CHAPTER XXIII
PSYCHO-SOCIOLOGIC THOUGHT (CONTINUED)
In 1902, _Human Nature and the Social Order_ by Professor Charles H. Cooley was published. This book was at once accepted as an authority on the integral relationship of the individual self and the social process. It was followed in 1909 by _Social Organization_, and in 1918 by _Social Process_. The three books constitute a chronological development of a logical system of psycho-sociologic thought.
The first volume treats of the self in its reactions to group life; the second explains the nature of primary groups, such as the family, playground, and neighborhood, of the democratic mind, and of social classes; the third analyzes the many elements in the processes by which society is characterized. The chief thesis of the three volumes is that the individual and society are aspects of the same phenomenon, and that the individual and society are twin-born and twin-developed.[XXIII-1]
An individual has no separate existence. Through the hereditary and social elements in his life he is inseparately bound up with society.[XXIII-2] He cannot be considered apart from individuals. Even the phenomena which are called individualistic “are always socialistic in the sense that they are expressive of tendencies growing out of the general life.”[XXIII-3] It is not only true that individuals make society, but equally true that society makes individuals.
Professor Cooley has given an excellent presentation of what he calls the looking-glass self. There are three distinct psychic elements in this phenomenon: (1) the imagination of one’s appearance to another person; (2) the imagined estimation of that appearance by the other person; and (3) a sense of pride or chagrin that is felt by the first person. The looking-glass self affects the daily life of all individuals. “We are ashamed to seem evasive in the presence of a straightforward man, cowardly in the presence of a brave one, gross in the eyes of a refined one, and so on.”[XXIII-4] Even a person’s consciousness of himself is largely a direct reflection of the opinions and estimates which he believes that others hold of him.[XXIII-5]
Professor Cooley makes a lucid distinction between self consciousness, social consciousness, and public consciousness. The first is what I think of myself; the second, what I think of other people; and the third, a collective view of the self and the social consciousness of all the members of a group organized and integrated into a communicating group.[XXIII-6] Moreover, all three types of consciousness are parts of an organic whole. Even the moral life of individuals is a part of the organic unity of society. Social knowledge is the basis of morality. An upward endeavor is the essence of moral progress.
The three groups which Professor Cooley has called primary are so labeled because through them the individual gets “his earliest and completest experience of social unity.”[XXIII-7] The family, play groups, and neighborhoods remain throughout life as the experience bases from which the more complex phases of life receive their interpretation.
An unbounded faith in human nature is enjoyed by Professor Cooley. Human nature comprises those sentiments and impulses which are distinctly superior to those of the higher animals, such as sympathy, love, resentment, ambition, the feeling of right and wrong.[XXIII-8] The improvement of society, according to Professor Cooley, does not involve any essential change in human nature but rather “a larger and higher application of its familiar impulses.”[XXIII-9]
Communication is a fundamental concept in Professor Cooley’s system of social thought. Communication is “the mechanism through which human relations exist and develop.”[XXIII-10] Professor Cooley has pointed out that not only does language constitute the symbols of the mind, but that in a sense all objects and actions are mental symbols. Communication is the means whereby the mind develops a true human nature. The symbols of our social environment “supply the stimulus and framework for all our growth.” Thus the communication concept furnishes a substantial basis for understanding the psycho-sociologic phenomena which are ordinarily called suggestion and imitation.
Personality has its origin partly in heredity and partly “in the stream of communication, both of which flow from the corporate life of the race.” A study of communication shows that the individual mind is not a separate growth, but an integral development of the general mind.
The means of communication developed remarkably in the nineteenth century, chiefly in the following ways: (1) in expressiveness, that is, in the range of ideas and feelings they are competent to carry; (2) in the permanence in recording; (3) in swiftness of communication; and (4) in diffusion to all classes of people.[XXIII-12] Thus society can be organized on the bases of intelligence and of rationalized and systematized feelings rather than on authority, autocracy, and caste.
A free intercourse of ideas, that is, free and unimpeded communication, will not produce uniformity. Self feeling will find enlarged opportunities for expression. An increased degree of communication furnishes the bases for making the individual conscious of the unique part he can and should play in improving the quality of the social whole. On the other hand, freedom of communication is tending to produce “the disease of the century,” namely, the disease of excess, of overwork, of prolonged worry, of a competitive race for which men are not fully equipped.[XXIII-13]
Public opinion, according to Professor Cooley, is not merely an aggregate of opinions of individuals, but “a co-operative product of communication and reciprocal influence.”[XXIII-14] It is a crystalization of diverse opinion, resulting in a certain stability of thought. It is produced by discussion. Public opinion is usually superior, in the sense of being more effective, than the average opinion of the members of the public.
