PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY.

Shannon News, 13 June 1922, Page 2

PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY.

r The local W.E.A. class in psychology met last night, when the tutor, Mr Mander continued his course or lectures.

The lecturer, Mr Ernest Mander, began by referring to the ground av« ered at the previous meeting, when he had dealt with Instinct. An instinct he defined as “an innate tendency of rhe body to re-act in a given way to a given stimulus.” But there are other tendencies, he. sad, which the body may acquire during its lifetime, ami these are known as habits. When the body has once ' re-acted m a certain manner to any stimulus, it tends to re-act in the same manner the. next time that the same stimulus is applied. But while an instinct is passed on neither strengthened nor w?a'-;-ened—lrom generation to generation, the acquired habit is not so passed oil.

The lecturer then gave many instances of the body becoming accustomed to making certain re-actions—-such as the case of playing the piano from music, boxing, and so on. All these depended upon the development of habit, the tendency to keep on reacting to the same stimulus in the same way. “The body is usually trained, to dress itself,” he said; , and and most of our bodies do dress themselves every morning and undress themselves every night quite mechanically—without our even being conscious of what they are- doing.” The lecturer then went on to discuss the way in which different instincts and habits often conflict. A dog whith has been thrashed for getting on a comfortable' chair is an illustration of this. The* sight of the chair

will arouse the dog’s instinct to seek comfort by igetting into the chair; but the memory of the thrashing will appeal to his instinct to avoid danger—the danger of another thrashing. So there will be a conflict; and the motive which at the moment is the stronger will win.” This illustration was followed by several others. “The only way to prevent the action of one instinct,” said the lecturer, “is to appeal to another, which will conflict with it. Most of life consists of such conflicts—between the instinct for acquisition and the instinct for seeking the approval of others; between the mating instinct and the instinct to avoid harm; between the maternity instinct and self-interest. Or to express it differently life for each ol us is largely a battle between fear and vanity, love and ambition, greed and what we may call discretion.” Finally, Mr Mander described the way in which every man acquired, as lie goes through life, ai set of ideas regarding himself, of the kind of man he would like to be, of the. kind of man that he likes to imagine he is. mHHnnMn

This group of ideas about himself, the lectufer referred to as the EgoComplex; and while promising to deal •with this matter more fully later cn, he showed that the motives associated with this ego ideal may often conflict with the primary instincts and with habit.' The ego-ideal, he explained, was not necessarily a lofty cne: many a man “fancied himself” merely as “a hard case,” or as “a sport, ’ or as a “dare devil.” Some men “fancied themselves” as the “strong silent men” of inid-Victorian fiction; while others, of courseT had somewhat higher ideals of themselves. But even the ego-ideal could be accounted for by reference to the primary instincts and to the influences of environment.