An Introduction to Social Psychology

Chapter 20: The Conditions of Suggestibility

Luther Lee Bernard

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After what has been said in the previous chapter about the kinds of suggestion, the meaning of suggestibility will be sufficiently clear. One is suggestible in the degree to which (I) he has ready made stimulus-response mechanisms which are effectively conditioned to definite stimuli, (2) in the degree to which interrupting and inhibiting stimulus-response mechanisms or psychic behavior patterns are absent, and (3) the immediacy and unreflectiveness with which the response follows the stimulus. This is a general statement of the conditions of suggestibility or of the effectiveness of the conditioning of stimuli to suggested responses. These conditions may be stated in more detail under two general headings: the external and internal conditions of suggestibility. The external conditions will be discussed first. Conditions (I) and (3) have already been considered.

THE EXTERNAL CONDITIONS OF SUGGESTIBILITY— It is not enough to state the internal conditions favorable to the effectiveness of suggestion in the purely negative manner of freedom from the outside interference which tends to stimulate internal conflicts. There are also certain positive external conditions which increase suggestion.

Monotony and rhythm— The two types which are most closely associated with the negative condition just stated are monotony and rhythm in the stimulus. Monotony of sound, as in speaking or reading, invariability of the form or position of a visual object, repetition of caresses, continuous motion, all tend to favor concentration of the attention or relaxation of the attention altogether. This brings about a condition of temporary dissociation of the psychic processes which is very favorable to that undue dominance over behavior of some one stimulus which we call suggestion. Rhythm is either monotony regularly interrupted, a regularly recurring series of stimuli

(301) monotonous variation,— or the regular recurrence of the same number of units of stimuli variously organized. Examples of the first of these types of rhythm are the flapping of a loose chain on the wheel of an automobile, repetition of a note in the same key in vocal practice, the recurrence of some visual irregularity, such as a nut, on a uniformly revolving wheel, the tactual stimulation of knots made at equal distances on a rope or string passed through the hand at a uniform speed. Examples of the second type of rhythm, which is more complex, are walking, breathing, the sound of another person breathing, riding, the recurrence of the scale or of parts of the scale in musical practice. This is perhaps the most frequent form of rhythm in nature. The third type may be illustrated by a symphony (which is a very complex type of rhythm) or any other form of musical composition, most dancing, diurnal activities as a whole, riding several times around a scenic railway, or watching a moving picture program repeat itself (the last two constitute a combination of types two and three). Quite obviously not all of these examples of rhythm would contribute equally, if at all, to suggestion. If the rhythm involves a repetition of a startling stimulus, such as a loud or harsh sound, or a pain sensation, or a shock, concentration and dissociation will be prevented. Also, there must not be so much change or variation in the units of types two and three as to interfere with dissociation, and the recurring stimuli must be sufficiently close together to establish a clearly evident repetition or monotony according to expectancy.

Duration and repetition of the stimulus are other important external conditions of suggestibility. But they are more important in establishing a strongly conditioned relationship between a stimulus and a response than they are in releasing the response. Ordinarily any considerable duration of stimulus is not necessary to the release of a response which is already thoroughly conditioned to that stimulus. Duration usually means repetition of the stimulus, and this repetition is especially important iii all situations where a well fixed habit is to be broken, that is, where a response is to be conditioned away from an old stimulus which is acceptable and attached to a new one which is not particularly grateful to our apprehension. Such

( 302) conditioning through duration and repetition of course goes on at unconscious as well as at conscious levels of psychic behavior. Duration and repetition are made use of in all "educational" campaigns, such as political or religious propaganda, the advertising of commercial products, reform movements, and formal education or training itself. Persistence wins the convert to any cause. "At first we endure, then we tolerate, and next we embrace," is another way of saying that we condition a favorable response through constant operation of some stimulus which formerly was ineffective.

Volume of stimuli is closely allied in method and results to duration and repetition. The latter attributes in fact, when taken consecutively, constitute volume. The propagandist and the advertiser and the proselytizer know well the uses of volume. What one hears or sees or tastes constantly, if it is at all tolerable, becomes essential to one's comfort. Thus men learn to use narcotics and intoxicants, develop habits of labor, or fall into the dissipations of vice. Volume of suggestion works negatively as well as positively. It cuts off former stimuli from operation and concentrates attention upon new ones which thereby are afforded a clear field for the conditioning of responses. There is no particular reason why we should eat K's cornflakes instead of A's, except that we see them advertised more persistently and with greater frequency. If we hear of nothing but the lost condition of our soul we will eventually save it according to the method prescribed by the particular religious propaganda which we have the good fortune to hear. We are Protestants or Catholics, Jews or Christians, Republicans or Democrats, not because each system of belief or interests is superior to all the rest— a contradiction in itself— but because the volume of suggestion in that direction has been overwhelming. We establish our conditioning of responses almost unconsciously (some people erroneously say, instinctively) and thereafter we respond readily to Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Christian, Republican, or Democratic stimuli, according as we have been conditioned to respond. If the other side challenges us, we learn, that is, condition, arguments with which to confound them. Since they have done the same, and since the whole argument is a contest of suggestion instead of

