Dominantie en conformiteit samen

We have considered in the last chapter the integrative mechanisms which are responsible for the emotional responses of dominance and compliance, and we have analysed a few simple illustrations of actual human behaviour exemplifying the occurrence of these emotions in as isolated a form as possible. We have still to consider the normal inter-relationship between dominance and compliance when the two emotional responses occur successively. We have also to consider, thereafter, the normal integrative combinations of dominance and compliance when these two emotional responses occur simultaneously.

Passive Dominance Prevents Compliance From Being Evoked

The response of passive dominance may be evoked by an adequate dominance stimulus without previous intervention of any compliance response. If, for example VJ an infant is holding tightly to its rattle, and if the mother tries to pull the toy from the child, exerting less force upon the rattle than the infant is able to exert in holding it, the child's motor self may simply reinforce itself so promptly and efficiently that the infant's actual grip upon the rattle is never loosened. This result may be carried to the point where the infant actually suspends his own weight from a rod or stick, which he was grasping firmly at the time the experimenter started to pull it away. Such a response represents almost pure passive dominance because the motor self was in control of the disputed efferent channels of motor discharge before the motor stimulus began its contest for these paths, and

throughout the response the motor self similarly continued to resist all encroachments upon its occupied territory. In short, passive dominance consists of simple resistance to the attack of an antagonistic motor stimulus upon the motor

self. No compliance whatever enters into this type of emotional response, and the general motor set of the organism is not changed in any way by reaction to the environmental stimulus except that more effort, or energy, has been released to preserve the pre-existing set.

Dominance Represents the Natural Equilibrium of the Organism

If compliance response actually succeeds, even momentarily, in supplanting the dominant control exercised by the motor self over the final motor paths of the organism, then two integrative possibilities appear. First, the compliance emotion may continue undisturbed until the environmental stimulus has ceased to evoke a motor stimulus of superior intensity or volume. In this case, which might consist, for example, of an aesthetic response, the emotion experienced is one of compliance without the admixture of dominance. This corresponds, it would seem, to the situation just considered where pure dominance emotion of passive type remained uninterrupted. Ihere is one important difference. The compliance emotion which persists without any ad-

mixture of dominance is an active compliance response whereas the uninterrupted dominance just considered was of passive type only. In short, compliance can continue to rule the subject organism only for so long as it keeps the organism actively moving in an anti-dominant way. The moment the organism ceases to comply actively witli a given stimulus, the natural reflex equilibrium automatically re-establishes itself, and dominance emotion inevitably supplants

For example, a beautiful picture may control the attention and main avenues of involuntary motor discharge to the viscera so long as the harmonious volume of motor stimulus evoked by the art object is sufficiently superior to the volume of the motor self. But if the studio light begins to wane, or if the individual sense organs become fatigued in gazing at the picture, the environmental stimulus at once ceases to evoke a motor stimulus of superior volume. The immediate result of this change in the motor stimulus is to bring about a cessation of active compliance motor discharge of an antitonic sort. This, of course, frees the tonic impulses from their previous restraint and the motor self automatically re-establishes its control of the efferent centres. This process

of re-establishing control constitutes a response of active dominance. It will be felt by the subject himself in most instances of the type cited as a feeling of active criticism of, or boredom with, the picture (this of course assumes that no other stimulus intrudes to claim the subject's attention).

Another type of reassertion of dominance after aesthetic compliance with an art object might consist of a sudden determination to possess the admired object, followed immediately by behaviour appropriately directed toward its purchase or acquisition.

