Chapter II: Human Nature (5)

25. What is Cooley's definition of human nature? Do you agree or disagree with him? Elaborate your position.

26. To what extent does human nature differ with race and geographic environment?

27. How would you reinterpret Aristotle's and Hobbes's conception of human nature in the light of this definition?

28. What illustrations of the difference between folkways and mores would you suggest?

29. Classify the following forms of behavior under (a) folkways or (b) mores: tipping the hat, saluting an officer, monogamy, attending church, Sabbath observance, prohibition, immersion as a form of baptism, the afternoon tea of the Englishman, the double standard of morals, the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, the Constitution of the United States.

30. What do you understand to be the relation of the mores to human nature?

31. In what way is (a) habit related to will? (b) custom related to the general will?

32. How do you distinguish the general will (a) from law, (b) from custom?

33. Does any one of the following terms embody your conception of what is expressed by _Sittlichkeit_: good form, decency, self-respect, propriety, good breeding, convention?

34. Describe and analyze several concrete social situations where _Sittlichkeit_ rather than conscience or law controlled the behavior of the person or of the group.

35. What do you understand by convention? What is the relation of convention to instinct? Is convention a part of human nature to the same extent as loyalty, honor, etc.?

36. What is meant by the saying that mores, ritual, and convention are in the words of Hegel "objective mind"?

37. "The organism, and the brain as its highest representative, constitute the real personality." What characteristics of personality are stressed in this definition?

38. Is there any significance to the fact that personality is derived from the Latin word _persona_ (mask worn by actors)?

39. Is the conventional self a product of habit, or of _Sittlichkeit_, or of law, or of conscience?

40. What is the importance of other people to the development of self-consciousness?

41. Under what conditions does self-consciousness arise?

42. What do you understand by personality as a complex? As a total of mental complexes?

43. What is the relation of memory to personality as illustrated in the case of dual personality and of moods?

44. What do you understand Cooley to mean by the looking-glass self?

45. What illustration would you suggest to indicate that an individual's sense of his personality depends upon his status in the group?

46. "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players." Is personality adequately defined in terms of a person's conception of his rôle?

47. What is the sociological significance of the saying, "If you would have a virtue, feign it"?

48. What, according to Bechterew, is the relation of personality to the social _milieu_?

49. What do you understand by the personality of peoples? What is the relation of the personality of peoples and the personalities of individuals who constitute the peoples?

50. What do you understand by the difference between nature and nurture?

51. What are acquired characters? How are they transmitted?

52. What do you understand by the Mendelian principles of inheritance: (a) the hypothesis of unit characters; (b) the law of dominance; and (c) the law of segregation?

53. What illustrations of the differences between instinct and tradition would you suggest?

54. What is the difference between the blue eye as a defect in pigmentation, and of feeble-mindedness as a defective characteristic?

55. Should it be the policy of society to eliminate all members below a certain mental level either by segregation or by more drastic measures?

56. What principles of treatment of practical value to parents and teachers would you draw from the fact that feeble inhibition of temper is a trait transmitted by biological inheritance?

57. Why is an understanding of the principles of biological inheritance of importance to sociology?

58. In what two ways, according to Keller, are acquired characters transmitted by tradition?

59. Make a list of the different types of things derived by the person (a) from his biological inheritance, and (b) from his social heritage.

60. What traits, temperament, mentality, manner, or character, are distinctive of members of your family? Which of these have been inherited, which acquired?

61. What problems in society are due to defects in man's original nature?

62. What problems are the result of defects in folkways and mores?

63. In what way do racial temperament and tradition determine national characteristics? To what extent is the religious behavior of the negro determined (a) by temperament, (b) by imitation of white culture? How do you explain Scotch economy, Irish participation in politics, the intellectuality of the Jew, etc.?

FOOTNOTES:

[55] Charles H. Cooley, _Social Organization_, pp. 28-30.

[56] Charles H. Cooley, _Human Nature and the Social Order_, pp. 152-53.

[57] _The Theory of the Leisure Class_ (New York, 1899).

[58] From Edward L. Thorndike, _The Original Nature of Man_, pp. 1-7. (Teachers College, Columbia University, 1913. Author's copyright.)

[59] Compiled from Edward L. Thorndike, _The Original Nature of Man_, pp. 43-194. (Teachers College, Columbia University, 1913. Author's copyright.)

[60] From Robert E. Park, _Principles of Human Behavior_, pp. 9-16. (The Zalaz Corporation, 1915.)

[61] Adapted from Milicent W. Shinn, _The Biography of a Baby_, pp. 20-77. (Houghton Mifflin Co., 1900. Author's copyright.)

[62] From Albert Moll, _Sexual Life of the Child_, pp. 38-49. Translated from the German by Dr. Eden Paul. (Published by The Macmillan Co., 1902. Reprinted by permission.)

[63] From C. S. Myers, "On the Permanence of Racial Differences," in _Papers on Inter-racial Problems_, edited by G. Spiller, pp. 74-76. (P. S. King & Son, 1911.)

[64] From Edward L. Thorndike, _Individuality_, pp. 1-8. (By permission of and special arrangement with Houghton Mifflin Co., 1911.)

[65] From W. E. Hocking, _Human Nature and Its Remaking_, pp. 2-12. (Yale University Press, 1918.)

[66] From William G. Sumner, _Folkways_, pp. 2-8. (Ginn & Co., 1906.)

[67] Translated and adapted from Ferdinand Tönnies, _Die Sitte_, pp. 7-14. (Literarische Anstalt, Rütten und Loening, 1909.)

[68] From Viscount Haldane, "Higher Nationality," in _International Conciliation_, November, 1913, No. 72, pp. 4-12.

[69] From Th. Ribot, _The Diseases of Personality_, pp. 156-57. Translated from the French. (The Open Court Publishing Co., 1891.)

[70] From Morton Prince, "The Unconscious," in the _Journal of Abnormal Psychology_, III (1908-9), 277-96, 426.

[71] From Alfred Binet, _Alterations of Personality_, pp. 248-57. (D. Appleton & Co., 1896.)

[72] From L. G. Winston, "Myself and I," in the _American Journal of Psychology_, XIX (1908), 562-63.

[73] From William James, _The Varieties of Religious Experience_, pp. 166-73. (Longmans, Green & Co., 1902.)

[74] Translated from V. M. Bekhterev (W. v. Bechterew), _Die Persönlichkeit und die Bedingungen ihrer Entwicklung und Gesundheit_, pp. 3-5. (J. F. Bergmann, 1906.)

[75] From J. Arthur Thomson, _Heredity_, pp. 244-49. (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1908.)

[76] Adapted from C. B. Davenport, "The Method of Evolution," in Castle, Coulter, Davenport, East, and Tower, _Heredity and Eugenics_, pp. 269-87. (The University of Chicago Press, 1912.)

[77] From Albert G. Keller, _Societal Evolution_, pp. 212-15. (Published by The Macmillan Co., 1915. Reprinted by permission.)

[78] From Robert E. Park, "Education in Its Relation to the Conflict and Fusion of Cultures," in the _Publications of the American Sociological Society_, XIII (1918), 58-63.

[79] Émile Zola, _The Experimental Novel_ (New York, 1893), pp. 8-9. Translated from the French by Belle M. Sherman.