( 303) reason, neither side wins, unless one side is more suggestible, or there is greater vitality or volume or prestige on the one side than the other. Volume is perhaps not so exclusively limited to the conditioning of responses as are duration and repetition. The greater the volume the greater, within limits, is the opportunity for the suggesting or conditioning stimuli to be effective, that is, to cross the threshold of stimulation.

Prestige in the stimulating object, usually a personality, group of personalities, or a theory or a system of thought, or belief, conditions a strong readiness to respond to this object. This readiness is due to the fact that the responses of the subject are conditioned strongly through previous experience by certain attributes or powers possessed by the object. Thus prestige as an external factor means simply power to give suggestion and relates primarily to the power of the object to release a ready made response and secondarily to its power to condition such a response to itself as stimulus. Prestige is the prime external essential condition of suggestibility. If it exists, volume, duration and repetition are not necessary in order to make the suggestion effective. Prestige is effective conditioning plus a strong affective evaluation of the stimulus. There are many qualities in the object which, because they have already conditioned favorable responses, give to the object suggestive power. Some of the most important of these may be mentioned. Superiority in strength, intellectual ability, management, cunning, etc., are especially likely to have conditioned in us responses of acquiescence and subordination. The same is true of any other signs of power which are concrete and objective and which may therefore readily be apprehended. Those in authority over us, such as parents, guardians, officials, or those in positions of public trust or strategy, such as bankers, teachers, ministers, usually have conditioned in us attitudes of respect and partial subordination, even before we have come to recognize the fact. Other qualities, separate from or overlapping the above, which give prestige to their possessors for the wine or similar reasons as were mentioned above, are age, experience, wealth, learning, birth, moral integrity, success, religious sanctity, piety, authority, relative length of establishment, splendor and show, reputation for power, intelli-

( 304) -gence, mystery, self-confidence, inscrutability, dramatic capacity, strong emotions, personal reserve, uniqueness, antiquity, modernity, universality, numbers, logicality, specialization, membership in the élite, beauty, awesomeness, sanity, sanctity. Men and institutions or organizations and propaganda possessing these attributes can secure followers and hold them as long as they preserve their qualities. For the most part our allegiances, personal and social, are not so much based on principles or rational choice as they are suggested or conditioned by the qualities in leaders here mentioned. We respond largely automatically and immediately to those who possess such stimuli in their personalities or in the social organization, and we rationalize our behavior into principles later on. Such people are leaders, and institutions with such qualities are almost certain to dominate society. Such qualities or persons possess prestige because we recognize them as sources or conveyors of satisfactions. A favorable response to them is associated with pleasant feeling which gives us our affective or emotionally sanctioning attitude toward them.

THE INTERNAL CONDITIONS OF SUGGESTIBILITY are both negative and positive. The positive condition is, as has already been stated, the existence of a strongly conditioned association between stimuli and response mechanisms. The negative internal condition is the absence of any conflicting or inhibiting psychic processes or competing stimulus-response mechanisms. This absence of inhibiting mechanisms may arise either from the fact that such competing tendencies or psychic behavior organizations have never been introduced into the psychic personality or from the fact that dissociation of conditioned overt response or inner behavior processes has been effected. These two negative conditions are very similar, except that the former is simpler and more negative than the latter. In such cases the mind or inner behavior organization has never been filled with inhibiting dispositions, with the result that there is little chance for inner conflicts or interruptions to occur. In the second case the development of conflicting conditioned responses may have occurred, but the conflict is prevented by isolating the inner behavior mechanisms either by means of concentrating the attention upon certain stimuli to the exclusion of others or

( 305) by developing some internal control over psychic content which leads to dissociation of inner mechanisms, such as occurs typically in auto-suggestion. This inner control is probably effected by fixing the attention upon some external or, more frequently, psychic or mnemic symbol or cue which organizes the psychic and overt responses in the desired manner as preconditioned. Thus concentration of the attention upon external involuntary stimuli or voluntary fixation upon an external object, as in crystal gazing, or upon an internal symbol, as in automatic trance, is essential to that degree of dissociation of psychic processes which renders one readily suggestible in a unilateral direction.

