In short, there are a considerable number of other theoretical, clinical and experimental studies, all of which unanimously point out that instinct theory needs to be reconsidered or restored in some form. All these make us suspect that psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists have overemphasized human plasticity, flexibility, adaptability and learning ability. People's autonomy and self-regulation seem to be much stronger than estimated by modern psychology.
For example, Cannon's concept of internal balance and Freud's theory of death instinct; Hobbies, or free choice, or cafeteria experiments; Levy's experiment of instinctive gratification and his book about mothers doting on their children.
Various psychoanalytic studies have found that excessively demanding children's toilet training and eager to wean children have a negative impact on their healthy development.
A large number of observation data make educators, kindergarten staff and applied child psychologists who advocate gradual progress tend to implement a more tolerant system in the process of contacting children.
A great deal of neurological and biological information provided by dynamic theorists, catastrophists, modern experimental embryologists and holists like Goldstein all involve spontaneous readjustment of the body after injury.
All existing and ongoing discussions insist that our bodies have stronger self-protection, self-guidance and self-control, so they are more trustworthy than generally recognized.
In addition, we can add that various ongoing developments show that it is necessary to theoretically assume that there is a tendency of positive generation or self-realization in the body. This tendency is different from self-preservation, self-balance or internal balance in the body, and it is also different from the tendency to adapt to external stimuli. This tendency of growth or self-realization has been assumed by Aristotle, Bergson and many other philosophers in various vague forms. Among psychiatrists, psychoanalysts and psychologists, Goldstein, Rank, Jung, Honeye, Fromm, Mei and Rogers also felt it necessary to put forward this hypothesis.
However, the experience of psychotherapists, especially psychoanalysis, may be the most important influence of advocating a re-examination of instinct theory. In this field, although it seems that the facts are a little vague, the inevitable connection between the facts is accurate. Therapists must distinguish between more basic desires and less basic desires (or needs or impulses). The reason is simple: some people who need to suffer setbacks will become sick and some will not. The satisfaction of some needs will produce health, while others will not. These more basic needs are unexpectedly "stubborn" and difficult to deal with. They oppose all flattery, substitution, bribery and weakening, and there is no room for accommodation. They only ask for proper internal satisfaction, and people always seek to meet this demand intentionally or unintentionally. The ultimate facts displayed by these requirements are just stubborn, irreducible and can no longer be analyzed, and can only be used as established facts or irrefutable starting points. Almost every school, such as psychiatry, psychoanalysis, clinical psychology, social work or child therapy, assumes some theory about instinctive or quasi-instinctive needs, no matter how different they are from each other. This impression is extremely profound.
This is the characteristic, quality and inheritance of a race, not a superficial and easily controlled habit. These experiences tell us that we must consider them. If you have to make any choice in this dilemma, the healer is always more inclined to take instinct as the cornerstone than conditioned reflex or habit. This is certainly inappropriate, because we will see that there are other more suitable objects to choose from, from which we can make a more satisfactory choice. That is to say, it is not necessarily one of the two.
According to the general requirements of dynamic theory, instinct theory, especially the instinct theory put forward by McDougall and Freud, has some advantages that were not fully understood at that time. They are not fully understood, which is probably due to their obvious mistakes.
Instinct theory admits the following facts: man is self-motivated, and his own nature and his environment help to determine his behavior; Man's own nature provides him with a prerequisite purpose, goal or value system; Under good conditions, in order to avoid getting sick, what he wants is often what he needs (something beneficial to him); All mankind forms a unique biological race; Unless a person understands the motives and goals of his actions, he is blind; Generally speaking, the body depends on its own resources, and it often shows a biological function or intelligence, which must be clear.
Our view is that many mistakes made by instinctive theorists, although stubborn, need to be refuted, but they are by no means essential or inevitable; Besides, even instinctive critics make many mistakes.
