(3) Differences in biological characteristics. The most glaring and at the same time the most successful from a financial standpoint of the recently developed non-scientific systems of PERSONALITY AND ITS DISTURBANCE 409 character reading is that which purports to read character by means of hair color, skin coloring and texture, shape and set of the eyes, size and shape of the nose, mouth, hands and fingers. To expose the falsity of the extravagant claims of the charlatans who advocate this it needs only to be pointed out that we have several well recognized biological and anthropological laboratories whose research men. have patiently recorded both individual traits and biological markings. If there was a correlation between character and such markings it would hardly have escaped their observation. Such correlations may exist, but the scientist who discovers them and actually grounds them will have an enviable place in science for all time.
(4) Handwriting and personality. Since 1662, when Camillo Baldo in Italy published his treatise on the method of deter- mining the character of a person by his handwriting, there has been an increasingly popular belief in the subject. Binet, Preyer and other investigators have made several observations upon correlations between sex and handwriting and between handwriting and general personality. To test whether sex was determinable from handwriting he took 180 envelopes that for the most part had passed through the mail, but from which all seals, headings and the like had been removed, and submitted them to two professional graphologists and to 15 persons ignorant of the art of graphology. Of the envelopes 89 had been addressed either to Binet himself or to members of his family by women, 91 had been addressed by men. There was of course an error here due to the fact that the person could guess at the sex of the writer on account of its being addressed to a female member of the family. The percentage of right judgments in Binet 's test made by the unexpert averaged about 70. One of the experts, M. Crepieux-Jamin, had a percentage correct of 78.8. Binet concludes that it is possible with a certain percentage of errors to determine sex from handwriting. Miss Downey improved upon this method by having all the envelopes addressed to a woman. Two hundred were employed, all but 4 passed through the mail, 100 had been addressed by women, 100 by men. These 200 envelopes were submitted to 13 persons each of whom recorded his judgment as to the sex of the writer. The ages 410 PSYCHOLOGY of the judges varied from 15 years to 50. In every case in the present test, as in the French test likewise, the percentage right was over 60. Miss Downey concludes: ''From my analysis of my own results I conclude that it is possible to determine sex from handwriting in perhaps 80 cases out of 100." The basis upon which these judgments were made is hard to determine. In general the observers could not phrase the difference. Origi- nality is held to characterize the man 's hand, conventionality the woman's; men's writing is said to show a greater range of variability than women's. This leads at times to error. The features are not well analyzed in any of the writings.
Numerous tests, generally popular in nature, have been made upon the determination of character from certain graphological signs. Binet obtained samples of handwriting from 37 individ- uals of recognized intellectual eminence such as Renan and Bergson. With each of these he paired the writing of a person of similar education and general social level but of very mediocre attainments. The graphologists were asked to state which of each pair of writers was the more intelligent. Crepieux-Jamin came off best with the astonishing score of only 3 errors out of 36 determinations, or nearly 92 per cent. Six other graph- ologists' scores were 86, 83, 80, 68, 66, 61, all distinctly superior to chance.
Binet also secured specimens of the handwriting of 11 no: torious assassins. With each of these he paired the handwriting of an honest citizen in a rather humble walk of life. The expert graphologists were directed to tell which of each pair of writers was superior in general morality. Once more Crepieux-Jamin came off best, with 3 errors out of 11, or 73 per cent, right.
The graphologists assert that they read character by such graphological signs as follows: Ambition lines of writing slope upward Pride lines of writing slope upward Bashfulness writing is traced with fine lines Force (a)..heavy lines Force (b)..heavy bars on the t's Perseverance long bars on the t's PERSONALITY AND ITS DISTURBANCE 411 Hall and Montgomery have recently made a detailed test of some of these asserted correlations. The subjects were 17 stu- dents of the University of Wisconsin belonging to the same medical fraternity. Each man was first asked to write in his ordinary manner a paragraph from a popular magazine. The writing was done in each subject's own room at his regular desk with his own pen on uniform unruled paper of good quality. When the writing was finished the subject was given a set of 16 small cards each containing the name of one of the other subjects, his own name not being included. He was directed to arrange the cards in the order of the amount of ambition possessed by the persons indicated on each. A ranking was thus obtained. The writing was then subjected to measurement, the m's, n's and t's were especially measured and the ranking for ambition correlated with the pronounced upward slope of the lines of writing or the reverse. A statistical measure showed no tendency whatever for the ambitious person to write in an upward sloping direction. The subjects were also ranked for pride, and again the handwriting of each was examined with respect to the sloping character of the lines. There was no evidence of the alleged relation. Bashfulness was ranked and the writing examined for the fineness of the lines at the bend of the upward stroke on the 10 t's in the paragraph. The measurement was made with a microscope with a micrometer in the eye-piece. Statistical data showed that there was no tendency for bashful people to write with fine lines. In a similar way force was ranked and the handwriting of each subject was measured. There was no evidence that forceful people cross their t's heavier than anyone else. No correlation could be found with respect to perseverance and the length of the bars on the tfy There was no correlation between the closing of the a's and o's and reserve.