Where one is suggestible to a large number of stimuli at the same time we say he is excited. He is as truly suggestible or suggested in this as in other cases of suggestion where the behavior is more direct and unified, but since we have associated the term suggestion with a fairly well integrated and isolated type of response which excludes other types we do not speak of response by general excitement as suggested behavior. Of course, excitement may also be due to conflicts in imitation or of some other form of stimulation. The more intense and concentrated or isolated the relatively automatic and uncritical conditioned responses are, the purer and more profound the type of suggestion, according to conventional usage.

THE UNFILLED MIND AS A CONDITION OF SUGGESTIBILITY — The unfilled mind operates as a favorable factor in suggestibility in a great many types of cases. But it can thus operate only if there are certain behavior mechanisms in the mind which are effectively conditioned to stimuli. This condition is likely always to exist, even in those of the lowest intelligence quotient or with the least training. Because all animals, human or otherwise, have certain natural drives or prepotent dispositions, such as the need for food, and the desire for sex satisfaction— to which they soon add other and acquired drives for at least shelter, protection from enemies, and possibly for association with their kind, as a minimum requirement for existence— certain habits of response grow up to supplement whatever instinctive behavior processes there may be for the effective realization of such drives. These responses, native

( 306) and acquired, become conditioned to appropriate stimuli and render the subject suggestible to these stimuli which call for the satisfaction of his native and acquired interests by whatever means he has learned or inherited. What we really mean when we speak of a mind unfilled by inhibiting behavior mechanisms is that the higher and more socialized, esthetic and ethical, behavior patterns which we find in cultivated or civilized man have not yet been, or cannot be, added to our behavior complexes to serve as restraints upon the relatively irrational satisfaction of our wants and desires under the dominance of suggestion. Certain classes of animals and human beings are particularly suggestible because of this fact.

The animals below man are highly suggestible in the direction of their instinctive and simple acquired interests or needs. Only the most rigorous training or substitute conditioning of responses can prevent the hungry dog from eating his master's food when his back is turned. Male work horses are made into geldings because it is difficult or impossible otherwise to train them not to respond to sex stimuli from females. But a dog carefully trained to point, or to hunt only certain types of game, will usually hold that training unless stimulated by his master (to whose suggestions he responds preferentially) to break it. Monkeys and apes are highly suggestible along certain limited natural lines, as is the case with some other animals, and they will hold careful training for a considerable period of time. They, together with elephants and dogs and horses, can be conditioned to respond with a very large number of simple learned behavior mechanisms to appropriate cue or symbolic stimuli which have become conditioning factors through association. These responses, however, are all in the field of suggestion. They are not able to imitate, except in the case of apes who do so in a rudimentary manner, because they cannot easily perceive or recognize the total behavior stimulus. Suggestion is of a lower order of adaptive control than imitation.

Feeble-minded persons, like lower animals, are highly suggestible in line with their fundamental drives, but find it very difficult or impossible to condition their responses effectively to cultural or social stimuli of a high order, especially when a

( 307) considerable degree of intelligence is involved. The higher grades of the feeble-minded can be successfully conditioned to stimuli to sympathetic response, acquiescence and loyalty and tenderness of a high degree of concentration in simple relationships, and are thus made highly suggestible to some of the finest simple emotional values in our culture. But, without constant reënforcement of the suggestion through the presence of the stimulus or even some supplementary stimulus, the cultural and more complex and abstract acquired conditionings give way before the more nearly instinctive and appetitive. Sometimes the lapse from the artificial to the natural control in this respect is very striking and even shocking, as in cases where carefully regimented morons suddenly yield to the stimulus to commit some sex delinquency or some act of violence in anger. Because the feeble-minded are relatively so wanting in inhibiting psychic behavior mechanisms, especially of the intellectual or rational type, they are highly suggestible in those directions in which they have built up conditioned responses and in the direction of their native drives. They pour their energies without reserve into any line of activities which they have learned to perform, but they are fickle and can be suggested with surprising facility into other, even contradictory, types of behavior, in which they are equally violent and expressive. We are accustomed to say that the feeble-minded have strong emotions, but weak characters. The trouble is that they are not able to build up sufficient rational or intellectual content for their psychic personalities and consequently develop little power of inhibition of contrary suggestion. They may not even have the intelligence to perceive the illogicality of their own behavior, or if they have they are unable to inhibit suggestions and control their conduct. The feeble-minded often suffer acute remorse, if they have been conditioned by ethical stimuli, but the remorse is easily wiped out of consciousness by the appearance of some other suggestion. It does not become a permanent mode of response.

