Impulsiveness

“ Observing that the passions of childhood illustrate this connection, let us turn to certain interesting questions concerning the decrease of impulsiveness which accompanies advance in evolution. The nervous processes of an impulsive being are less remote from reflex actions than are those of an unimpulsive being. ”

“ Your impulsiveness leads you into plenty of things, but you are so hypercritical, and you become so easily discouraged when eventualities do not measure up to your ideals, that you fail to finish that which you start. ”

“ Looking around amongst your friends and acquaintances, you will readily see that few, if any, have all of the characteristics of impulsiveness in a marked degree, and an equally small number all of the characteristics of deliberation in a marked degree. The majority of people probably have a combination of these characteristics—some indications of impulsiveness and some of deliberation. ”

“ To what other traits than degree of mental evolution is impulsiveness related? Apart from difference in elevation of type, the New-World races seem to be less impulsive than the Old-World races. Is this due to constitutional apathy? Can there be traced (other things equal) a relation between physical vivacity and mental impulsiveness? (b.) What connection is there between this trait and the social state? Clearly a very explosive nature—such as that of the Bushman—is unfit for social union; and, commonly, social union, when by any means established, checks impulsiveness. ”

“ Offer two apples of different sizes to a young child, and he will at once take the larger one. [1] The impulse simply exerts itself without let or hindrance. The frank impulsiveness of the child is often very attractive. But impulsive behaviour which would be charming in the child might be detestable in the adult. We say that the adult ought to be able to control his impulses.
Impulses are isolated. There is no continuity between one impulsive action and another. Impulsive behaviour is stimulated simply by the needs and interests of the moment. ”

“ In other cases the competing tendencies may alternately dominate consciousness and conduct; so that the behaviour of the individual becomes characterised by impulsiveness and want of balance rather than by want of energy. ”

“ Merely his impulsiveness is of a higher sort; in it both racial and individual adjustments to social needs find expression; and reason always stands, figuratively speaking, in the background, ready to suppress the spontaneity where the conditions are such that it ceases to be moral. It has been part of our whole analysis to show that reason and instinct, thought and feeling, are by no means antagonistic. Simply, feeling may take one direction in one man, another in another ”

“ Hence results a decreased impulsiveness, and also a greater persistence. The conduct pursued, being prompted by several emotions co-operating in degrees which do not exhaust them, acquires a greater continuity; and while spasmodic force becomes less conspicuous, there is an increase in the total [359] energy. Examining the facts from this point of view, there are sundry questions of interest to be put respecting the different races of men. ”

“ What respective shares in checking impulsiveness are taken by the feelings which the social state fosters—such as the fear of surrounding individuals, the instinct of sociality, the desire to accumulate property, the sympathetic feelings, the sentiment of justice? These, which require a social environment for their development, all of them involve imaginations of consequences more or less distant ”

“ Nor are we without evidence that among adults, the like differences of development are accompanied by like differences in the number of emotions that are aroused, in combination or rapid succession—the lower natures being characterized by that impulsiveness which results from the uncontrolled action of a few feelings ”

“ When an impulse is restrained, we feel discomfort or even violent pain. We may indulge the impulse in order to escape from this pain, and our action is then one which has a purpose. But the pain only exists because of the impulse, and the impulse itself is directed to an act, not to escaping from the pain of restraining the impulse. The impulse itself remains without a purpose, and the purpose of escaping from pain only arises when the impulse has been momentarily restrained.
Impulse is at the basis of our activity, much more than desire. ”

“ The point to which I wish in this connection to call attention is that when a simple emotion-instinct, or an idea linked with an instinct (a sentiment) is awakened by any stimulus, its impulsive force is discharged in three directions: the first is toward the excitation of those articulated movements and ideas which guide and carry the instinct to fruition—to fight in the case of anger, to flee in the case of fear, to cherish in the case of love, etc. ”

“ The instinct of pugnacity gives rise to the impulse to strike. Again, the instinct of curiosity immediately prompts the child to explore with its hands the object that excites its interest. Or the instinct will drive the child to investigate the fire, until a sharp lesson teaches it that some impulses must be restrained. In every case impulse is intimately connected with instinct. Impulsive behaviour may be defined as instinct in action. An impulse is the executive aspect of an instinct. ”

“ Action from impulse in all these directions may take place from a loss of controlling power in the higher regions of the brain, or from an over-development of energy in certain portions of the brain, which the normal power of inhibition cannot control. The driver may be so weak that he cannot control well-broken horses, or the horses may be so hard-mouthed that no driver can pull them up. Both conditions may arise from purely cerebral disorder ... or may be reflex.... The ego, the man, the will, may be non-existent for the time. ”

“ LESSON IV COMMON SENSE AND IMPULSE Impulsive people are those who allow themselves to be guided by their initial impressions and make resolutions or commit acts tinder the domination of a special consciousness into which perception has plunged them.
Impulse is a form of cerebral activity which, forces us to make a movement before the mind is able to decide upon it by means of reflection or reasoning. ”

“ Desires may be regarded, at least from one standpoint, as developed impulses. As developed impulses, they differ in two respects from mere impulses, (a) When we act on impulse, the end that we aim at is not usually clearly present to us. In purely impulsive behaviour we are impelled in a certain direction without clearly knowing why. On the other hand, when we desire, we know the end we wish to attain, and we definitely desire something, (b) As we have seen, impulses are isolated and temporary. If an impulse be restrained, it disappears. ”