The tests upon these students thus gave only negative results. When one examines the whole mass of literature bearing upon personality studies of these kinds one is soon convinced that it is a tissue of exaggeration and that the so-called results will not bear critical experimental testing.
412 PSYCHOLOGY • B. HABIT DISTURBANCE AND ITS EFFECT UPON PERSONALITY Introduction. — Within recent years the notion has gained ground that many of the ills that personality is heir to are due rather to failure and inadequacy on the behavior side than to any defect in the organic mechanism. As we pointed out on page 393, the separate organs of the body, heart, lungs and stomach, may all function properly yet the adjustments of the human machine as a whole may be poor and inadequate. The separate anatomical and functional elements are present but integration is bad. We see all the gradations in this lack of integration running from the normal individual who in association tests hesitates upon certain words to the hysterical individual in the clinic who has lost the use of arms, legs or sight.4 Without attempting to do more than take a cursory glance at the field of personality disturbance and its causes, which belongs largely to psychiatry, let us consider for a moment some examples taken from laboratory studies where the habit mechan- isms are experimentally thrown out of gear and then examine into some of the generalizations which have been made concern- ing the effects which habit disturbance in daily life has upon personality. Our reason for touching upon the problem of personality disturbance is that no human being, as can be gath- ered from the preceding part of this chapter, has a perfectly balanced personality. All of us are practical products of our training and heredity. Hence some insight into the factors underlying personality disturbance seems a necessary part of even the most elementary training.
Temporary Disturbance of Habit Experimentally Pro- duced.— Several years ago Stratton made a most interesting series of experiments to test the effect of throwing the visual motor reactions out of gear which was done by wearing lenses, prisms and mirrors in front of the eyes. For example, in one experiment a mirror was worn horizontally over the head and 4 We assume in this discussion of habit disturbance that the organic machine is working properly in the sense that 'there are no loss of parts, lesions or intoxicants as shown by actual chemical and clinical test.
PERSONALITY AND ITS DISTURBANCE 413 a small mirror was placed in front of the eye so as to receive the reflected image from the horizontal mirror. The image of the body thus became horizontal instead of vertical. Since two mirrors were used there was no reversal of right and left as when one looks into a glass. "The observer was thus made to watch himself from a point of view apparently above his own head. The field of view included the entire body and a limited region around..."
The experiment continued for three days. When the mirrors were not worn the eyes were blindfolded. The contrivance, of course, threw all of the regular habits out of gear. There was dizziness, loss of balance and marked fumbling of the feet and hands and lack of accurate co-ordination. Ob- jects that were well within range were reached for as though they were at a much greater distance. The process of visual readjustment began almost at once and progressed rapidly. By the end of the third day, although there was occasional fumbling, movements occurred with freedom and precision. In other words, a new habit system had taken the place of the old. The experiment was not continued until the subject became as adept in this new system of visual habits as in the old.
The same phenomenon appeared when lenses were worn in such a way that all visual objects in the field were inverted. Walk- ing and movements of the hands with open eyes were extremely awkward and full of surprises. Naturally, when the subject reacted to objects with eyes closed the old habits reasserted them- selves and the reactions were made correctly. ' ' The limb usually started in the opposite direction from the one really desired. When I saw an object near one of my hands and wished to grasp it with that hand the other hand was the one I moved. The mistake was then seen and by trial, observation and correction the desired movement was at last brought about. ' ' Again as in the first test new habit systems were established and reactions to the visual objects in the environment became normal. One interesting thing about these experiments is the fact that the moment the lenses or glasses were removed the subject slipped 414 PSYCHOLOGY.
414 PSYCHOLOGY.
back into his old reaction systems with almost no disturbance. The disturbing factor had not been present long enough to make the subject react differently from other people after the disturb- ing environment had been changed. In a later experiment the tests were continued for a longer time. In this third experiment the right-left relationship of visual objects was again reversed. Stratton discusses his own behavior as follows: Almost all movements performed under the direct guidance of sight were laborious and embarrassed. Inappropriate move- ments were constantly made; for instance, in order to move my hand from a place in the visual field to some other place which I had selected, the muscular contractions which would have accom- plished this if the normal visual arrangement had existed, now carried my hand to an entirely different place. The movement was then checked off, started off in another direction, and finally, by a series of approximations and corrections, brought to the chosen point. At table the simplest act of serving myself had to be cautiously worked out. The wrong hand was constantly used to seize anything which lay to one side.