The young, like the feeble-minded and lower animals, are highly suggestible in the direction of their relatively few preconditioned responses. But unlike the feeble-minded and animals, they can build up a rational psychic content or rival con-

( 308) -ditioned responses, which inhibit the more appetitive responses to suggestion. The conditioning of rival responses is in effect a process of rendering the subject responsive to new and more cultural or more highly socialized stimuli to which he was not before subject or sensitive. This process of acquiring a sensitivity to a broader range of stimuli which serve to condition responses away from the more appetitive stimuli and thus to sublimate and intellectualize and socialize behavior is, in the broadest sense, the process of education, whether it be in schools or elsewhere. Childhood is the period preëminently of heterosuggestibility. Home and school and playgroup give him conditioning stimuli of great volume in a continuous stream, until the new associations of stimuli and responses take the place of the old. Here also the adults with whom he comes in contact have such prestige as no other persons probably ever will possess. Consequently their suggestions or stimuli— their commands, wishes, preferences, which he perceives— take effect with great force upon the behavior of the child. As the child's experience grows he begins to develop rational imitation at the expense of suggestion and he may even develop a considerable degree of original thinking. But as age advances and as life becomes more highly stereotyped for him, in those ways indicated in the following chapter, he begins again to act on the basis of suggestion and probably ends his natural life period with as large a proportion of his behavior controlled by auto-suggestion or the repetition of his own responses as in childhood was controlled by hetero-suggestion.

The uneducated and those inexperienced in the problems of life adjustment are much like children both in their lack of the development of susceptibility to rival stimuli of a cultural character to condition or inhibit their prepotent or previously conditioned responses and in their capacity to develop a high degree of susceptibility under proper circumstances. The same is also true of backward races and peoples. In fact, there is a very close social analogy between the backward peoples of all races, whether they come from isolated districts in the midst of a highly cultivated civilization, as from mountainous regions, or from the slums of great cities, or from larger geographical units of isolation in the midst of a world civilization.

( 309) The types of stimuli to which the untutored mountaineer and the south sea islander will react are not essentially different from those to which the denizen of the slum responds, although the latter may have developed more variety and faddism in the method of his response. All alike may be conditioned to new cultural stimuli and given new responses under proper conditions of training. These people are easily suggestible in the direction of their previous habits of acting and thinking, but it is very difficult to suggest to them behavior contrary to their experience, even when the suggestion comes from some one with much prestige. The backwoodsman may be sold "green goods" or a "gold brick" or be conditioned to an intolerance of the theory of evolution; the savage may be convinced that the civilized man has a wonderful magic superior to his own; and the slum dweller may accept the statement that farmers "pick" potatoes and "dig" cabbages without question. But it is not possible to "put over" on the first any "nonsense" about methods of trapping "varmints"; or the second, with regard to stalking game; or the last, about the location of "moonshine joints" or the economic condition of the poor.

Men and women of culture are also highly suggestible, by skilled manipulators, in those fields in which they lack experience or scientific data with which to check stimuli. Insurance agents, book agents, and other persistent salesmen, usually find women easier prey than men, and a pretty woman can sell some men almost anything in spite of their experience with agents. In the one case, the woman's responses are conditioned to the glowing words of idealism and day-dreamy promises, which her experience or knowledge is not able to contradict. Living a more or less repressed and inexperienced life, she consequently responds to the stimuli of hope or to the suggestion that all the other women of intelligence and fashion have purchased the article, instead of to the actual merits of the object which is before her. In the second case, the average man responds by previous conditioning to the artfully manipulated sex stimuli, while lie thinks lie is rationally considering the value of the books or other articles. Thus in reality women sell sex appeal while the men frequently buy this stimulus and pay for books they never open. It is not possible, how-

( 310) -ever, under normal stimuli conditions, to suggest a social false step to a well-trained woman of fashion or the purchase of worthless oil stock or submerged real estate to a keen business man. In their own fields men and women are "hard boiled," unless their responses are conditioned by analogy and unconsciously to stimuli that release other responses which are ordinarily censored and kept in the background. This is what happens in the case of the man buying books for which he has no use because the saleswoman appealed to his unconscious admiration for a pretty woman while his critical financial judgment was in temporary abeyance. On the whole, it may be said that women of good intelligence are more likely to be suggested contrary to reason where a matter of lack of experience is involved. Both men and women are likely to be suggested contrary to interest where the suggester can make a covert and unrecognized appeal by conditioning a substitute stimulus which operates strongly in the subconsciousness of the one being manipulated, but is carefully kept out of the argument.

