticks. A student may vacillate long between the apparently equal attractions of two colleges, but when he finally decides on one, the advantages of the other lose their hold on him. Now he is all for one and not at all for the other. Having identified himself with one college, he has completely altered the balance of attractions, his self-assertion now going wholly on the side of the chosen college, and even leading him to pick flaws in the other as if to reinforce his decision. In other words, he "rationalizes", justifies, and fortifies his decision, once he has reached it. Some people, indeed, are abnormally subject to vacillation and seem never to accept their own decisions as final, but normally there are strong influences tending to maintain a decision, once it is made: the unpleasantness of the state of vacillation and relief at having escaped from it; the satisfaction of having a definite course of action; and self-assertion, because we have decided, and now this course of action is ours. During vacillation, neither of the alternatives was identified with ourselves, but now we have decided and are not going to be so weak as to change. X is our college now and anything you say against it you say against us. Thus the person who has decided defends himself energetically against reopening the question.