Journal of Philosophy, Inc.

Giving up Instincts in Psychology

Author(s): Zing Yang Kuo
Source: The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 18, No. 24 (Nov. 24, 1921), pp. 645-664
Published by: Journal of Philosophy, Inc.
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VOL. XVIII, No. 24.

THE

NOVEMBER24, 1921

JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

GIVING UP INSTINCTS IN PSYCHOLOGY"

IN

the present paper an attempt is made to repudiate the current

views of instinct and to suggest a new interpretation of the
native equipment of man on a purely objective and behavioristic
basis.
INSTINCT IN MODERN PSYCHOLOGY

Although the theory of instincts is as old as the history of

psychology, it is only recently that they have been applied so universally in nearly all of the fields of psychology. They were
formerly conceivedof as a specific faculty possessedonly by brutes.
People of ancient and medieval times believed that animals lived
by instinct while human beings lived by reason. Even up to the
middle of the nineteenth century there was little discussion of
instincts in human psychology. Darwin and Spencer were, among
others, responsiblefor first calling our attention to the role played
by instincts in human behavior. But the traditional belief persisted
and many writers still held that human instincts were irrational
and undesirable forms of behavior and hence must be supplanted
by reason. It was J. H. Schneider and William James who assigned to instincts a leading role in the determinationof human
motives. James asserted that man had more instincts than animals
and that there was no material antagonism between instinct and
reason.
Partly due to the influence of James, the role of human instincts turns to the other direction. Not only are instincts no
longer looked upon with suspicion, but they are regarded as the
mainspring of human behavior. Instinct has become a current fad
in psychology. Behavior of man, origin of social institutions, religious motives, and the like-all these different human activities
are to be explained in terms of instinct. Recent social unrest
and the labor movementare again attributed to the failure on the
part of society to satisfy the instinctive impulses. Writers on the
psychology of war almost identify the war motive with the herd
instinct, the instinct of pugnacity, and other allied instincts. For
1 The writer is indebted to Professor J. V. Breitwieser of the University of
California for his encouragementand assistance in writing this article.

645

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the Freudian psychologists the sex instinct becomes the most fundamental thing in human nature.
Thousands of passages might be quoted from modern literature
of psychology to show how much stress has been laid upon the
significance of instinct in human behavior. But the following quotations will suffice to illustrate: " The human mind has certain innate
or inherited tendencies which are the essential springs or motive
powers of all thought and action, whether individual or collective,
and are the bases from which the character and will of individuals
and of nations are gradually developed under the guidance of the
intellectual faculties." 2 "The behavior of man in the family, in
business, in the state, in religion, and every other affair of life is
rooted in his unlearned original equipment of instincts and capacities. All schemes of improving human life must take account of
man's original nature, most of all when their aim is to counteract
it."is
There have been some protests among psychologists against the
looseness of the usage of the term "instinct." A reader of modern
literature on the subject of instincts will be struck by the fact
that no two psychologists will agree upon the definition of and
what constitutes human instincts. In spite of all these divergencies, however, there are certain generalities that characterize the
current views on instincts.
In the first place, instinct is usually defined in either one of
two ways: as an innate tendency to action, or as an inherited
combination of reflexes. We take Parmelee's as an illustration of
the latter: "An instinct is an inherited combination of reflexes
which have been integrated by the central nervous system so as
to cause an external activity of the organism which usually characterizes a whole species and is usually adaptive." 4 This view seems
most acceptable to the students of animal psychology and behaviorists. The former view is adopted by introspectionalists and students
of social psychology who find it more satisfactory to define instincts
in psychological than in biological terms. McDougall illustrates
this view-point in his definition: "We may, then, define an instinct as an inherited or innate psycho-physical disposition which
determines its possessor to perceive, and to pay attention to objects of a certain class, to experience an emotional excitement of a
particular quality upon perceiving such an object, and to act in
2 McDougall, Social Psychology, p. 29.
a Thorudike,Educational Psychology, Vol. I., p. 4.
4 Parmelee, The Science of Human Behavior, p. 226.

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regard to it in a particular manner, or at least, to experience an

impulse to such action. " 6
In the second place, instinct is usually viewed as adaptive or
teleological; that is, every instinctive performance always tends to
accomplish some biological end or to adapt the organism to its
environment: thus the biological purpose of anger is "the defense
of the organism by removing the offending object"; that of fear
is "the defense of the organism by removing it from the offending
environment" and so on." This view is conceded by most of the
biologists and psychologists as well.
Thirdly, instinct is assumed either as fixed and stereotyped,
or, as capable of modification. The latter point of view is the
prevailing one in our modern literature. Psychologists have dealt
with the problem of the modification of instincts in various ways:
(1) Simply as an increase in perfection of the performance of
instinct through practise; (2) that it takes place through changes
in the original mode of response or in sensory perception; and (3)
that it occurs by becoming integrated into the more complex types
of responses.7 Hunter emphasizes the point that instincts may be
modified, before their first appearance, by experience of the organism or through social influence." A great many psychologists
maintain that instincts appear at certain periods of life and that
they may be lost through disuse.
Fourth, instincts are sometimes conceived by psychologists as
a specific response to a specific stimulus, or merely as a general
tendency to respond to a variety of stimuli. Thorndike and many
of his followers are in agreement with the former view; while McDougall, Drever, and many others, subscribe to the latter.
Three general methods are used by modern psychologists for
the study of instincts. (1) The genetic method is used for the
observation of the reactions of the infant. If certain reactions
function from the birth on with a considerable amount of effectiveness, we assert that they are specific instincts. Nursing is perhaps
the only instinct which is supposed to appear at birth. (2) In the
experimental method, the experimenter observes the organism under
certain controlled conditions in which there is no chance for the
organism to acquire certain forms of reactions. If, in spite of
such prevention of learning, the organism still can perform such
65Social Psychology, p. 29.