“ They can, it is true, solve much vaster problems; and they can avoid many a mistake to which the men of impulse are exposed. But when the latter do not make mistakes, or when they are always able to retrieve them, theirs is one of the most engaging and indispensable of human types.
In infancy, and in certain conditions of exhaustion, as well as in peculiar pathological states, the inhibitory power may fail to arrest the explosions of the impulsive discharge. We have then an explosive temperament temporarily realized in an individual who at other times may be of a relatively obstructed type. ”

“ The Obstructed Will.—In striking contrast with the cases in which inhibition is insufficient or impulsion in excess are those in which impulsion is insufficient or inhibition in excess. We all know the condition described on p. 218, in which the mind for a few moments seems to lose its focussing power and to be unable to rally its attention to any determinate thing. At such times we sit blankly staring and do nothing. The objects of consciousness fail to touch the quick or break the skin. ”

“ The sensation or other state is either utilized to indicate the safety of impulsive action, or any tendency which experience may have happened to favor in its mediating influence on volition is inhibited, until the mind may read aright the situation, when the "motive" becomes one that is furnished by the ego and not by the non-ego. As we have remarked, and as all modern psychology shows, there is such an intimate connection between stimulus and motor changes that the changes seem to be explosions occurring in response to the stimulus. ”

“ Notice, first, that psychology makes a perfectly proper and important distinction between emotion and impulse. In terms of consciousness, emotion is "feeling somehow", and impulse is "wanting to do something". In behavior terms, emotion is an organic state, and impulse an adjustment of the nerve centers towards a certain reaction. An impulse is a conscious tendency. ”

“ Impulse and Instinct. We have seen that instincts lead to certain types of action. The pugnacious instinct, for example, is responsible for the readiness of the normal boy to fight on the slightest provocation, or on none at all. ”

“ Something happens to arouse your anger. At once there is a conflict: The impulsive force of your pugnacity instinct meets with the impulsive force of your play instinct and its pleasure feelings. If the former is the stronger, the latter with the ideas to which it is linked are inhibited, repressed, driven out of consciousness. The pleasure of play ceases and its impulses no longer determine your thoughts. Further, you forget the cards that have been played though you knew them well a moment before, you may forget your manners, become oblivious to social etiquette and the environment. ”

“ And this is also what happens at the moment of the fiat, in all the five types of 'decision' which we have described. In short, one does not see any case in which the steadfast occupancy of consciousness does not appear to be the prime condition of impulsive power. It is still more obviously the prime condition of inhibitive power. What checks our impulses is the mere thinking of reasons to the contrary—it is their bare presence to the mind which gives the veto, and makes acts, otherwise seductive, impossible to perform. ”

“ In human affairs our motives are referred to certain categories each of which presupposes an ideal scheme, prudential, æsthetic, ethical, or other. To act from motive and not from impulse is to act deliberately, because we judge the action to be expedient, seemly, or right, as the case may be. If, then, we contrast the lower perceptual stages of mental evolution with the higher ideational phases, the former includes behaviour due to impulse ”

“ But it is a matter of common experience that it is not enough merely to know that an impulse is unworthy. We may know that it is wrong, and still allow it to translate itself into action. We may, indeed, feel powerless to stop it. ”

“ There seems every reason to believe, however, that the transferring of impulses from one goal to another, is not an actual change in the nature of the impulse, but is merely a masked indulgence of the original craving. ”

“ Men, as a rule, speak of emotion as a weakness, and they confuse it with impulse—a very different thing. Impulse is often the result of weak nerves, uncontrolled by the will; but we must not confuse it with the emotional quality which underlies all great achievement in art, literature, philosophy and personality. The more impulsive the individual is, the more primitive the reasoning faculty. ”

“ The simplest and most obvious assumption concerning the nature of the impulses would be that in themselves they possess no quality but are only taken into account as a measure of the demand for effort in the psychic life. What distinguishes the impulses from one another and furnishes them with specific attributes is their relation to their somatic sources and to their aims. The source of the impulse is an exciting process in an organ, and the immediate aim of the impulse lies in the elimination of this organic stimulus. ”

“ Where these impulses run, and how they develop, depends entirely upon the condition of the mind, and this depends upon the impulses which have previously been active in it. It will be seen then that impulses—their direction, their strength, how they modify one another—are the essential and fundamental things in any experience. All else, whether intellectual or emotional, arises as a consequence of their activity. The thin trickle of stimulation which comes in through the eye finds an immense hierarchy of systems of tendencies poised in the most delicate stability. ”

“ This chapter we shall devote to a consideration of different classes of individuals and the best methods of inducing in them favorable decision and action.
THE IMPULSIVE MAN
The impulsive individual must be rushed. His emotions are very responsive, easily aroused, and, as, a rule, when aroused take a strong hold upon him. It is the impulsive person's tendency always to act quickly and to act in response to his strong feelings. The impulsive man discharges his feelings with speed in action, and they rapidly evaporate. ”

“ And in practical life, though we are certainly held morally responsible for impulsive action, in so far as it is thought we might have modified it by previous habitual practice of reflection or by avoiding a situation which we had reason to think would deprive us of the power to reflect, we are never held as fully accountable for the deed of impulse as for the reflectively thought out and deliberately adopted purpose. ”

“ From Exaggerated Impulsion.—Disorderly and impulsive conduct may, on the other hand, come about where the neural tissues preserve their proper inward tone, and where the inhibitory power is normal or even unusually great. In such cases the strength of the impulsive idea is preternaturally exalted, and what would be for most people the passing suggestion of a possibility becomes a gnawing, craving urgency to act. ”