The resistance may also be internal, and consist in your own lack of skill in executing your intentions, or in the disturbing effect of some desire which, though rejected, has not gone to sleep but still pulls you another way than the way you have decided to go.
In all these cases, the individual is moving towards a certain goal, but encounters obstruction; and his response is effort, or increased energy put into his movement towards the goal. So long as the tendency towards a goal finds smooth going, there is not the same determination that appears as soon as an obstruction is encountered. The "will", in common usage, will not brook resistance--the "indomitable will".
Now effort and determination, in our chapter on the native impulses, were put under the head of the assertive or masterful tendency; and it does seem that "will", in this sense, is almost the same thing as the instinct of self-assertion. Certainly, in the case of adults, an obstruction puts the individual "on his mettle", and superimposes the mastery motive upon whatever motive it may have been that originally prompted the action.
The mastery motive came clearly to light in an experiment designed to investigate "will action". The subject of the experiment was first given a long course of training in responding to certain stimulus words by other certain words that were constantly paired with them; and when his habits of response were thus well fixed, his task was changed so that now he must respond to any word or syllable by any [{537}] other that rhymed with it. A series of stimuli now began with words for which no specific response habit had been formed, and to these the subject reacted with no great difficulty. But then, unexpectedly, he got a stimulus word to which he had a fixed habit of response, and before he could catch himself he had made the habitual response, and so failed to give a rhyme as he had intended. This check sometimes made him really angry, and at least it brought him up to attention with a feeling which he expressed in the words, "I can and will do this thing". He was thus put on his guard, gave closer attention to what he was doing, and was usually able to overcome the counter tendency of habit and do what he meant to do. Some subjects, who adapted themselves readily and fully to the rhyming task, i.e., who got up a good "mental set" for this sort of reaction, made few errors and did not experience this feeling of effort and determination; for them the effort was unnecessary; but the average person needed the extra energy in order to overcome the resistances and accomplish his intentions.
Other good instances of effort are found in the overcoming of distraction, described under the head of attention, [Footnote: [See p. 259.]] and in the work of the beginner at any job. When the beginner has passed the first cautious, exploratory stage of learning, he begins to "put on steam". He pounds the typewriter, if that is what he is learning, spells the words aloud, and in other ways betrays the great effort he is making.
Ask a child just learning to write why he grasps the pencil so tightly, why he bends so closely over the desk, why he purses his lips, knits his brow, and twists his foot around the leg of his chair, and he might answer, very truly, that it is because he cannot do this job easily and has to try hard. All these unnecessary muscular movements and tensions [{538}] show the access of energy that has been liberated in his brain by the obstruction encountered.
Any learner, once he has mastered the difficulties of the task, reaches an easy-running stage in which effort is no longer required, unless for making a record or in some way surpassing himself. With reference to effort, then, we may speak of three stages of practice: the initial, exploratory stage, the awkward and effortful stage, and the skilled and free-running stage. These are identical with the three stages in the development of attention to a subject, which were described [Footnote: [See p.258]] as the stage of spontaneous attention or curiosity; the stage of forced attention, or effortful attention, controlled by such motives as fear or self-assertion; and the final stage of objective interest and absorption in the subject, which is evidently the same as the free-running condition.
Effort is not a good in itself; it is an unpleasant condition; but it is a natural response to difficulty and is often necessary in order to get the individual into the free-running condition which is both efficient and pleasant. It is often required to get the individual out of the easy-going condition into the free-running condition, which is something entirely different. In free-running action there may be even more energy expended than in effortful action, but it is better directed and produces no strains and jolts.
Intelligence, in the sense of adaptability and "seeing the point", may often take the place of effort. Consider the way two different people react to a sticking door: the one puts in more strength and forces it, the other by a deft thrust to the side opens it without much extra force. You can't say absolutely which mode of attack is better, for your stubborn one may waste his strength on an obstruction that really cannot be forced, while your clever one may waste his [{539}] time on a door that needs only a bit of a push. Persistence plus adaptability is what efficient activity demands.