W. H. Hunter, " The Modificationof Instinct, " etc., in Psychol. Rev., 1920,
Vol. 27, p. 265.
7 See J. R. Kantor's " Functional Interpretation of Human Instincts,"
Psyohol. Rev., 1920, Vol. 27, No. 1, p. 52.
8 Psychol. Rev., 1920, Vol. 27, pp. 255-261.
e

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reactions, we conclude that they are specific instincts. Spalding's

experiment on the flight of birds and Scott's on the social influence on the singing of birds are examples of the second method
of studying instincts. (3) In the observationalmethod, we simply
observe the characteristic activities of a race. If certain activities characterizethe whole species, they are regarded as instinctive. Thus, the mouse-huntingreaction is supposed to be an instinct that belongs to the cat because it is a characteristicreaction
of the whole species.
NON-EXSTENCE
OF SPECIFICINSTINCTS9
1. We have stated that there is no general agreement among
the students of instincts as to the number and kinds of instincts.
Writers on the subject arbitrarily list them in accordance with
their own purposes. If the writer is interested in social psychology,
his list of instincts will be based on those reactionsthat are socially
significant. If his interest is in economicsor in religion his list will
inevitably be a quite different one. As the purposes are varied so
the classificationsof instincts are unlimited and uncertain.
2. The so-called instincts are in the last analysis acquiredtrends
rather than inherited tendencies. By an acquired trend is simply
meant a habitual tendency to act in a certain way under certain
conditions. In this connectionit must be kept clearly in mind that
a trend or tendency to action is different from an actual act; the
former is simply a potential behavior which becomes an actual act
when the organism is properly stimulated. A behavior tendency
can only be developed as a result of the previous experience of the
organism-that is, as a result of previous performance of an actual
act in the presence of adequate stimuli. To assume any inborn
tendency is to assume a priori relationbetweenthe organismand stimulating objects; for every behavior is an interaction between the

organism and its surrounding objects. Such an assumption is no

less objectionablethan the theory of innate ideas. As a matter of
fact both the theory of instinct and that of innate ideas are based
on the same conception; namely the conception of a priori relation
of the organism to external objects. If it is true that one can not
have an idea of a tree before one has actually seen or learned
9 The central position of this paper is quite different from that of Professor
Knight Dunlap. (Cf. " Are there any InstinctsI" in J. of Abnorin. Psychol.,
1919, Vol. 14, 307-311.) A careful examination of Professor Dunlap's article
will show that he has by no means denied the existence of instinct. What he
seems to have objected to is the teleological groupings of instincts which are to
him unpsyehologieal. In the present paper we attempt to deny not only the classification of instincts, but their very existence.

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about a tree, it must be equally true that one can not have any
food trend before one has ever eaten food.
To illustrate how our trends of action are developed let us consider the following hypothetical cases: A new-born babe, when
stimulated by a certain object, displays a number of random acts.
If some of these acts incidentally result in satisfaction, it is likely
to be repeatedon similar occasions. If, on the other hand, it results
in pain, it is likely to be avoided. Through a number of trials and
errors the ill-adaptive acts are eliminated, perhaps inhibited by the
emphasis on the favorable reaction, and the adaptive ones are
selected. If these selected acts are called forth frequently enough,
by similar stimuli or " conditioning" stimuli, they tend to become
habitual trends of reaction. If a child is first presented a number
of wooden blocks he reacts to them in various ways: he pushes
some of them away, pulls some near to him, puts some of them into
his mouth,kicks them with his legs, slashes them with his arms, etc.
In such cases, there is nothing that can be called purposive; all of
them are random in character. But, if he incidentally puts some
of them together and derives more pleasure from this than from
other act (the reason why it gives more pleasure is probably due
to certain reflex bodily effects, or it may be due to the fact that, as
M. Meyerhas suggested,the sensory impressionin the pile of blocks
is more intensive than a single block; or, it may be due to the approval and encouragementof the attendant or nurse for this particular reaction, the putting together of blocks) he is more likely
to react in this way when the blocks are again presented to him on
the next occasion. Now, if such a reactionis called out often enough,
there is built in the child a habit of putting blocks together, and
when this reaction is transferred to other objects (conditioned response) we may reasonably conclude that a rudimentary trend of
construction is formed.
The habit of acquisition is generated and developed in exactly
the same way. Through imitation or encouragementby persons
surroundinghim, the babe may form a habit of gathering his playthings together. And when this reaction is later transformed to
other objects, there is bred in him a trend-of-collectingreaction.
Again, the so-called moral instinct is a result of the combined
influencesof various social forces. From birth on the child is subject
to social impressions. These impressionsand the reactionsof the child
tend to modify the cortical structure and leave their permanent
registration in the cerebral neurons. On proper occasions these
cerebral neurons are aroused and the similar reactions are likely
to be reproducedby the child. But owing to his inability to recollect