The masses make fundamental contributions to public opinion, not through formulated ideas but through their sentiments. The masses in their daily experiences are close to the salient facts of human nature. They are not troubled with that preoccupation with ideas which hinders them from immediate fellowship. Neither are they limited by that attention to the hoarding of private property which prevents the wealthy from keeping in touch with the common things of life.
The striking result of the social process is the development of personalities. The social process affords opportunities which individuals, ambitious and properly stimulated, may accept. Education may perform a useful function in adjusting individuals to opportunities. But education often fails because it requires too much and inspires too little; it accents formal knowledge at the expense of kindling the spirit.[XXIII-15]
Social stratification hinders.[XXIII-16] It cuts off communication. It throws social ascendancy into the hands of a stable, communicating minority. The majority are submerged in the morass of ignorance. Degrading neighborhood associations, vicious parents, despised racial connections--these all serve to produce stratification and to hinder progress.
Professor Cooley holds that in the social process the institutional element is as essential as the personal.[XXIII-17] Institutions bequeath the standard gifts of the past to the individual; they give stability. At the same time, if rationally controlled they leave energy free for new conquests. Vigor in the individual commonly leads to dissatisfaction on his part with institutions. Disorganization thus arises from the reaction against institutional formalism manifested by energetic individuals. It may be regarded as a lack of communication between the individual and the institution. Formalism indicates that in certain particulars there has been an excess of communication.
The economic concept of value has long been analyzed in individualistic terms--the economic desires arise out of “the inscrutable depths of the private mind.” To this explanation Professor Cooley replies that economic wants, interests, and values are primarily of institutional origin; they are socially created. Pecuniary valuations are largely the products of group conditions and activities.
It is in a rational public will that Professor Cooley sees the salvation of the social process. While he repeatedly expresses a large degree of faith in human nature as it is, he looks forward to a day, rather remote, when communication and education will enable all individuals to take a large grasp of human situations and on the basis of this grasp to express effectual social purposes. Unconscious adaptation will be superseded by the deliberate self-direction of every group along lines of broadening sympathy and widening intellectual reaches.
Professor Cooley has earned the title of a sound, sane, and deep sociological thinker. His contributions to social thought are found in his lucid descriptions of the social process from which personalities and social organizations arise, in his keen analysis of communication as the fundamental element in progress, and in his emphasis upon rational control through standards.
The year 1908 is a red letter year in the history of socio-psychologic thought. In that year two important treatises appeared, one written by William McDougall and the other by Edward Alsworth Ross. The former was developed from the psychological standpoint; the latter, from the sociological point of view.
Mr. McDougall considers social psychology largely as a study of the social instincts of individuals; Professor Ross concentrates attention upon the suggestion and imitation phases of societal life. In a sense Professor Ross begins his analysis where Mr. McDougall concludes.
Mr. McDougall treats the instincts as the bases of social life. He makes them the foundation of nearly all individual and social
## activities.[XXIII-18] Instincts are biologically inherited; they cannot
be eradicated by the individual. Instincts constitute the materials out of which habits are made. Consciousness arises only when an instinct or a habit (that is, a modified instinct) fails to meet human needs.
The primary instincts are the sex and parental, the gregarious, curiosity, flight, repulsion. Each is accompanied by its peculiar emotion, for example, the instinct of flight by the emotion of fear, the instinct of curiosity by the emotion of wonder. This instinct-emotion theory is, however, drawn out until it seems to become academic rather than actual in its details.
Professor McDougall points out that the instincts are the basic elements upon which all social institutions are built.[XXIII-19] For example, the sex and parental instincts are the foundations of the family; the acquisitive instinct is an essential condition of the accumulation of material wealth and of the rise of private property as an institution. Pugnaciousness leads to war.
This emphasis upon the instincts reaches an extreme form in W. Trotter’s _Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War_, where the herd instinct is made all-dominant. According to Mr. Trotter the herd instinct arouses fear in the individual and rules him through rigorous conventional means--in a large percentages of cases to his detriment.
In conjunction with his theory of instincts, Professor McDougall has advanced a noteworthy conception of the sentiments. The three leading expressions of sentiment are love, hate, and respect. Sympathy is regarded as an elemental sentiment, in fact, as an emotion in its simplest form. A sentiment is “an organized system of emotional tendencies centered about some object.” The sentiments comprise an important phase of the self, and function powerfully in determining social conduct.