By the fifth day at breakfast with the lenses on the inappro- priate hand was rarely used to pick up an object lying to one side. The movement itself was easier and less wayward and seldom was it made in an entirely wrong direction. In walking he did not so often run into objects. By the seventh day practically all visual reactions were perfect although some con- flict at times appeared. On removing the glasses on the eighth day there was some disturbance,, continuing for that day and into the next morning. "In walking towards some obstacle on the floor of the room — a chair, for instance — I turned the wrong way in trying to avoid it; so that I frequently either ran into things in the very effort to go around them or else hesitated for a moment, bewildered what I should do. I found myself more than once at a loss which hand I ought to use to grasp the door handle at my side. Of two doors side by side leading to different rooms I was on the point of opening the wrong one. On approaching the stairs I stepped up when nearly a foot too far away, and in writing my notes at this time I continually made a wrong movement of my head in attempting to keep the center PERSONALITY AND ITS DISTURBANCE 415 of my visual field somewhere near the point where I was writing. I moved my head upward when it should have gone downward; I moved it to the left when it should have gone to the right." If one were judging the normality of Stratton's behavior during the first day after the removal of the lenses from the superficial examination of his reactions alone and in ignorance of the causes of the maladjustment, one would draw very wrong conclusions as to his lack of balance and general condition. The visual reactions were undoubtedly sadly "out of touch with reality" but the disturbing factors were not present long enough nor under emotional conditions of such a nature as to involve the rest of his organized reactions.
It is of course very difficult in the case of the normal adult whose habit and emotional reactions are highly stabilized to produce any serious and lasting effect upon personality by the introduction of temporary disturbing factors. In the case of the neurotic individual even temporary factors involving the emotions may reduce the total organized reaction system to the level of that of the infant, as is abundantly testified in the cases of shell shock.
It is during infancy and youth that disturbing environ- mental factors work their most serious and lasting consequences.
The Discarding and Readjusting of Reaction Systems. — During the whole process of human development from infancy to old age, but principally in youth, there goes on not only the process of acquisition of habit and the modification of hereditary reaction but also and equally important that of the elimination of reaction systems which work only up to a certain age. Old situations give way to new and as the situation changes old ways of reacting should be cast off and, new ones formed. No normal youngster after a few months of walking slips back to his crawling habits, nor will an older one exhibit his old organized behavior with respect to his blocks and toys after he has learned to use tools. The habits put on, in the year gone by simply will not work in the year to come. This is as true with respect to our social activities as to our daily response to objects. The friends of our mature years are as a rule not the friends of 416 PSYCHOLOGY our childhood and adolescence. The casring-off process is not an active one but is brought about almost solely by the fact that as age comes on the social and physical environment changes and new habits must be put on if the individual is to remain adjusted to changing conditions. Unquestionably the complete- ness with which old habits and the emotional factor connected with them, which do not work are put away when the new situa- tion is faced, tremendously modifies the type of personality each individual develops into. When the individual is constantly faced by new situations which it can meet, as is normally the case, and when the reaction systems to be outgrown have not been too thoroughly ingrained by bad surroundings, the old order gives way to the new with no scarring and without detri- mental factors appearing, but where heredity is bad, where there is sickness in childhood and overindulgence or carelessness in the parents the new orders of habit are put on with the greatest difficulty. The individual then remains hampered by his past. Possibly no one of us escapes unscathed through the childhood and adolescent stages. The early situations when again faced by the adult may not call out the overt infant reactions but they do not wholly lose their power to stir up the old implicit emotional activity. The most convincing evidence for this view comes from psychopathology, but daily life gives us also con- vincing evidence. A great many individuals have water-tight compartments filled with old reaction systems which resist the storm and stress of adult life. Early religious and social training is modified with difficulty or not at all. Ways of talking and thinking about things learned at the mother 's knee remain some- times unmodified to the bitter end. New situations cannot be reacted to properly until modification occurs — the old habits will not work in the new environment but the old will not give place to the new. The individual thus remains in a permanently unadjusted state. A few illustrations may help in understand- ing how thwarted tendencies arise and how personality is influ- enced by them. One individual becomes a psychologist in spite of his strong interest in becoming a medical man because at the time it was easier for him to get the training along psycho- PERSONALITY AND ITS DISTURBANCE 417 logical lines. Another pursues a business career when if it were possible he would become a writer of plays. Sometimes on account of the care of the mother or of younger brothers and sisters a young man cannot marry even though the mating instinct is normal. Such a course of action necessarily leaves frustrated impulses in its train. Again, a young man will marry and settle down when mature consideration would show that his career would advance much more rapidly if he were not burdened with a family. Another individual marries and without phrasing it in words even to himself that his marriage is a failure he gradually shuts himself off from any emotional expression, pro- tects himself from the married state by substituting for natural domestic ties some kind of engrossing work, but more often hobbies, speed manias and excesses of various kinds. In connec- tion with this it is interesting to note how rapidly women rushed into all kinds oi; work during the recent war. Women in the present state of society have not the same access to absorbing kinds of work that men have, hence the chances of their out- growing their adolescence are more limited than in men. If we are right in this analysis these unexercised tendencies to do things other than we are doing are never quite got rid of nor could we get rid of them unless we could build ourselves over again. These maladjustments are exhibited whenever the brakes are off — that is, whenever our adult habits of speech and action are functioning at a low level as in sleep, day-dreaming and in emotional disturbances. For this reason the dream and the slips and accidents of everyday life become of importance in studying personality.