Semantic and logical errors are the most obvious. Because instinctive theorists deliberately create some instincts to explain behaviors that they can't understand or determine their origins, they really don't do it properly. However, we will naturally strengthen our vigilance, and we don't need to think that these instincts are pragmatic, confuse names with facts, and make invalid three-paragraph inferences. Besides, we already know a lot about semantics.
Rough ethnocentrism, class centralism and vulgar social Darwinism all led to the failure of early instinctive theorists. But we can obviously avoid this now, because we have more knowledge of ethnology, sociology and genetics.
We must also be soberly aware that instinctive theorists were so extreme and thorough about the childish behavior of ethnology at that time that this action itself caused a mistake, that is, cultural relativity. This theory has had a great influence in the past many years and has been widely recognized, but now it has been widely criticized. In fact, as instinctive theorists have done before, the exploration of cross-cultural racial characteristics deserves to be emphasized again. Therefore, we should avoid both ethnocentrism and extreme cultural relativism. For example, it is very clear that instrumental behavior (means) is more closely related to local cultural determinants than basic needs (purposes).
Most anti-instinct theorists in the 1920s and 1930s, such as Bernard and Watson, criticized instinct theory on the basis that instinct cannot be described according to a specific concept of stimulus response. In short, it is to accuse instinct of not conforming to the simple behaviorism theory. It's true. Instinct will. However, dynamic psychologists are not focused on blaming these now. They all agree that the concept of stimulus response alone cannot explain any important complete quality or activity of human beings.
Such an attempt will only cause confusion. Confusing reflection with standard lower animal instinct is a typical example. The former is pure motor nerve action; In addition, the latter has more characteristics, such as innate impulse, expressive behavior, coping behavior, pursuit of objects, emotional color and so on.
Even from a logical point of view, there is no reason why we must choose between complete instinct (the instinct that all parts are fully developed) and non-instinct. Why can't there be a residual instinct, something that is still behavioral like instinct, a degree of difference, and an incomplete instinct?
Many irresponsible authors use the word instinct indiscriminately to express needs, purposes, abilities, behaviors, perceptions, performances, values and emotional companionship. Sometimes it means a single item, and sometimes it means a combination of several items. As a result, it is a hodgepodge with inaccurate usage. As Mamo and Bernard pointed out, almost all known human reactions are described by the author as instinct.
We may think that people's desires or basic needs are innate, at least to some extent. Those behaviors or abilities, understandings or feelings related to this are not necessarily innate, but may be obtained through learning or guidance (according to our point of view) or expressed. Of course, many of people's abilities or intelligence are completely determined by heredity, or provided by heredity, such as color vision, pronunciation ability and so on, but it has nothing to do with the problems we are discussing here. In other words, the genetic component of basic needs can be regarded as a simple lack of intentionality, which has nothing to do with any internal behavior to achieve the goal, just like Freud's blind and undirected demand for the id impulse. As we will see below, it seems that the factors that meet these basic needs can also be determined to be inherent in some way. The pursuit of purpose (competitive behavior) can only be achieved through learning.
It is a serious mistake of instinct and opponent to consider the problem with the dichotomy of either or instead of the gap of degree. How can a complex set of reactions be said to be completely determined by heredity or not at all? No structure, no matter how simple, can be a genetic determinant, let alone any complete reaction. Even Mendel's sweet peas need air, water and nutrients. Speaking of this, it can be said that the gene itself needs an environment, that is, neighboring genes.
At the other extreme, it is also obvious that nothing can be completely separated from the influence of heredity, because people are also a biological race. This fact, which is determined by heredity, is the premise of anyone's behavior, ability and understanding, and it is precisely because he is a member of human beings that he can do all kinds of things that human beings can do. And the identity of this human member is a genetic problem.
In the chaotic consequences caused by this poor dichotomy, there is a tendency to assert that it is not instinctive as long as there are any signs of learning, or on the contrary, if there is some evidence of genetic influence, it is concluded that it is instinctive. Since most or even all impulses, abilities or emotions can easily prove these two views, such arguments will inevitably exist forever.