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the sources of these influences, he may reproduce them as if they

came directly from his original nature. Our conscienceis a product
of various social sanctions. The authorities are first imposed upon
the child from without, but gradually they are transformedinto the
internal authority, which gives rise to conscience. The transformation takes place so slowly and so gradually that the organismis not
aware of the process. A child is repeatedly told not to do a certain
thing, and that if he does do it he will be punishedby some authority.
He refrains from doing it at first merely becausehe fears the punishment, but finally it becomeshabitual through frequent exercise, and
he feels his duty not to do such a thing even though there be no
threat of punishment for the breaking of the habit at all. In case
the habit should be changed, it will involve a deep feeling of uneasinesswhich is commonlyregardedas the awakeningof conscience.
Many psychologistswho observehis behaviorfail to trace the sources
from which this habitual trend of action is developed and attribute
it to an instinct.
Other trends of action are developed in the same manner. If
we watch the stages of the development of human behavior closely
enough, we shall not have any difficulty to trace the sources of
social influences. To call an acquired trend of action an instinct
is simply to confess our ignorance of the history of its development.10 Many psychologists have denied the moral and religious
trends as specific instincts. But is there any difference between
these and trends such as parental care, sex, acquisition, fighting,
self-display, curiosity, etc. Why can we not on the same basis
deny them? Whatever has been denied as an instinct is simply
referred back to some other instinct. We are told that there are
no religious and moral instincts as such; they are simply a combination of other instincts. But these other instincts few psychologists
have ever attempted to analyze further.
3. Psychologistsfrequently speak of instinct in terms of purpose
or teleology. Certain reactions accomplishcertain ends. If these
end reactions are performed without previous education, they are
called instincts. Thus, if a bird has never seen other birds build
a nest or has never been taught to build it, the first nest that it
builds is consideredas the result of an instinct. But an end reaction
may involve a great number of mechanisms or subordinated acts
most of which may be acquired,and yet all of these acquiredmechanisms or subordinatedacts may be overlookedbecause of interest in
the end reaction, the " instinct." Walking is usually asserted to
10 Pillsbury seems to have frankly confessed that we call those responses
instincts because they can not be explained by experience. See his Esentials of

Puychology, 1920, p. 268.

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be the result of instinctive action. But how many acquiredmechanisms are involved in the walking process? The movements of the
trunk, of the head, of the legs and feet, hands and arms, in fact
almost every part of the body, must be coordinatedbefore walking
can take place. Are we justified, then, in calling walking an instinct while the mechanismsinvolved in the process are acquired?
How many mechanismsor other activities are involved in fighting,
in sex, in parental care, etc.? How many of these mechanismsare
not acquired? We are told that certain instincts can not function
until certain mechanismsnecessary for these reactions are ready.
Sex instinct, they say, is not capableof functioning until the mechanisms necessaryfor the sexual performancehave been acquired. But
since these instincts have no ready-mademechanismsof their own,
do we have any right to call them inherited responses? Moreover,
the same acquired activities or mechanisms may be combined in
different ways to produce different end reactions. The constituent
acts of the fighting instinct may be identical with those involved in
flights; the mouse-huntingactivities of a cat may be identical with
those involved in play; and do we not sometimes spend the same
energy and employ the same mechanismsto construct something as
to destroy something? What may sometimesseem to be unlearned
activity is a new combination; its constituent acts may be as old
as the life history of the organism.
That an instinct has a definite inherited neural pattern few
students will deny. But such a conception can not be applied to
many of the supposed instincts. General observationtends to show
that the so-called instinctive reactions are very variable. Swindle
has reported that even nest-building in birds, which is always
supposed to be perfect and definite, involves a great deal of variability of response.11 When we can not find any definite responses
in instincts, we wonder as to the definiteness of inherited neural
patterns. The teleological conception of instinct seems to reduce
it to a " trend " or tendency of action, and gives up its neural
correlate altogether.12 But we have shown that the trend is acquired rather than inherited.
4. The methods used in investigating instincts are unreliable.
The genetic method seems more advantageousthan the others, but
it has so far yielded few positive results. What it has found in the
young babe is a number of random and unorganizedacts. Nothing
that we can call a specific instinct has been found to have ever
appeared at birth, or even shortly after birth. If the student of
Amer. J. of Psychol., 1919, Vol. 30, pp. 173-186.
Cf. E. C. Tolman's " Instinct and Purpose "inPiu ychol. Bet., 1920, Vol.
27, pp. 217-233, especially page 222.
1.