DISSOCIATION of stimulus-response processes facilitates suggestion by removing competing response mechanisms which may be conditioned as a whole or in part to the same stimuli and by eliminating or making of no effect rival stimuli which condition effective responses. The manner of the operation of dissociation has already been shown with sufficient clearness. The competing psychic processes do not cease to exist in dissociation. They are still in the nervous system, but dormant because not stimulated to active response, either through inhibitions, or lack of stimuli. Various subjective conditions, organic and psychic, facilitate this dissociation. People with abnormal psychological traits, the hystericals and psychopaths generally, dissociate their psychic behavior mechanisms more easily than the psychically normal individuals. Hysteria and all types of schizophrenia, from absent-mindedness to actual division of personality and chronic functional amnesia, are cases of dissociation. But temporary and intermittent dissociation, resulting in "queer" and sometimes contradictory behavior, is probably more frequent than the layman suspects. Practically all people vary considerably in the degree and types of their suggestibility according to environmental circum-

( 311) -stances and organic and mental condition. During illness, or when the body's resistance is lowered through fatigue or strain, or during any great emotional stress, one is much more suggestible than at other times, because these conditions facilitate dissociation and render the connection between conditioned response and stimulus more readily open. Some of the typical subjective conditions producing dissociation and therefore facilitating suggestion will be explained in the following paragraphs.

FATIGUE, FASTING, INTOXICATION, and like conditions have a tendency to raise the threshold of stimulation because of their toxic effects upon the nervous system. This probably causes the weaker synaptic connections to cease functioning, thereby dissociating the behavior patterns of the weaker from the stronger impulses. The impulses which are strongest are likely, other things being equal, to be those dispositions in which the stimulus-response organizations have the largest number of instinctive connections, or in which the acquired connections have been made most effective through conditioning. Some habits frequently practiced become in this way as firmly rooted as the instincts themselves. In fact all of the behavior complexes, including those which contain strong instinctive elements, are habitual or acquired. Through the raising of the threshold of stimulation, due to fatigue, fasting, intoxication, or any sort of tissue poisoning or interference with the synapses, the weaker impulses, which are usually the more cultural and the more recent, drop out of operation, and leave the stronger impulses operative and easily subject to uninterrupted suggestion. The diagram on page 312 serves to illustrate this principle.

ABNORMAL ASPECTS OF THIS TYPE OF SUGGESTION— It is under such conditions as these that much of the unconventional or brutal and apparently inexplicable conduct of otherwise conventional people occurs. People are more frequently irritable when fatigued or ill or intoxicated than at other times, and they will respond to stimulation with violence as they would not if their more rational acid cultural complexes were functioning as inhibitory mechanisms. It is often said that when drunk or tired one's true nature shows up, and this is in large measure correct, for the usual cultural inhibitions are then re-

(312)

figure, distribution of responses

The base line,

TS, represents the hypothetical and theoretical normal threshold of stimulation, at which all of the behavior complexes represented by perpendicular lines are susceptible of stimulation or release by appropriate stimuli. The height of the perpendicular lines indicates the synaptic or impulsive strength of these several complexes for which they stand. As fatigue or other toxic producing conditions occur the threshold of stimulation is raised to T'S'. The result is that the weaker or cultural impulses can no longer be stimulated or pass through the synapses and they drop out

(313) as inhibiting factors. If the threshold is not raised too greatly and if the dissociation of the cultural from the appetitive stimuli is not too thoroughgoing, there will be no remarkable change in the character of the type of suggestion to which one is subject. But if the threshold of stimulation is raised, say to T"S", the dissociation of behavior patterns is very marked, practically all of the cultural inhibiting processes having disappeared, with the result that the more appetitive behavior complexes remain in possession of the organism. The organism may become quiescent or "go to sleep" in extreme cases (when the threshold has been raised to T"'S"'),or it may, if properly stimulated, seek the satisfaction of one or more of the other dominant drives. No attempt has been made to include all of the interests or impulses of the organism in this chart.