Instinct and anti-instinct are both extremists. Of course, we can completely avoid such mistakes.
Animal instinct is a common example of instinctive theorists, and all kinds of mistakes are also caused by it. For example, not looking for human instinct. However, the most harmful experience gained from the study of lower animals leads to the principle that instinct is strong and firm, and it cannot be changed, controlled or suppressed. However, this may be true for salmon, frogs and lemmings in the Arctic, but it is not applicable to humans.
When we look for instinct through observation, we can see the genetic basis of basic needs, but when it is obviously and truly independent of the environment and stronger than all environmental forces, we think it is instinct, then we are probably all wet. Why isn't there a need that is easier to be pressured or controlled, even though it seems instinctive? Why is there no need to cover up, change or even suppress habits, hints, cultural pressure, guilt and so on? In other words, why not have a weak instinct?
The misunderstanding of equating instinct with irresistible force may be the main source of strength to promote the culturist's theory of attacking instinct. The experience of any ethnographer conflicts with this view, so the attack is understandable. However, if we have proper respect for cultural and biological factors, and if we further think that culture is more powerful than instinctive needs, then the following proposition is not absurd, but logical: if we want weak and meager instinctive needs not to be swallowed up by stronger and more powerful cultures, we should protect them. On the contrary, they are likely to be swallowed up, although these instinctive needs are powerful in another sense, that is, they stubbornly insist on being satisfied, and once frustrated, they will have serious pathological consequences.
What helps this argument is an antithesis to the general view. In my opinion, exposure, epiphany and deep treatment-which actually includes all treatments except hypnotherapy and behavioral therapy-are in a sense to expose, restore and strengthen our weakened and lost instinctive tendencies and remnants, our animal selves and our subjective biology. This ultimate goal is most obvious in the so-called personal growth practice class. All these-therapy and internship-require people to make active, painful and long-term efforts, and need people's life-long struggle, patience and perseverance. Even so, they may fail in the end. But how many cats, dogs or birds need help to know how to be a cat, dog or bird? Their voices are very loud, clear and definite because of impulse, while our voices are weak, chaotic and easy to be ignored, so we need help to hear those voices.
Therefore, the naturalness of animals can be clearly seen in the self-actualizer. But it is very vague among neurologists or "ordinary patients". I can even say that illness often means a person's loss of animal nature. In this way, the following seemingly contradictory situation appears: in those saints with the highest spiritual level and the most wisdom, in those most rational people, we can see the most obvious naturalness or animality.
Another more serious mistake is also caused by paying attention to animal instinct. Some puzzling reasons may only be explained by sober historians. Western civilization generally believes that the animal nature in us is evil, and most of our primitive impulses are evil, greedy, selfish and hostile. Theologians call it original sin or devil; Freud called it the id. Philosophers, economists and educators also call it by various names. Darwin favored this view, so much so that he only saw the competition in the animal kingdom, completely ignoring the equally ubiquitous cooperation, and did not notice that Kropotkin had easily observed it.
Sometimes we can also express this world view and compare our animality with wolves, tigers, pigs, vultures or snakes, rather than with slightly better or at least docile animals, such as deer, elephants, dogs or orangutans. This expression interprets our inner nature as evil animality, but it needs to be pointed out that if we have to compare animals to people, we'd better choose those animals that are closest to us, such as apes. Generally speaking, since these animals are pleasant and lovely, and share many good characteristics with us, comparative psychology will not support the statement that animals are evil.
When talking about the hypothesis that genetic characteristics will not change or can not change, we should also pay attention to another possibility: even if a characteristic is initially determined by heredity, it may still change. If we are lucky in the process of discovery, this characteristic may be easy to change and control. If we assume that cancer has stable genes, there is no need to stop anyone from seeking ways to control it. If only based on deductive reasoning, we have to admit that it is possible to prove that IQ has significant genetic factors and can be improved through education or psychotherapy.
