The psychology of abnormal people : with educational applications / by John J.B. Morgan.

  • John J. B. Morgan
Date:
[1928]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The psychology of abnormal people : with educational applications / by John J.B. Morgan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    146/648 page 130
    report to persist. Perseveration of a mild form may occur in arithmetical study. It can be broken up by diversification of practice. 2. Stereotypy. In stereotypy the actual motor expression may vary but all the verbal expressions hinge around some central theme in a very mechanical manner. An example of the production of a patient with stereotypy is the following: I am a dry goods merchant and I want to go to town and woik in my mother s dry goods store. Give me my hat, my coat and my gob-sticks, for I am going to go to town and work in my mother s dry goods store. I am a dry goods merchant and I work in my mother's dry goods store. Open that door and let me go to town and work in my mother’s dry goods store.” This would be kept up for hours at a time with slight variations. If you would tiy f° interrupt, you would not be very successful. For instance, suppose you would say, “Well, -, you look pretty well this morning, are you feeling fine?” You would probably get the ieP]y> I am feeling fine, for I am a dry goods merchant and I am going to go to town and work in my mother’s dry goods store.” If there is a tendency toward stereotypy it is very likely to crop out in the continual reproduction of the central idea in themes and other school work. It can be remedied by insisting on a diversity of topics and varied treatments of topics. Stereotypy is often begun because the individual is too lazy to do anything different from what he has done. \\ hen the author was in the grades it was the custom every Friday to have each member of the class recite a “memory gem.” It was a very beautiful custom to the teacher but a terrible bore to the pupils. We solved the problem by repeat¬ ing the easiest one we could find. The prize gem was “Hitch your wagon to a star,” until the teacher was forced to bar it from the list of eligibles. 3. Simple persistent ideas. Persistent ideas is the term used to describe the tendency for certain associations with slight affective value to recur repeatedly. An air from a light opera, a popular song, a bit of verse are illustrations of this. In these cases it is doubtless the lilt, the swing or the rhyme of the persistent idea that gives it enough affective value to
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3