12

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instincts limits his list to these random and unorganized acts, we

shall have no particular objectionto his using the term " instinct ";
but we do object to the calling of any reaction an instinct if it
does not appear at birth or shortly after birth; for, as we shall see,
all the activities of the organism in later life are various organized
reactions of elementarymovements.
The general observationmethod is altogether inadequate; according to this, when we find a certain reaction which is characteristic
of the species, it is an instinct. But a careful analysis will show
that the membersof the species have similar reactions, not because
they have inherited the same instincts, but, rather, because they
have inherited the same action system and live in a similar environment. Given an action system in a given situation the two organisms will react in identically the same way, if their past experiences
and the physiologicalstates of the moment are identically the same;
change the environmentand a differentreaction results.
Furthermore, social influences also play a very important role
in assimilatingbehavior,both in humanbeings and in animals. They
begin to work on the organismfrom birth on. The results of Scott's
experimentson the social influenceon the songs of birds have clearly
shown that the mere observationof the common types of behavior
possessedby the members of the same species can not give us any
warrant for the conclusionof the existence of instincts.
Those experimentson animal instincts that have yielded negative
results will, of course, discredit instincts; but even those that have
yielded positive results may still be subject to criticism. As we
have shown, the end reaction may be performed by the organism
without previous education, but its constituent acts or the mechanisms employed to produce the result are as old as the life history
of the organism. There may be a new combinationor a reintegration of old activities under the demand of new environmentwhich
tends to producenew result; but there is no new mechanisminvolved.
If the experimentercan prove that birds can build nests without
being taught or seeing the same activities of other birds, he must
be reminded of the fact that the mechanismsand the subordinated
or constituent activities which are combinedto produce a complete
reaction of nest building are practically the same as those that they
have employed in eating, mating, fighting, flight, etc.
We may even question the validity of Spalding's experiment on
the flight of birds. He confinednewly hatched birds in small boxes
so that they were prevented from stretching their wings and were
not allowed to see the flight of other birds. These birds were not
released until they reached the normal age at which other birds of

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the same species began to fly. Spalding found that these birds
could fly well upon being released. He thus concluded that flight
was an instinct. Such a conclusion is erroneous. That the birds
could fly without previous education was rather due to the maturity
of action system (wings, and other flying mechanisms). Given a
mature action system and given an environmental demand a definite reaction can be fairly predicted. It is no more natural than that
birds with well developed flying mechanisms will fly when conditions
demand such reaction. In other words, the so-called unlearned
acts are not manifestation of innate responses but rather the direct
effect of new situations and of the action system which possesses the
possibility of such acts. The behavior of an organism must always
be described in terms of its relation to the surrounding objects and
its action system rather than in terms of inherited responses. The organism possesses no " preformed " reactions any more than germ cells
possess a " preformed " embryo. The preconception of instinct has
often betrayed the psychologist into overlooking the new environmental factors which are chiefly responsible for the supposedly unlearned acts. Instead of observing and describing the situations
which call forth new acts he attempts the discovery of instincts.
This leads us to the rejection of the theory of periodical appearance of instincts. The so-called " delayed instincts " such as the
sex and parental instincts, etc., if they could be actually demonstrated at all, must be regarded as a result of changes in action system
(for instance, changes in the structure of the sex organs at puberty
which are accompanied by new intra-organic stimuli) and changes
in social situations, rather than as a result of the manifestations of
some mysterious forces. Any change in life situation and action
system as effected by maturity of development will inevitably result
in a new mode of behavior. And yet how many psychologists have
not been at error in attributing it to the sudden appearance of instincts ?
5. There have been at least two motives which have led the psychologist to insist on the existence of instincts and their significance
in behavior. The first is the notion that every instinct has an adaptive function. Biased by the Darwinian theory of natural selection,
students of psychology are apt to interpret every spontaneous reaction of the organism in terms of biological value. They argue
that instincts play a very important part in the preservation of the
organism and the species. These instincts, because of their adaptive
value, are preserved in the race through natural selection and are
handed down from generation to generation. This view is both
theoretically and practically ungrounded.

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In the first place, these supposed instincts might be adaptive

in certain generations; but there is no guarantee that they will be
adaptive in all generations and under every circumstance. Our
environment is constantly changing, and new environment requires
new adaptation. If instincts persist from generation to generation, they, instead of being adaptive instruments for racial or individual preservation, will become mal-adaptive in a new environment. This is especially true of those human races whose
civilization has been progressing. There, the social situation changes
so rapidly that no member of a new generation will have to recapitulate the old way of reaction in which their ancestors have
reacted to the former environment. Should we have inherited the
same instincts as our ancestors of a few thousand years ago, how
awkward we would be in adapting ourselves to modern society.
In the second place, and this is more important, actual fact
does not show that every spontaneous response of the young infant
is adaptive. On the contrary, our observation of the behavior of the
young infant seems to indicate that except those reactions that are
connected with vegetative functions, most of the responses that it
makes axe non-adaptive, or even ill-adaptive. An infant not infrequently reacts positively to those stimuli that are harmful and
negatively to those that will do no harm or are even beneficial.
It will be very ridiculous to say that the young infant attempts to
grasp the fire or a harmful snake, when presented to him, because
such a reaction is useful to the organism. The fact that children
do survive in spite of many ill-adaptive reactions that they possess,
is due to the artificial elimination by society of those harmful stimuli
to which they will respond positively. Children are born in a
society where the stimuli are so controlled that they have little
chance to exercise ill-adaptive reactions.'3 The period of infancy
is a period of helplessness. This is a period that requires social
protection. To say that the so-called innate responses of the young
human organism have biological value is to overlook the fact that
from the moment that the child is born it is taken care of by
society.
6. The second motive in the discussion of instincts I wish to
combat is the motive on the part of the students of instincts to
conceive an instinct as an impulse which furnishes the drive or
motive power that leads the organism to action. We quote McDougall again: "The human mind has certain innate or inherited
tendencies which are the essential springs or motive powers of all
thought and action, whether individual or collective, and are the
13

Cf. Watson's Behavior, pp. 257-258.