The difference between us and instinctors is that we believe that instinct has greater variability. The need to know and understand seems to have obvious power only for intelligent individuals. For imbeciles, they don't seem to exist, at least they are not fully developed. Levi has proved that the difference between women's maternal impulses is so great that it is difficult to see such impulses from some women. Special talents in music, mathematics and art may have genetic determinants, but most people don't have such genetic determinants.
Animal instinct will always exist, but animal instinct impulse will be lost forever. For example, in the abnormal personality, the need to love and be loved has been lost, and now we know that this is a permanent loss, that is, this abnormal personality can not be cured by any known psychotherapy. We also have earlier examples of unemployment in Austrian villages (and research on unemployment in Scotland). These examples show that long-term unemployment will seriously damage psychology and even destroy some needs. For some people, even if the environment improves, these needs cannot be recovered. Similar materials were obtained from Nazi concentration camps. Perhaps batson and Meade's observation of Balinese people is the most convincing. Adult Balinese are not the people we like in the western sense, and they may not be. The films made in Bali show that babies and children complain and are dissatisfied with the lack of love, from which we can only infer that the loss of this impulse to love is an acquired loss.
On the ladder of species, we find that instinct and flexible ability to adapt to new things and cognitive ability are often mutually exclusive. The more we know about one, the less we expect from the other. This made a serious and even tragic mistake (considering the historical consequences). This kind of mistake completely separates people's instinctive impulse from understanding. For human beings, instinctive impulse and understanding may be instinct; More importantly, their results or implied goals may be the same, cooperative, not exclusive. Most people don't realize this.
We get an argument that the impulse to know or understand may be the same as the need for belonging and friendship.
Instinct and rationality, which are misunderstood, are opposite in the general dichotomy of instinctive rationality. If it is correctly divided according to modern knowledge, it will not be considered as opposition or confrontation. The redefinition of healthy rationality and healthy instinctive impulse is not mutually exclusive to healthy people, but points in the same direction; But for unhealthy people, it may be the opposite. All the scientific data obtained at present point out that it is necessary to protect, tolerate, love and respect children in psychiatry. This is exactly what children (instinctively) want.
It is in this very clear and scientifically verifiable sense that we believe that instinctive needs and rationality are cooperative rather than hostile, and their superficial confrontation only pays attention to the superficial impression of patients. If this argument holds, we will solve an old problem: who should be the master of instinct and reason? In fact, this is as old as another question: in a good marriage, is the husband the main person or the wife the main person?
Many social, economic and political inferences with the most conservative and even anti-democratic nature came from the heyday of understanding instinct. Just as barstow made a special summative inference when analyzing McDougall, Thorndike, Jung and Freud. These inferences wrongly equate heredity with fate and regard it as ruthless, irresistible and unshakable.
We can easily find the mistake of this conclusion. Weak instincts need a charity culture to cultivate them, make them appear, and be expressed and satisfied. They are easily destroyed by bad cultural environment. For example, in our society, there must be considerable improvement, and the weak gene demand can be expected to be met.
Barstow equated heredity with fate, but in any case it showed that it was not fixed. The research shows that it is necessary for us to use two continuum to illustrate this problem. Even on scientific issues, the continuum of openness and conservatism has given way to the continuum of socialism-capitalism and democracy-authoritarianism. There may be environmentalism-absolutism-socialism, environmentalism-democracy-socialism, or environmentalism-democracy-capitalism.
In a word, it is a dangerous and unconfirmed basis to think that instinct and society, personal interests and social interests are inherently opposed. Its main excuse is that morbid society and individuals are very inclined to these confrontations. But as Benedict proved, this is not the only way. In a good society, at least in the kind of society she described, this can't be true. Personal interests and social interests in a healthy society are cooperative rather than antagonistic. Wrong views and incorrect research methods on personal interests and social interests will only exist in evil personal and social environments.
