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Psychology 259
ed by a second generation suspicious of pure innateness and seeking for an
explanation in a combination of innateness and exercise, with emphasis more
on the building of structures than on the idea of simple preformation.
Child psychology has gone through fairly similar phases. After a stage of
isolated and, so to speak, primarily biographical observations, children were
made to take all kinds of standardized tests giving quantitative insights rather
than ideas concerning the actual mechanisms of development. After this came
largely clinical studies, placing the child back into its context of life and activity,
and here too the main emphasis was first on factors to do with the internal
maturation of the nervous system (Gesell and Wallon), plus, of course, the
general social factor, which is unknown to animals, in the form of prolonged
processes of educational transmission. Lastly, the emphasis was placed on the
very building of structures, which went beyond both organic factors and the
activities of the adult.
Returning to ethology, but without going back to the initial stages, we should
draw attention to one of the central ideas introduced by the objectivism of
Lorenz and Tinbergen. This is the notion of the spontaneous activity of the
organism, as distinct from any ‘response’ to external stimuli. Adrian had already
proved its existence, moreover, and we find a distinct equivalent to it even in a
new-born baby. Moreover reflexes have long been regarded (Coghill, Graham,
Brown) as a product of differentiations from general rhythmic movements, but
objectivism showed the spontaneousness of some of them at any rate.
As regards the instinct, objectivism gave an analysis of it that is very instruc-
tive for human psychology itself, because it makes it possible better to judge the
relations between the intelligence and organic life. The pioneers, Tinbergen,
Lorenz and, in France, GrassC, emphasized the essentially innate character
of the instinct, without, however, ignoring the necessary part played by the
environment. Instinctive behaviour is distinguished first of all by appetitive
tendencies (looking for a mate, a place to build a nest, and so on) linked to
hormone changes in the organism. Then begins the consummatory phase
marked by innate releasing mechanisms (IRM). Thus, the red belly of the male
stickleback attracts the female, but releases in other males an aggressiveness
linked to the defence of its own territory or of the nest. Another releasing mech-
anism, for example, is the sight of objects that can be used to make the nest. It
should be noted that these mechanisms do not always release actions in an un-
changing order, but we already observe at this level a certain adaptive mobility
linked to the external situation. GrassC, for example, describes in termites
‘stigmergies’ or mechanisms; a pellet of some substance, for example, once
a certain size has been reached, provokes its transformation into pillars, ceilings,
and so on, but the order of construction of the termitary remains variable and
the result of each stage can set off several others and not just one. Further, once
the innate releasing mechanisms have made the instinct start to work, the con-
summatory acts that follow are rapidly differentiated into different forms of
behaviour, where there then appears a margin for temporary adaptation, with
improvisation or acquisition and no longer the fixed unfolding of the hereditary
programme.