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bases from which the character and will of individuals and of nations are gradually developed under the guidance of the intellectual
faculties. "14 "Take away these instinctive dispositions with their
powerful impulses, and the organism would become incapable of
activity of any kind; it would be inert and motionless like a
wonderful clockwork whose main spring had been removed, or a
steam engine whose fires had been drawn. These impulses are the
mental forces that maintain and shape all the life of individuals
and societies, and in them we are confronted with the central
mystery of life and mind and will." 15 Here we are obliged to
take sharp issue with McDougall and all of his followers who
maintain that all the motives of human activities are derived from
instincts. A general observation of child behavior will show that
the activities of the new born babe are aroused by external stimuli
rather than by internal "drives." Professor Woodworth has well
said: "But this assumption of great inertia or inertness of the
organism, though it might perhaps have a semblance of truth as
applied to adults, is rather grotesque when applied to childrenit is to children above all that it must be applied, since it is only
young children who are limited to native tendencies, older individuals having developed derived impulses, as indicated in one of the
quotations above. If anything is characteristic of children, it is
that they are easily aroused to activity. Watching a well-fed and
well-rested babe, as it lies kicking and throwing its arms about,.
cooing, looking here and there, and pricking up its ears (figuratively) at every sound, one wonders what is the nature of thepowerful impulse that initiates and sustains all this activity. Thefact is that the infant is responsive to a great variety of stimuli
and that he is driven very largely by the stimuli that reach him
from outside; though, when he is hungry, we see him driven by
an inner 'powerful impulse' through a series of preparatory reactions towards the consummation of feeding. In the play of older
children, also, it is difficult to find a strong incentive necessary;
almost anything can be made play and then become attractive on
its own account. It is true, as a general proposition, that as the
individual grows up, his actions are more and more controlled by
inner drives rather than by the immediately present stimuli; but
even adults are less inert than McDougall seems to assume. Their
activity is more easily aroused, and requires less interior motive
or drive than he supposes.''
But in adult life the case is somewhat different. As Woodworth
Social P8ychology, p. 19.
15 Op. cit., p. 44.
16 Dynamic Psychol., pp. 64-65.
14

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has pointed out, the actions of the human adult "are more and
more controlled by inner drives." But these inner drives are by
no means mystical forces suddenly bursting forth from the organism; on the contrary, they have their history and development:
they are products of the constant interaction between the organism
and its environment. There is every reason to believe that the
motive forces of human behavior are largely shaped by society.
Living in a given communityone acquires certain motives of action.
It is not that the social instincts tend to create society, but that
the constantassociationtends to breedthe social trends in the organism. The man is fond of living in a family not because he was
born that way, but, rather, because he has lived in that way. No
organism can be sociable unless it has social contact with other
organisms. Isolate the child from human society as soon as it is
born, would it still possess the motive forces that are common to
human beings? McDougall and his followers, when they speak of
these "powerful impulses" as the foundation of human behavior,
forget that they are really dealing with the acquired trends rather
than with instinct as they have defined it. McDougall cites from
Galton the case which he regards as the display of gregarious instinct in the South African ox. He says, "The ox displays no affection for his fellows, hardly seems to notice their existence, so long
as he is among the herd; if he becomes separated from the herd,
he displays an extreme distress that will not let him rest until
he succeeds in rejoining it, when he hastens to bury himself in
the midst of it, seeking the closest possible contact with the bodies
of his fellows." 17 McDougall here seems to be dealing with an
acquiredtrend of the ox rather than its innate tendency of gregariousness, for it may be doubted if this ox would still react in the
same way even if it had not lived in the herd before. In my own
observation of pigeons, I have found that some pigeons, raised
in isolation, like to stay aloof from their fellows even when social
contact is possible.
One more illustration will make our point clearer. We quote
it from C. 0. Whitman on Behavior of Pigeons. "If a bird of one
species is hatched and reared by a wholly different species, it is
very apt, when fully grown up, to prefer to mate with the species
under which it has been reared. For example, a male passengerpigeon that was reared with ring-doves and had remained with
that species, was ever ready, when fully grown, to mate with any
ring-dove, but could never be induced to mate with one of his own
species. I kept him away from ring-doves a whole season in order
17

Soikal Psychol., p. 84.

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to see what could be accomplishedin the way of getting him mated

finally with his own species, but he would never make any advances
to the females; whenever a ring-dove was seen or heard in the
yard he was at once attentive. "18