It was in 1901 that Professor E. A. Ross made his initial contribution to psycho-sociologic thought--seven years before his _Social Psychology_ was published. His first great work was _Social Control_. In this excursus he defined social psychology as the study of “the psychic interplay between man and his environing society.”[XXIII-20] This interplay is two-fold: the domination of society over the individual (social ascendancy); and the domination of the individual over society (individual ascendancy). Social ascendancy may be either purposeless (social influence) or purposeful (social control). Social psychology, according to Professor Ross, deals with psychic planes and currents; it does not treat of groups, which is a part of the preserve of psychological sociology.
The psycho-sociologic grounds of control are found in such factors as sympathy, sociability, an elemental sense of justice, and particularly in group needs. There are individuals whose conduct exasperates the group. “In this common wrath and common vengeance lies the germ of a social control of the person.”[XXIII-21]
Perhaps the best part of Professor Ross’ discussion of social control is his analysis of the agents of control.[XXIII-22] Public opinion and law are the two most important means of controlling individuals. The weakness of one, in this connection, is its fitfulness; of the other, its rigidity. Personal beliefs and ideals function widely and effectively because of their subjective character. An individual may escape the operation of law; he can hide away from the winds of public opinion; but he cannot get away from his own ideas and conscience. It is for this reason that religious convictions are powerful. Art as a means of social control is commonly underrated. It arouses the passions, kindles sympathies, creates a sense of the beautiful and perfects social symbols, such as Columbia, La Belle France, Britannia.[XXIII-23]
Systems of social control are political or moral.[XXIII-24] The political form is more or less objective, is likely to be in the hands of a few, is apt to be used for class benefit. The ethical arises from sentiment rather than from utility; it is more or less subjective; it permeates the hidden recesses of life. The ethical system is usually mild, enlightening and suasive “rather than bold and fear-engendering.” Individuals are ordinarily aware of political control, but the far-reaching influences of ethical control they little suspect.
The two most difficult problems for society to solve in connection with social control are these: (1) what measures of control may be best imposed; and (2) how these measures should be imposed.[XXIII-25] The variety of disciplines which society may use varies from epithets to capital punishment. The methods vary from the democratic one of social self-infliction to the direct autocratic procedure. Too much control produces either stagnation or revolution, depending on the amount of energy the rank and file may possess. Too little control leads to anarchy, or at least to a reign of selfishness. A paternal social control may cause resentment or a crushing of self-respect.
Suggestion and imitation are social elements that Professor Ross has described in detail.[XXIII-26] He has demonstrated that the more gregarious species are more suggestible than the species whose members are more or less solitary; that southern races are more suggestible than northern races, because of the different climatic effects upon temperament; that children are more suggestible than adults, because children possess a small store of facts and an undeveloped ability to criticize; that people of a nervous temperament are more suggestible than persons who are phlegmatic, because of difference in sensibility; that women are more suggestible than men, because they have not had the broadening influences which men have enjoyed, such as “higher education, travel, self-direction, professional pursuits, participation in intellectual and public life.”[XXIII-27]
The laws of imitation, particularly of fashion imitation and rational imitation, which M. Tarde was the first to outline, have been elucidated and illustrated by Professor Ross. He has cut boldly into the shams of fashion, convention, and custom, and made a strong plea for rationality in these fields. He has shown how mob mind, the craze, and the fad sweep not simply the foolish and lightheaded individuals off their feet, but also the persons who are counted as sane and acquainted with common sense. In fact, he has made clear that even the most level-headed are blindly or slavishly governed by custom or fashion or both. He does not develop, however, the fact that imitation is largely a result of like-mindedness and common social stimuli. He implies an individual rather than a group origin of suggestion-imitation phenomena.
It is in discussion that Professor Ross sees one of the main hopes of progress.[XXIII-28] Discussion brings conflicts to a head, and leads to group progress. Discussion changes a person’s opinions. Adequate discussion leads to the settlement of a conflict and the creation of an established public opinion, which remains in force until a new invention occurs, a resultant conflict ensues, and a new public opinion comes into power.
In 1920, Professor Ross made his largest and most important contribution to social thought in his _Principles of Sociology_. This work, however, is essentially a treatise in social psychology. The original social forces are the human instincts, notably the fighting instinct, the gregarious instinct, the parental instinct, the curiosity instinct. The derivative social forces are societal complexes which tend to satisfy instinctive cravings. Professor Ross’ classification of the derivative social forces, or interests, is primarily fourfold. These fundamental interests are wealth, government, religion, and knowledge. This classification contains only two, or at best three, of the six groups of interests which are found in Professor Small’s exhibit.[XXIII-29]
Professor Ross’ analysis of the process of socialization has been indicated in