Story of Psychology - Morton Hunt [325]
Few phenomena have been the subject of more protracted discussion than human knowledge. Yet this discussion has usually paid little attention to the motivation underlying the quest for knowledge… Strangely enough, many of the queries that inspire the most persistent searches for answers and the greatest distress when answers are not forthcoming are of no manifest practical value or urgency. One has only to consider some of the ontological inquiries of metaphysicians or the frenzy of crossword enthusiasts to be convinced of this.49
The desire to learn and understand, said Berlyne, could be accounted for in part by psychoanalytic theory, Gestalt psychology, and reinforcement theory, but a fuller explanation lies in the motivation of curiosity. In Berlyne’s view, there is a subtler need behind curiosity than the desire for practical knowledge. Strange or puzzling situations arouse conflict in us, and it is the drive to reduce the conflict that impels us to seek answers.50 What motivated Einstein to develop his general theory of relativity was not its immense practical consequences but what he called a “passion for comprehension”—specifically, a need to understand why his special theory of relativity was at odds with certain principles of Newtonian physics.
In the 1950s and 1960s, psychologists turned up, along with their new findings about cognitive influences on motivation, a wealth of evidence that the mind, rather than the viscera, thalamus, or limbic system, is often the major source of emotional experiences and their physical symptoms. Some of that evidence:
—For half a century it had been known that when a person guilty of some crime is read a list of words or asked questions, some of which are neutral and others of which relate to the crime, the latter often cause a rise in the suspect’s blood pressure and galvanic skin conductance. In the 1950s and 1960s further research found other telltale symptoms and improved the technology of lie detection equipment. The premise that the conscious mind influences the emotions—or at least guilty anxiety and its associated physical symptoms—was confirmed.51
—In 1953 Howard S. Becker, a sociologist, studied fifty people who had become marijuana users. He found, among other things, that new users have to be taught to notice and identify what they feel, label the state as “high,” and identify it as pleasant. The physiological feelings of the high acquire their meaning in considerable part from cognitive and social factors.52
—In 1958, in a celebrated experiment, Joseph Brady subjected pairs of monkeys to regular stress in the form of electric shock. One monkey of each pair could postpone the shock for twenty seconds by pressing a lever; the other monkey’s experiences were linked to the first one’s. (He was either not shocked or shocked according to what the first one did or failed to do.) Surprisingly, the monkeys who could avoid the shock developed ulcers, the passive ones did not. Evidently the anticipation and burden placed on the first monkey by the ability to control the shock produced anxiety and its somatic symptoms. Those in the shock-controlling group were soon dubbed “executive monkeys,” their situation being likened to that of human executives working under high pressure and constant anticipation of crisis.53 It was not, however, only anticipation that caused ulcers; it was also the uncertainty about when they had to take action. When a researcher named Jay Weiss repeated Brady’s experiment (with rats instead of monkeys), he added a warning tone that signaled the executive rats (but not the passive ones) to take action. Both groups developed ulcers, but the executive rats, thanks to the security of the warning tone, developed