H. Carr and Hunter interpret this phenomenonas the modification of the mating instinct by habit before its first appearance.
Such an interpretationis very far-fetched. It presupposesthat the
pigeon must necessarily possess an instinct to mate with the female
of its own species. In our own opinion it is just as natural for it
to mate with a female of another species as to mate with one of
its own. In such a case no instinct of any sort has been modified.
The differencelies only in the fact that this male pigeon was hatched
and reared in a different environment,so that it developed a different type of sexual reaction. Whitman has also found that a male
pigeon might be paired with another male, and a female with
another female. Some male pigeons even refused to be paired with
females, while insisting on securing sexual relation with some inanimate object or the hands of the experimenter."' All such cases must
also be looked upon as normal. There is no sexual perversion on
the part of the pigeon. For there is no sex instinct in the sense
that it necessarily involves coition between two opposite sexes.
The fact that mating always takes place between two opposite sexes
of the same species is because the members of the same species
always live in the same community where the hetero-sexualhabit
is normally developed. If, on the other hand, the organismis born
and reared with other species, it may develop a habit of mating
with the memberof that species as we found in Whitman's pigeoni;
or, even, if it is reared in isolation, it may, in all probability,
develop a homosexual or autoerotic habit. But from the standpoint of a natural scientist this involves no sexual abnormality
whatever. We must remember that sexual perversion is merely
a socio-moralproblem. It has nothing to do with the physiological
process. The point I am here driving at is this: that all our
sexual appetites are the result of social stimulations. The organism possessesno ready-madereactionto the other sex, any more than
it possessesinnate ideas.
A

SUGGESTED REINTERPRETATION OF MAN'S NATIVE EQUIPMENT

We are now in a positionto suggest a new interpretationof man's

original responseswhich will be totally different from most of the
18 Whitman, 0. 0.
The Behavior of Pigeons. Carnegie Inst. Washington
Publ., No. 257, 1919, p. 28.
19 The eame phenomenahave been repeatedly reported by many observers;
the writer also had the same observation.

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current conceptionsof instinct. On account of the lack of adequate

experimentaldata at present, our statementwill be bound,to be more
or less dogmatic. But in spite of this, we shall state our position
in objective terms so far as possible.
1. The human infant is endowed with a great number of units
of reaction. By units of reaction I mean the elementary acts out
of which various coordinatedactivities of later life are organized.
The reaction units are what we find in the child's spontaneousactivities and random acts. The new born baby is characterizedby
being easily aroused to action; it is exceedingly active. It
performs a great number of movements, such as those of the
eyes, ears, arms, legs, hands, fingers, toes, face, head and trunk,
in fact, every part of the body. "Stimulate him in any way and
these movementsbecome more frequent and increase in amplitude.
Under the influenceof intraorganicstimulationas seen in the hyperactivity of the smoothmuscle contractionsin hunger and thirst, and
especially in the hypersecretionof the ductless glands in rage, fear
and other emotionalactivities, these movementsbecome much more
numerous. In pain, likewise, the number of movements is increased."20 Such spontaneous and random acts are all that we
can credit to the native endowmentof man.2' These are non-specific
instincts, for they are reflexes in characterand involve few, if any,
complexneural patterns,as opposedto most of the conventionalideas
of instincts which suppose highly complex patterns.
2. With the exception of those activities that are connectedwith
the vegetative functions the activities of the new born babe are nonadaptive in character; and while there are certain coordinatereactions such as eye coordination, the sucking reaction, etc. which
appear at birth or shortly after birth,22we agree with Watson that
in the young organism the random or unorganized and non-adaptive acts outnumberthe coordinateand adaptive ones. The general
observationof the behavior of the new born babe seems to support
this view. Most of the babe's acts are aimlessor non-teleological. It
responds to almost any stimulus that can reach it; anything that
touches its hands it grasps and puts into its mouth. When it is
lying on its back it kicks with its legs and slashes with its arms. All
these movements have no biological significance; likewise a great
20

Watson: P&ychology,p. 270.

The assumptionthat emotions are inherited responses is very questionable.

The writer expects to discuss this problemat length in the near future.
22 It may be doubted, even, that such coordinated acts are at all genuine
innate responses. Habits begin to be formed at birth, or even in the embryo.
There is good reason to believe that these coordinatedresponses are the earliest
habits of the organism.
21

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many other reactions. The child must have gone through a number
of failures before it can begin to stand, to crawl, or to walk. The
psychologist has failed to observe how difficult it is for a child to coordinate its movements in order that it may be able to stand, crawl
or walk, when he insists that neural patterns for these reactions are
inherited.
3. These reaction units are the elements out of which all the
coordinated acts of the organism are integrated. Perhaps a simple
type of the integration of reaction units can be illustrated by the
hand-eye coordination. Watson found that the beginning of reaching
for the candle, which was presented before a babe, was between the
120th and 130th days. A somewhat more complex integration in
the child is found in walking which involves the coordination of the
movements of the legs, feet, head, trunk, visual organs and some
other parts of the body. The next more complex organizations may
be found in reading and writing. The former involves the coordination of the movement of the eyes, vocal cords, lips and tongue
and other related parts. The latter involves the coordination of
fingers, hands, arms and eyes, and the head and the trunk which
maintain the general position of the body. In playing piano, the
coordination is still more complex than any one mentioned above.
Here we have the movements of the legs, feet, hands, arms, general
bodily position and the auditory and visual organs, and in case singing is accompanied we have to add the movements of vocal apparatus, lips, and tongue-in fact, the implicit vocal movements are involved even when the player is singing silently.
Not only the elementary acts can be integrated into a single act,
but the organized acts are also capable of various combinations. A
single case will be sufficient to illustrate the point. A normal child
of six or seven years old has a considerable degree of coordination in
walking and in the movements of various other parts of the organism.
But if he is to be taught the dancing lesson, a new coordination is
needed. The steps of his feet must be coordinated with his hearing,
the movement of the body must follow his steps and so on. Such
an act is not a direct integration from the original units of reaction
but a recoordination, the elements of which are more or less coordinated in themselves.
4. There are several characteristics in the integration of the reaction units into coordinated acts which must be emphasized here.
First. The process of the integration always involves selection
and elimination. We have stated that most of the acts of the new
born infant are non-adaptive. What we mean to say is that in the
early childhood there are few appropriate movements. The appro-

