An introduction to social psychology / by William McDougall.

  • McDougall, William, 1871-1938
Date:
1921
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: An introduction to social psychology / by William McDougall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    train of movements which is the same in all individuals of the species and on all similar occasions; and in general the behaviour so occasioned is of a kind either to promote the welfare of the individual animal or of the community to which he belongs, or to secure the per¬ petuation of the species.1 In treating of the instincts of animals, writers have usually described them as innate tendencies to certain kinds of action, and Herbert Spencers widely accepted definition of instinctive action as compound reflex action takes account only of the behaviour or movements to which instincts give rise. But instincts are more than innate tendencies or dispositions to certain kinds of movement. There is every reason to believe that even the most purely instinctive action is the outcome of a distinctly mental process, one which is incapable of being described in purely mechanical terms, because it is a psycho-physical process, involving psychical as well as physical changes, and one which, like every other mental process, has, and can only be fully described in terms of, the three aspects of all mental process—the cognitive, the affective, and the conative aspects ; that is to say, every instance of instinctive behaviour involves a knowing of some thing or object, a feeling in regard to it, and a striving towards or away from that object. We cannot, of course, directly observe the threefold psychical aspect of the psycho-physical process that issues in instinctive behaviour; but we are amply justified in assuming that it invariably accompanies the 1 In many cases an instinct is excitable only during the pre¬ valence of some special organic condition (e.gthe nest-building and mating instincts of birds, the sitting instinct of the broody hen); and some writers have given such organic conditions an undue prominence while neglecting the essential part played by sense-impressions.