The development of many but not all of these blocked tendencies can be traced to childhood or adolescence, which is a period of strain and excitement. In childhood we often see the boy reacting to his mother in some respects like his father. The girl likewise becomes closely attached to her father and reacts to him as her mother would under certain circumstances. These tendencies from the standpoint of popular morality are perfectly "innocent." But as children grow older they learn from one or another source that such ways of reacting are either "wrong" or 27 418 PSYCHOLOGY • 418 PSYCHOLOGY • unusual; then the process of discarding and replacement is necessary. The replacement or substitution is often very imper- fect. The apostle's saying "when we become men we put away childish things ' ' was written before the days of modern psychol- ogy. We do not put them away — we replace them but they never for us completely lose their impulsive power. Parents who show excessive emotional reactions toward their children — over much fondling of them — often encourge such reactions and make normal substitution more difficult. Later on in life the old habit systems may show themselves in overt ways. Now and then we find a young man whose mother has long since died who can find little attraction in the girls with whom he associates. He himself can advance no reason for this apathy and would possibly become.angry if the true explanation were offered him. In a similar way adults may become too much attached to children. This is often seen in the case of a woman whose husband has died leaving her with an only son. The son becomes substituted for the father and her reactions which she looks upon as those belonging merely to a devoted mother soon take on certain characteristics of those she would show to her husband.
These illustrations have all been chosen from the sphere of normal life. They give us an insight into the character and personality of individuals. They show that in order to under- stand a person's weaknesses and strength we have to have more than a superficial acquaintance with him. Character and personality are not formed over night nor are they of mushroom- like growth. In summary it seems safe to generalize: youthful, outgrown and partially discarded habit and instinctive systems of reaction can and possibly always do influence the functioning of our adult systems of reaction and influence to a certain extent even the possibility of our forming the new habit systems which we must reasonably be expected to form.
Psychopathological Aspects of Habit Distortion. — As psy- chologists studying normal behavior we shall venture only so far into the realm of psychopathology as to trace the connection between habit distortion discussed above and the psychiatrist's conception of what he calls a "mental disease. " As is well known, PERSONALITY AND ITS DISTURBANCE 419 there is a growing tendency on the part of modern psychopathol- ogists to break away from the pathologists ' conception of disease in those patients suffering from personality disturbance. When the pathologist and physiologist visit the psychiatric hospital they are likely at once to cast around for an adequate explana- tion of the patient's condition in terms of brain cell lesions, infections, intoxications and the like. It is as unthinkable to many of them as it is to the man on the street that an adequate account of the patient's disease from a causal standpoint can be given without appeal to pathology, to physiology or to med- ical chemistry. Many believe that in such cases (the purely functional cases) the neurological and chemical tests should and must necessarily show some variation from the normal, and when no such organic disturbance can be found they insist that the changes are there but are of so delicate a nature that they escape observation. Possibly this may be true in some cases, but the conviction is growing that no organic lesions need be found to account for the facts and that when found they are not necessarily the important factors. In other words, we can have a diseased personality arising through habit distortion — distortion carried to the point where the compensatory factors (ser- viceable habits) are not sufficient to carry the individual along in society. He is out of touch with his environment and unless help is given him he will most certainly go down under competition. As we have pointed out, the habit distortions may and do often start in infancy. The indulgent mother favors a cer- tain child, allows it to eat what it wants, to play with what it calls for, puts no authority upon it, does everything for it and even anticipates its demands. Under such a regime walking and talk- ing are delayed. Crying, yelling, kicking and screaming are resorted to when demands are denied. During boyhood he is petted and spoiled. His side is taken whenever the other boys attempt to give him the knocks that would straighten him out. His studies are not enforced, he is not taught to work, to earn extra pennies or to accept his share of responsibility. Lying and cheating are not early enough dealt with. Normal burden bearing and respon- sibility for his own mishaps are not inculcated. As long as the old favoring environment lasts he floats, but when a crisis occurs, 420 PSYCHOLOGY