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priate acts of the child can only be secured through a number of

trials and errors. Natural selection is always operating in the random acts of the babe. But there is another factor of selection which
is more significant from the standpoint of education. It is a selection controlled by society. A child is very likely to make indiscriminate reactions. We have noted that the child not infrequently responds positively to harmful stimuli and that in order to protect the
child from being injured by such reactions, society removes the stimuli
that will call forth ill-adaptive reactions. The educational process in
one sense is to control the environment in such a way as to eliminate
the possibility of wrong reactions of the child.
In this connection, there is another important function of education. We saw that the process of acquiring adaptive reaction by
trial and error or through natural selection is very slow and laborious. In primitive society where life was very simple, where the
demands of society upon the individual for right actions were far
less complicated than they are now, we might leave him to adjust
himself without the assistance of education. But since the modern
social structure is so complex and the social demands are so great a
child, if he is left alone, may fail to fulfill the social requirements.
Furthermore, if the learning process is not shortened, the time and
energy of the individual will not be sufficient for him to acquire all
the necessary social adjustments. Herein lies the fundamental justification for education. The fundamental motive of education is to
assist the individual to adapt himself to society in a most economical
and effective way. Through instruction, useless and ill-adaptive
movements in learning may be avoided and the appropriate acts be
quickly performed. The chief function of education, in other words,
is time-economy and labor-saving; the main problem in educational
psychology is the problem of efficiency of learning.
Second. If the stimuli that have aroused certain responses in
the organism appear so often that the bond between the stimuli and
responses becomes fixed, we have specialized responses or what is
ordinarily called habitualized acts. Our habitual acts are stereotyped acts that have been integrated from the elementary acts. In
general, the oftener the same stimuli appear the more specialized
the reaction to these stimuli becomes and the more rigid and fixed
is the habit.
Third. On the other hand, on account of the demands of novel
environment, our habitualized activities may be reorganized so that
the organism will be enabled to adjust itself to the new situation.
It is only a truism to say that there are different possibilities of
reorganization of early acquired habits in different individuals.

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There are individuals whose habits are so fixed and stereotyped that
they are almost incapable of reorganization of any sort. Individuals
of this kind often fail to adapt themselves to novel environment. On
the other hand, there are individuals whose habits are so plastic that
they are easily reintegrated under the demands of new situation.
On the whole, the plasticity of habits depends on the richness of
experience of the organism. The more experience or the more
variety of stimuli it has, the less fixed and rigid are its organized
reactions.
This leads us to an emphasis on the importance of liberal education. Liberal education means from the standpoint of psychology
that kind of education which provides great varieties of experience
for the individual in such a way as to enable him to adapt himself
readily to novel situations. The training of adaptability is more
important than that of specialization in education. I do not mean
to minimize the importance of specialization, but in modern education there is great danger in over-emphasizing this phase of training. Vocational education is often secured at the expense of general
education. We must not forget that the more specialized the individual is, the less adaptive to novel environment will he become.
Fourth. (And this is simply to restate the chief element of
our contention in this paper.) The type of integration of the elementary acts into complex reaction systems largely depends on the
nature of the environment. Our daily acts are organized as a result
of environmental demands; our trends of actions are products of the
constant interplay between the organism and environment. If a
man is born and raised in a highly civilized community, he may
acquire a powerful trend of parental care which he extends to
humanity as a whole and even to animals. On the other hand, if
he is brought up in a savage tribe where the custom of cannibalism
prevails, he may acquire a habit of taking pleasure in killing. At
times the same native equipment may be developed into compassion, while at others it may be developed into cruelty. The tenderhearted Buddha differs from a bloodsucker not so much in his native
constitution as in his acquired characteristics. This principle also
holds true of animals. The passenger pigeon when hatched and
reared with the ring-doves will refuse to mate with the female of
its own species. The goslings, when reared away from water will
refuse to go to water. Chickens, when hatched and reared in the
absence of a hen, may follow any moving object and refuse to follow
any hen. We need not assume that the instincts wane or are
modified in order to explain such phenomena. The theories of waning and modification of instincts have no scientific ground whatever.

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Psychologists have often been misled by the assumption that certain