-moved. If it is not the true nature, it is at least the deepest rooted nature which is thus made apparent. Intoxicated people commit more sex delinquencies and acts of violence, and evidence less control generally, including indulgence in undignified conduct and buffoonery, than people who are not intoxicated. It is not, however, always easy here to distinguish between cause and effect. Possibly intoxication is in part the result, as well as the cause, of inadequate inhibitory controls. People who have fasted are in a sense toxic, through the lack of adequate replenishment of broken down tissues and elimination of waste matter. Because of this fact, and because there are lacking adequate chemical stimuli or metabolism for the nervous processes, the threshold of stimulation is raised or the synaptic connections of the weaker behavior sets cease to operate effectively, and inhibition of suggestion in the direction of dominant interests or impulses is lessened.

This will explain why religious beliefs are much more evident to those who have fasted than to the fleshly. It also explains in part why they see visions as real objects and have phantasies which are counterparts of their waking meditations. Delirium in fever appears under conditions of marked autointoxication and slight inhibition of dominant impulses. In all of these cases of the raising of the threshold of stimulation and the consequent dissociation of behavior complexes, it is the more firmly fixed or deeply rooted interests which are susceptible to suggestion. These are not necessarily the more nearly instinctive complexes. They may be wholly acquired interests, as in the case of religion, which is fostered by suggestion. People also develop phobias of various sorts which show up

(314) during intoxication or extreme fatigue or hunger, and especially in deliriums from fevers or in delirium tremens. Other people are "hipped" on politics, art, or in fact, on anything. Any interest whatever may become the dominant set in one's character, showing up with surprising susceptibility to suggestion under proper conditions for suggestibility.

FIXED IDEAS, MANIAS, AND PHOBIAS-When this dissociation is for any cause relatively permanent and the subject is rendered particularly and constantly suggestible along the line of a dominant interest we speak of fixed ideas or manias. These may range in intensity all the way from mild peculiarities, foibles, hobbies, nuisances, and the like, up to distinct and recognized types of insanities. The causes of such dissociation and consequent suggestibility are not merely fatigue, fasting, intoxication, narcosis, and autointoxication. These are normally temporary and transient. But occasionally they assume relatively permanent forms, as in the case of chronic neurasthenia or chronic toxemia from drug addiction or glandular infections, such as goiter. In such cases the inhibiting cultural or rational interests may disappear practically completely and leave the affected person the victim of fear hallucinations, or subject to unrelieved and uninterrupted suggestions of any preconditioned type whatever. In their extreme form these conditioned susceptibilities to suggestion render the subject psychotic and true insanities develop. The condition of radical dissociation known as hysteria may grow out of such organic conditions, or it may develop as a functional type of schizophrenia due to the subject's inability to handle difficult adjustment situations. Hysteria and radical schizophrenia, or true dissociated personality, show the greatest degrees of suggestibility along these lines.

The hysterical person is suggestible along the lines of the major conditionings of his responses to the degree of being unable to see any situation in true perspective or in a rational light. In the dissociated personality suggestion masses wholly along certain lines and cleavages, with the result that tile conditioning of responses to stimuli across those cleavages cannot take place at all. The illusions of dementia praecox and paranoia, and of similar or other functional personality dis-

( 315) -tortions, are due primarily to dissociation of behavior complexes which leaves the dominant set or system of conditioned responses uninhibited by the opposite or corrective tendencies. In psychoanalytic literature these dissociated corrective processes are said to be censored. As a consequence suggestion is uninterrupted and all-powerful in the direction of the psychotic imagery.

PREJUDICES AND OTHER MILD FORMS OF FIXED IDEASThese are relatively extreme cases of suggestibility due to dissociation. They are recognized everywhere as being abnormal and sometimes require highly specialized and insistent treatment. But there are many milder forms which for the most part escape any but the most casual notice by laymen. We dismiss them ordinarily with the explanation that the subject is "queer." Dr. Samuel Johnson, it is said, could not pass a lamp post without yielding to the suggestion to touch it. Old maids are supposed each night to look under their beds to discover a man in hiding. It is recorded that Bulwer-Lytton could not write well except in evening clothes. The flow of ideas of another writer is said to be conditioned to the use of a goose quill pen. These habits of response are in fact not different in kind from many other mild types of suggestibility which we do not regard as queer or unconventional. The conventions of chivalry belong in this class, some of which still remain. Within our own memories the near approach of a lady acquaintance irresistibly conditioned the lifting of the hat and bowing by the male. Even now no one can resist, at parting from a reception, however boresome, the temptation to say, "It has been a delightful evening, Mrs. — — — ."