The defect of instinct theory is that it ignores that impulses are in a hierarchical sequence with different intensities and are positively related to each other. If we treat every impulse in isolation, complex problems will not be solved, and many specious problems will arise. For example, the monism or wholeness of motivation life in essence is erased, which forms an unsolvable problem of listing motivation. In addition, the principle of value or choice has also been ignored, which only allows us to decide that one demand is more advanced, more important or more basic than another. One of the most important consequences of the elementalization of motivational life (relative to holism) is that it opens the door to nirvana, death, silence, internal balance, complacency and stability for instinct, because the only thing that can be done in isolation is to urgently demand satisfaction, that is, to demand its own annihilation.
Here, an obvious fact is almost ignored: with the gradual satisfaction of any kind of demand, other weaker demands pushed aside occupy a prominent position in the demand hierarchy and strive for their own requirements. Demand will never stop, and the satisfaction of one demand will lead to another.
While explaining instinct as evil animal instinct, people think that these evil animal instincts will be more intense in the insane, neurotic, criminals, imbeciles or desperate people. This situation will naturally lead to the theory that conscience, reason and morality are just acquired masks, which are completely different from what is covered up. The former is to the latter, just like handcuffs and criminals This misunderstanding makes civilization and all its institutions, including schools, churches, courts, legislatures and so on. It can be said that it is an animal force that inhibits evil.
Tragedy is often caused by such serious mistakes. Perhaps, from the perspective of historical importance, it can be compared with some mistakes: believing in the sanctity of kingship, superstitious about the sole legitimacy of a religion, denying evolution, or believing that the earth is flat. Any idea that makes people distrust themselves and others, any unrealistic and pessimistic idea about human possibilities, must be partly responsible for every war, every ethnic confrontation and every religious conflict.
Strangely, instinctive and anti-instinctive people still adhere to this wrong theory of human nature. Optimists, humanists, theists, liberals, radicals and environmentalists who hope for a brighter future for mankind generally oppose the instinct theory with fear, because the instinct theory is distorted, which seems to condemn human irrationality and curse that human beings will never get rid of war and the law of the jungle world full of division and confrontation.
Instinctists have also made similar erroneous interpretations on the issue of human nature, refusing to fight against the inevitable fate. Most of them gave up optimism in indifference. Of course, some people are very eager to abandon optimism.
For example, we take people who are obsessed with alcohol anesthesia as an example. They may be addicted to alcohol or forced to socialize, but they will all get the same result in the end. No wonder people find that Freud and Hitler have many similarities, even on many issues. No wonder an evil animal instinct theory can force extraordinary figures like Thorndike and McDougall to turn to Hamiltonian and anti-democratic camp.
Recognizing that people's instinctive needs are not evil, but neutral and even beneficial, many vague problems will suddenly become clear.
For example, the cultivation of children will lead to an educational revolution, and there is no need to say a reprimand when cultivating them. When we realize the reasonable needs of animals, it will prompt us to meet these needs and make us more tolerant.
In traditional culture, a child who has lost some innocence but has not been completely assimilated, that is, a child who has not been completely deprived of the needs of healthy animals, always demands praise, safety, autonomy, love and so on in every aspect of his creation. The general reaction of complex adults is: "Oh, he's just showing off." Or, "He just wants to get our attention." As a result, adults severely criticize children, that is to say, this animal need is usually understood as a prohibition. Do not satisfy the child's pursuit, do not comment, do not recognize, do not applaud.
However, if we can slowly treat these entreaties for commitment, love and recognition as reasonable demands, just like children's needs for hunger, thirst, cold or pain, we will naturally become the satisfiers of needs, not the stranglers of needs. As a result, children and parents have wonderful fun and are happier together, which will inevitably enhance mutual love and understanding.
This cultural type can be understood as unlimited and indiscriminate tolerance, that is, children need to acquire the ability to adapt to the external cultural environment and customary appearance through training. This man-made harvest should not cause any special trouble when the basic needs are met. In addition, the needs of drug abuse, habit, familiarity or any other non-instinctive needs cannot tolerate indulgence. Finally, we once again bypass the beneficial effects of setbacks, disasters, misfortunes and so on.