reactions which are common to the species must belong to the category of instinct while deviation from any such common reactions
must be regarded as the waning or modification of instinct. If it
is realized that the organism possesses no specific instincts whatever
and that different types of behavior simply result from different
environmental demands, these two theories will at once become
superfluous.
The fact that the nature of environment determines the organization of reaction systems accounts for both social solidarity and
individual differences in occupations and in types of behavior.28
In every society there are certain kinds of social stimulation that
are common to all members of the group, a fact which makes
similar reactions among the members possible. On the other hand
social influences are so complicated and so varied that no two individuals will happen to live in an identical situation. Different experiences and different training tend to produce individuality.
There are more possibilities for the organizations of the original
units of reaction into a complex system, than society can supply
stimuli. Man possesses more latent potentialities than he has
actually realized. On the other hand, society furnishes more opportunities for individual development than the organism can make
use of. One individual can not at the same time be a politician, a
scientist, an educator, a poet, carpenter, a miner and fruit raiser.
When the development of the individual reaches its limit, it becomes
very hard for him to acquire any new organization of reaction
systems. Everyone realizes how difficult it is for an individual to
change his vocation or to acquire a new skill after the age of thirty
or so, in spite of the fact that he possesses all these possibilities.
That the original units of reaction are the elements
Fifth.
out of which our organized activities are directly developed is more
true of children than of adults. In adults the habit formation
consists more in the reintegration of the old habits than in the
direct integration of the original elementary acts. The development of human behavior is from simple to complex, from unorganized to organized. Human reaction systems are always organized in hierarchies; each new habit utilizes some of the previously
formed habits; we build our more complex organizations of reaction system upon the simpler ones. In other words, the units of
the acquisition of new habits in later life are not the original units
23 Individual differences that are due to heredity are simply the differences
in the degree of latent possibilities in the integration of the elementary acts into
various complex reaction systems. The theory of native capacities as advocated
by Woodworthl,Thorndikeand others is as untenable as that of instincts.

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of reaction but the earlier acquired habits. We never learn how

to walk in order to learn how to dance, we never learn how to
coordinate the movements of eyes and hand in order to learn how
to use a typewriter, for all such simpler coordinations have been
acquired in early childhood; the only thing we have to do in learning these things, to repeat, is to organize these simpler ones into
a more complex system. Watson says that it takes the child a
longer time to learn to drive a nail well than it takes an adult
engineer to build an airplane. This is literally true, for in the
child the systems of reaction are so simple that little can be utilized
in new learning, while in the adult highly complex systems of
organization have been achieved that can be made use of in a new
acquisition.
The development of human behavior is essentially the increase
of complexity in the organization of reaction systems. This fact
has been overlooked by most geneticists. Genetic psychology in
the past has been largely devoted to the study of the periodical
appearance of instincts. The geneticists have failed to analyze the
complex forms of behavior into their simple elements. To be sure,
they investigate the different stages of development. But they
have seldom scrutinized how each stage is related to its previous
and subsequent stages. They have occasionally noticed the spontaneous and random movements in the new-born babe, but have never
realized that all the complex activities in the adult can be analyzed
into such simple acts; they tell us rightly or wrongly that at
certain ages the child displays certain types of behavior, but how
they come about they have failed to investigate altogether. Such
failure is, of course, partly due to lack of adequate experimentation
but more largely to the preconceptions of instinct, especially that
of the periodicity of instincts. Indeed, genetic psychology in the
past has practically failed and the need to start it all over again on
a purely objective and experimental basis is now imperative. To do
so we must first discard all presumptions of instinct altogether and
study the development of behavior in terms of increase in complexity of the organization of reaction systems as they are integrated in various ways either directly or indirectly from the
original units of reaction. And, further, greater attention should
be paid to the study of environmental factors which affect the
organization of the reaction system; we should look to the specific
stimuli or situation rather than the instincts for the explanation
of the development of behavior. It is no small handicap to the
genuine understanding of the development of behavior to assume
instincts existing as specific faculties in the organism.

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5. There are a number of elementary acts that are not integrated

with other reaction systems and remain relatively independent acts
throughout the life of the organism. They may respond to stimuli
independently of other organized reactions which concern the organism as a whole. Such acts belong in the categories of reflexes, such
as knee-jerk, winking, sneezing, yawning, etc.
By way of conclusion, we may state that such a theory we have
so far advanced is not an altogether new one. The importance of
the spontaneous and random activities of the young organism has
been duly emphasized by Professor Watson.24 But we can not agree
with him that, besides the activities of this sort, there is another
group of innate reactions or instincts. In fact, the results of his
investigation on the behavior of the new-born babe do not indicate
any appearance of splecific instincts, except a vast number of
random movements. Having failed in discovering specific instincts
in the young babe, he is forced to accept the theory of temporal
order of appearance of instincts which has not any scientific proof
and has been rejected altogether in this paper. Further, he has
done violence to his own definition of instinct when he accepts many
of the conventionally listed instincts. For, as we have seen, the
responses of these instincts involve a great deal of variability and
it is very hard to find in them any definite inherited neural patterns
which is his essential conception of instinct. We are, therefore,
obliged to repudiate all his theories of instinct. For we have found
that the random or unorganized acts in the young babe are sufficient to account for all complex and organized forms of behavior in adults, and that it is not only superfluous but harmful to
our genuine understanding of human behavior to assume the existence of any specific instinct.
Note. This article was placed in the hand of the Editor in February, 1921.
After several months an article, entitled "The Misuse of Instinct in Social
Sciences," by L. L. Bernard, appeared in the March number of Psychological
Review (1921). While my position regarding instinet is different from that of
Bernard there is some relation between these two articles. I wish to call attention to the fact that my article was accepted by the Editor before I had access
to Bernard's article.

ZINGYANGKuo.
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

CLASSICISMAS AN EVANGEL

rp

HE knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiI.

ness." This sentence when reflectedupon will start in different minds trains of thought resulting in contrary conclusions:
24See Behavior, Chaps. 4 and 6, and P8ychology, Chaps. 7 and 8.

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