Active^ Compliance may Oppose More and More of the Motor Self Until it Evokes Dominance

If, then, compliance is permitted to continue without interruption to the point where the stimulus ceases to be effective, it must necessarily be followed immediately by dominance emotion accompanying the mere automatic return of the organism's natural integrative balance. A second type of termination of compliance appears in the case last mentioned, where continued aesthetic compliance with a beautiful picture was superseded by dominant attempt to possess the picture itself. It seems clear that the compliance response did not merely run itself out but rather brought about the dominance emotion which superseded it. The mechanism for this type of integrative causation would sem to be a sort of passing of the quantitative limit beypnd which the motor self cannot comply with the motor stimulus because a large enough proportion of the motor self has become involved in the reaction to make it superior in strength to opposed motor stimuli. That is to say, if the motor stimulus opposes only a comparatively small portion of the motor self the stimulus may be more powerful than the self; but, when the same stimulus opposes more and more of the self a point sooner or later reached where the increment of motor self involved in the conflict has become more powerful than the motor stimulus.

At that point the stimulus becomes an adequate dominance stimulus instead of an adequate compliance stimulus, and the subject's response similarly transforms itself from compliance into dominance.

In the instance where the subject first feels aesthetic compliance emotion toward a picture, and later, as the response progresses, suddenly assumes a dominant attitude toward

the picture in trying to acquire it for himself, it seems reasonable to assume that the original compliance with volume response was able to control the organism for only so long a time as a comparatively small portion of the motor self was engaged in compliance. When the reaction to the picture had spread sufficiently in the higher motor centres of the central nervous system and a larger portion of the motor self consequently became involved, this total increment of the motor self was no longer of suitable size for compliance response, but rather proved sufficient for dominance over the picture.

In instances like this, where the intensity of the* environmental stimulus, and consequently the intensity of the motor stimulus is comparatively slight, there would be an ever present likelihood throughout the response that the strength of the stimulus might be felt at any moment as inferior to the strength of the motor self. The aesthetic attitude, in other words, is an extremely unstable one and difficult to maintain over any considerable length of time of response. That is, there seems to come a point in any compliance re-

sponse where the environmental stimulus ceases to be felt as an adequate compliance stimulus, and in the type of instance now under examination, its effect upon the organism in ^ evoking compliance response appears to endow it subsequently with positive potency as an adequate dominance stimulus. !n persons of extreme aesthetic training, it is true, this change from aesthetic reaction to dominance response might be long deferred or might, in fact, never occur. But with the ordinary individual there seems to be a certain piling up, or summation of the motor self during an extended compliance response, which, when the point of overflow is reached, transforms the compliance emotion into dominance of equal or greater strength.

The Shift from Compliance to Dominance When the Whole Motor Self is Opposed is " Instinct of Self-Preservation "

The fact that rats will fight when cornered has become proverbial. I would suggest that this response is probably expressive of the same mechanism as that underlying the change from aesthetic to dominance response just considered. The rat complies with the antagonist of superior strength by running away from his opponent. This con-

tinues' for as long a period as the proportion of the rat's motor self which is overwhelmed by his superior enemy is a comparatively small one. When, however, every avenue of escape is cut off, the animal's entire motor self is brought to bay, as it were. The full intensity of this animal's motor self when increased by its reinforcement mechanism to

maximum strength, and when the entire motor self is involved in the conflict, evidently proves stronger than the sum total of motor stimuli which can be evoked by the most dangerous foe. This is the so-called " instinct of self-preservation ". It is a type of behaviour shown frequently by the most timid of human beings when suddenly confronted by an extreme danger from which there is no possible escape by flight. In fact the " instinct of selfpreservation " might be defined as a change from compliance response to dominance response at the point where a sufficient proportion of the motor self becomes involved in conflict with the stimulus to render motor self more Powerful than motor stimulus. The state of emotional consciousness involved in this shift is frequently termed " desperation ".

Dominance Always Replaces Compliance

If, then, active compliance is followed in any event by a dominant re-establishment of control of the organism by the motor self, it might be permissible to formulate the -rule in some such way as follows : Active compliance is normally followed by active dominance.

