Problems of to-day from the point of view of a psychologist / by Hugo Münsterberg.

  • Hugo Münsterberg
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Problems of to-day from the point of view of a psychologist / by Hugo Münsterberg. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    26/336 (page 10)
    lo AMERICAN PROBLEMS | I Of course it is true that the social life has become more I manifold and the outer tension has become stronger; but ] it is entirely misleading to believe that that is in itself a greater strain on the nervous system. The scientific psy- chologist brings no clearer conviction from his laboratory study of mental life than that of the relativity of mental states. Our attention, our feeling, our interest, our ex- i dtement never depend upon the mere amount of the stimu- lus. The same amount may make a strong impression at one time, at another a faint one, again under other condi- tions no impression at all. Everything depends upon its relation to the background. If three voices are shouting, j the noise becomes noticeably stronger when a fourth is j added, but if thirty are heard, one more or even five more ■ will not be heard: ten more would have to join to make j a perceptible difference. And if three hundred produce ! a noise, fifty more will not add anything: now a hun- dred must be brought in to secure the slightest growth in intensity of the sound. The shouting of the hundred men when they fall in with three hundred makes no more impression than one man when he joins only three others. This law prevails universally. The conditions for a feel- ing of difference, and therefore for an emotional excite- ment, are always relative. Two street boys who quarrel about a cent are no less enraged than two captains of in- dustry who quarrel about a million. It is absurd to meas- ure the effect of our surroundings on our brain by the mere mass and size and strength of the attacking stimulus. The proportion alone is decisive. What may be the source of