Somewhat more radical is the dissociation in the case of what we call prejudices. A prejudice arises from the strong conditioning of certain psychic behavior or attitudes to certain corresponding stimuli and the dissociation of inhibiting tendencies, with the result that the inhibiting processes are not adequate to break these conditionings. As a consequence the Prejudiced person has a fixed idea or is radically suggestible ill the direction of his belief or allegiance. Such prejudices are particularly liable to form in connection with religion, politics, sex matters, one's kin or property, art, or any other objects

(316) which call from us strong emotional responses. It is very difficult to be rational and objective, or unprejudiced about things which are close to us or for which we have made sacrifices or which we have molded to our own liking, that is, things to which our responses have become strongly conditioned. We are strongly suggestible in favor of our friends, family, party, creed, property, and the like, and just as strongly suggestible against our enemies and the friends, families, and property of our rivals. A "good" Republican or Democrat will believe almost anything he reads or hears in favor of his own party or in opposition to the rival parties. It is only recently that we have persuaded ourselves not to consign the adherents of rival religious creeds to the flames in the world to come or as surely to expect to meet all of those who profess our own faith, regardless of their morals, in the realms of bliss. Prejudices, from which no one is free, are the result of a mild form of dissociation. Nevertheless they cause a vast amount of distortion of functional adjustment in our world.

HYPNOTISM is an artificially produced dissociation so complete as to render the isolated and remaining behavior patterns extremely suggestible. Although the dissociation connected with hypnotism occurs in the mind of the subject it usually requires the coöperation or direction of some external agency to be effected. Self-hypnosis does occur, as in the trance, but ordinarily there is involved both an operator and a subject in hypnotic phenomena. The "operator" may be passive, such as a bright object, the sound of the ticking of a clock, upon which the attention of the subject becomes fixed mechanically. But such spontaneous fixation upon a passive object, with resulting dissociation, is not ordinarily sufficiently complete to produce hypnosis, unless there has previously been a repeated experience of hypnosis through the agency of a director employing this object, and thus conditioning the hypnotic response to this stimulus. The director serves the double function of assisting the subject in selecting an object of attention and of keeping the attention centered on the object until dissociation occurs; and of directing suggestive stimuli after the subject is dissociated or hypnotized. This second function of the director or operator is very important. In self-hypnosis or automatic hyp-

( 317) -nosis the direction of suggestion will either come from dominant unconscious sets within or will arise from random occurrences or impacts from without. For most persons such direction of suggestion is not very effective. It will be seen, however, that the psychic mechanism of self-hypnotism with direction of suggestion from internal sets or complexes is very similar to that of certain psychotic states, such as illusions and hallucinations in dementia praecox and paranoia, and the phobias. In the latter there is a permanent dissociation not unlike that in hypnosis in respect to its completeness. The result is that in psychotic cases the subject is rarely or never free from the dominance of the internal sets, whose responses are conditioned to almost all types of stimuli of which he takes cognizance. This internal dominance twists the stimuli into interpreted phenomena which support his own mental derangement or illusions.

THE CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS IN HYPNOSIS— The prestige of the operator has much to do with his success in securing concentration upon objects and consequent dissociation, also in securing the ready acceptance of his suggestions by the subject. But there is always a limit to what suggestions the subject will accept, and this limit is fixed by a number of factors in addition to the prestige of the operator. Some of these are the completeness of the dissociation, the mental level of the subject, his poise, the circumstances and surroundings under which hypnosis occurs, the familiarity and acceptability of the suggested behavior to the subject. Subjects can be suggested only towards behavior with which they are reasonably familiar. This fact follows from the nature of the mechanism of suggestion already explained. It is necessary that the response shall have been previously conditioned by the stimuli which are manipulated by the operator before they can take effect with such celerity and momentum and so without modification of the process as to warrant the application of the term suggestion to the behavior process. Likewise, unless the behavior suggested has the approval of the subject or at least is sufficiently indifferent as not to cause shock, its suggestion will meet opposition and criticism or produce conflict rather than secure acceptance. For example, it is rarely possible to suggest effec-

( 318) -tively to any one in hypnosis to shoot another person, even his enemy, or to commit any other serious crime. Such suggestions may produce sufficient inner conflict as to remove the dissociation and "wake up" the subject. Only the feebleminded or hysterical or morally perverted (those who already have mechanisms or desires for such behavior) are likely to be suggested in such directions during hypnosis. Neither can one ordinarily be suggested to commit suicide in a hypnotic condition.