The same rule evidently holds also with respect to passive compliance. That is, if the motor self is compelled by a stimulus of greater intensity to give up control of certain disputed paths, the tonic discharge will automatically reassume control of these paths as soon as the prohibitory barrier has been removed, even though the contest has been a mutual stand-off, as it were, and the motor stimulus has not succeeded in itself moving the organism actively. There seems, however, this qualification to be made concerning

the reversion to dominance following compliance of passive aspect only. If the subject's motor self happened, in the first place, to be in a condition of marked reinforcement, or increased intensity for the purpose of dominating object A, and if the motor self were compelled passively to comply with stimulus B by giving up its dominance over object A

then should stimulus B cease to operate, the motor self would not necessarily return to its previous condition of increased intensity, but only to its normal strength when no antagonistic motor stimulus was operating upon it. Nor would the motor self necessarily return to the process of dominating object A, which might by that time have passed entirely out of the subject's environment. Passive compliance, therefore, might be followed by a state of dominance more passive than active, though there must always be some active dominance m the process of re-establishing reflex equilibrium after the compliance stimulus has ceased to operate. It seems, in short, to follow from the very nature of dominance response as an enforcement of the integrative system's normal equilibrium that dominance must always eventually supersede active or passive compliance.

Compliance Protects the Organism Against Superior Foes

Such an arrangement obviously makes for maximal efficiency in adapting the organism successfully to its environment. If an animal or human being is already well enough adapted to his surroundings to be able to maintain his existing posture and position despite the utmost antagon-

istic influence which can be brought to bear against him at any* given moment, the mechanism of passive dominance provides ? means for counteracting minor fluctuations of posture and position which could serve no useful purpose, and which would result only in disturbing the progress of the organism's vital functions. On the other hand, if any antagonistic factor in the subject's immediate physical environment be sufficiently powerful to destroy or seriously injure the subject's organism, the compliance mechanism permits the stronger antagonist to expend its force in moving the subject rather than in destroying part of the motor self which must serve throughout life as the dynamic source and main-stay of the subject's entire behaviour.

Were it not for this possibility of integrative compliance, an antagonistic motor stimulus of superior intensity, operating through a centre of the central nervous system above the tonic centre, might eventually succeed in inhibiting the entire mass of tonic discharge in toto, with extremely serious consequences to the organism.

igo EMOTIONS OF NORMAL PEOPLE

Compliance Responses Have Selective Value in Evoking Maximally Efficient Dominance Responses

The tendency of the dominant balance of the organism always to re-establish itself following compliance response gives to the intervening compliance reaction another important value. The separate compliance emotions enforced

by an antagonistic environmental stimulus act as selective agents arousing to special activity the specific tonic reflexes recriprocally opposed to the intervening compliance reflexes. That is to say, in the response of passive dominance there appears a general blanket type of reinforcement of the motor self, not specifically directed against the environmental stimulus which is being responded to. But, if the environmental stimulus in question is permitted first to effect a compliance response, then selective reinforcement of those portions of the motor self best adapted to oppose and remove the antagonistic stimulus can be made, with resultant conservation of energy and increasing efficiency of the dominance response. Examples of this selective value of initial compliance with a stimulus which is later to be dominated are to be found in all the rudimentary behaviour patterns of the human organism in which tonic and phasic reflexes alternate to bring about progressive movement of the body or limbs.

The fingers of the hand, for instance, if extended in compliance with the object to be grasped, automatically bring about the reinforcement of the particular tonic grasping reflexes best adapted to seize and handle that particular environmental object. The more completely extension of the hand is permitted to comply with the size, shape, and position of the object to be grasped, the more efficiently will that object subsequently be mastered or dominated. The difference in this respect between infant and adult behaviour is well marked. When an infant naively extends his fingers to grasp a proffered object of very small size, he opens his hand wide, extending all the fingers equally regardless of the shape and small size of the thing to be grasped. In other instances infants may fail to extend the fingers sufficiently to surround the object to be grasped.

In either case, the extending of the hand would seem to be more in nature of general, unselective reaction to the obiect.

than a compliance response closely controlled by the object itself.

We have noted several times previously that compliance is a learned response, and so when we compare the behaviour of infant subjects with the reactions of adults we should expect to find compliance response much more highly developed in the latter as, in fact, it is, in nearly all types of reaction. The interesting point for the purpose of our present discussion is that such increase in delicacy and completeness of compliant response to any given object automatically produces corresponding increase in the strength and effectiveness of the dominance response which follows. Any number of examples of this increase of dominant efficiency following increased learning of compliance might be cited. All the finer and more powerful movements of attack upon an opponent, whether in mortal combat, or in some ultra-civilized sport like tennis or baseball, depend for their accuracy and power upon the completeness of the preceding compliance responses.

In savage combat, the spear must be directed toward a vital spot in the antagonist's body by a careful and accurate compliance response, evoked by the antagonist's body itself. The power of the dominant driving home of the attacker's weapon bears a fixed and constant relationship of dependence upon the extent and intensity of the preceding compliance

response o,f withdrawing the arm and hand holding the spear in an initial direction away from the individual to be attacked. In tennis a never-ending series of very subtle compliance reactions must be performed in order to bring the body, arm, and racquet into postures which themselves determine maximally effective dominance reactions to follow. All preparedness, in short, consists of compliance reactions, whose principal function is to serve as selective agents within the integrative centres of the subject's organism, to pick out the dominance reactions most effectively antagonistic to the compliance responses themselves. The normal relationship, then, between compliance and dominance emotion is a relationship in which compliance is used for the success of the dominance responses. We may say that active dominance is effective in reaching its antagonist directly in proportion as it is immediately preceded by compliance with the opponent.

192 EMOTIONS OF NORMAt PEOPLE

Compliance Must Not Be Carried Beyond Its Usefulness to Dominance

It is necessary to qualify this statement in two particulars. First, compliance response may be carried to such an extreme that it postpones the ultimate dominant reaction too long for maximum efficiency, or lowers the strength of the motor self to such a degree that it is unable to cope with the antagonist. Secondly, the organism may comply with an antagonist which it has not the strength to dominate, even when the motor self is at its maximum intensity. An illustration of the first qualification to the usefulness of compliance

as a servant of dominance may be found in over-careful adjustment of bodily position, in baseball or tennis, before the actual swing of the bat or tennis racquet toward the ball is begun. The timing of the stroke has been delayed too long for success, by an over extensive preparatory compliance response. In wrestling or boxing, it frequently happens that one contestant withdraws an arm or leg too far, so that the tonic muscles, which otherwise would have brought the limb back with maximum force, are no longer able to exert maximally efficient leverage upon the limb in question. Or, in terms of nerve impulses, the same result may occur when an aesthete permits such volume of compliant motor discharge to control his organism that he subsequently finds himself lacking in strength to arrange his art collection in a manner most effective for his own aesthetic enjoyment...

Illustrating the second qualification placed upon the value of compliance to dominance, we may cite the very common instance of an individual who allows himself, while swimming, to be carried too far from the shore by the current. Such a person has complied with a force stronger than his own physical power at its best. He finds himself, therefore, shut off from shore by a barrier of water which it is beyond his physical strength to conquer or dominate. In both types of instances cited, compliance, though undertaken in the service of dominance, was carried to such an extreme that the compliance response had the effect of rendering subsequent dominance less effective, or altogether impossible.

Compliance Normally Precedes and Is Adapted to Dominance It seems clear from the foregoing analysis, that if dominance

is to maintain maximal efficiency, it must be preceded by compliance response. But the compliance must not be carried too far or continued for too long a period. In short, the simplest normal combination between dominance and compliance responses beneficial to the organism consists of initial compliance response adapted to dominance emotion to follow. This relationship between these two primary emotional responses may conveniently be expressed by the simple formula C -f D. When this formula is used, it should be understood that the order of the letters represents the temporal order in which the emotinal responses occur, and the plus sign represents the relationship of adaptation of the, response indicated by the first letter to the response symbolized by the following initial. Thus, in the formula C + D, C,, compliance is adapted to D, dominance, as well as occurring prior to the beginning of D, the dominance response.