It is not necessary for the subject to be convinced of the truth of what he is told by the operator or of the entire reasonableness of what he is commanded to do. Dissociation is of varying degrees of completeness in different subjects, and some cannot be sufficiently dissociated as to produce true hypnosis. But the condition of hypnosis is one of suspension of judgment rather than of positive judgment in favor of the statements and commands of the operator. If the dissociation is profound the lapse of critical judgment is also profound and the subject will do within limits whatever he is told, even if it is unconventional. But in milder forms or degrees of dissociation the performer often is vaguely aware of the incongruity of the situation or of the statements and commands. He accepts them or performs them in somewhat the same spirit that he plays a game. He sees no reason why he should not. Indeed he does not reach a positive judgment that they are untrue or ridiculous. Another feature of hypnosis is that the dissociation often releases the inhibitions over certain tendencies to response or drives which are now more easily suggested than formerly. Thus tears and acts of sentiment, sex impulses (if not of such a character as to be deeply shocking), mild fears, interest in satisfaction of the appetites, are more easily suggested in hypnosis than out of it. Cultural inhibitions are to a certain extent removed and the subject goes back towards a more or less primitive type of personality.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE VARIOUS TYPES OF SUGGESTION— These various types of suggestion have various degrees of significance in collective adjustment situations. In those types which depend upon negative dissociation, or where the associations have not yet been or cannot be organized as inhibition

( 319) processes, the significance for adjustment is fairly patent. The suggestion is relatively direct and copious. Children, the uneducated, primitive peoples, those of isolated experience and lower mentality, are in many or most respects easily suggested. They become rational personalities by virtue of developing more associations which serve as inhibitions upon random or manipulated suggestions. Suggestion due to fatigue, fasting, toxic conditions, intoxication, or drug addiction, is fairly frequent in the lives of many people and probably determines a considerable part of social behavior, particularly in domestic situations and in crowds. While suggestion due to fixed ideas or chronic dissociation is operative, at least in an extreme manner, upon relatively few people, it not infrequently plays a considerable rôle in human affairs because of its violence and the dogmatic character of the beliefs and behavior of those who are victims of such suggestion. Prejudices are especially prevalent and are very largely determinative of human relationships. Their bad effects socially and individually can scarcely be overestimated. Hypnosis is mainly an artificial condition and occurs primarily in situations where the subject and operator have little chance to influence collective relationships generally. But there are undoubtedly many milder cases of hypnotic dissociation occurring under the conscious or unconscious direction of some dominating personality or as self-hypnosis. These probably determine collective relationships to a vast extent. Such mild hypnotic suggestion phenomena are probably operative in mobs, in strong friendships, in conjugal relationships and infatuations, and in various other relationships in life. In this mild form they are not necessarily harmful, but may be of positive use in organizing behavior on a fairly automatic basis and in thus conserving energy and in regularizing conduct.

It will be seen from our discussion of the conditions of suggestibility that these various types of suggestion are not wholly separate and distinct. They merge into one another imperceptibly. It is only when we select outstanding cases in isolation that they appear as wholly distinct types. Perhaps more than one relative type is operative in practically every situation involving suggestibility.

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THE UBIQUITOUSNESS OF SUGGESTION— Suggestion operates in almost every sphere and aspect of life. It is a short cut method of controlling effectively conditioned behavior. It is in itself quite devoid of moral character and may be used indifferently for ethical, non-ethical, or anti-ethical ends. It is frequently said that rationally directed conduct is of a higher type socially than suggested behavior. This is of course true, but it is not possible to be self or socially conscious about everything. Short cut controls in behavior are inevitable. The greater volume of suggestion occurs in the direction of everyday contacts, as was pointed out in the previous chapter, where it is ordinarily unmanipulated by some supervising agency. But there is also a vast amount of manipulated suggestion. This comes especially through the family, the school, the church, politics, the stage, the newspaper and periodical, and advertising. The newspaper, through its news articles, editorials, and advertisements, does much to control public opinion. Commercial advertisements to a large extent determine consumption, at least with reference to brands and styles, if not with regard to the contents and quality of the articles themselves.

Through the home, school, church, movie, theater, radio, and newspaper and press generally, we are told what to think or believe in almost all relationships in life. Sometimes this suggestion is direct and sometimes it is indirect, according to the degree of resistance which the person or public offers to the suggestion. The control of propaganda suggestion for proper social ends has become one of the serious problems of our day and must be attained by some method or other if society is not to be increasingly manipulated for selfish or partisan purposes. Controlled by suggestion we probably shall be, but this control should be for legitimate social purposes. It is not the function of this work on the principles of social psychology to go into details regarding either the methods of suggestion employed in concrete cases or types or the methods of controlling such propaganda. This belongs to the applications of social psychology, especially to the subjects of social organization, social control, and social ethics.

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