Based On A Questionnaire Sample Of 1,935 Youth And Intensive Interviews With 100 Young People.

This volume, the Frank Gerstein Lectures for 1963, is the second series of Invitation Lectures to be delivered at York University. The theme "Imagination and the University" was appropriate for, as President Murray Ross states in this Foreword, it is in its early years that a university is sufficiently flexible to utilize imagination in its structure and in its curriculum. York University was in its third year when the Lectures were given. Four distinguished scholars present their views on the importance of an imaginative approach to the different academic disciplines, and to the conduct of life in contemporary society as a whole. Jacob Bronowski, speaking on Imagination in Art and Science, draws a clear and striking analogy between the role of imagination in mathematics and in poetry, drawing on his own experiences and contributions in both areas. He stresses that all creative works in art or science, must conform to the universal experience of mankind and to the private experiences of each man: the work of science, as of art, moves us profoundly, in mind and in emotion, when it matches our experience and at the same time points beyond it. Henry Steele Commager shows how important is the contribution to be made by an imaginative approach to politics, where, as in other fields of human experience, it must not be separated from reality, if it is to find expression in something more than words. He points to examples from the past and the present and asks for more imagination in public thinking, it fit our actions to the reality of change, citing the urgency of such twentieth-century phenomena as the status of Communist China, the predicted population explosion, and the threat of nuclear war. Professor Commager believes that the universities provide the key to this kind of approach, being a supreme example of the creative capacity of mankind, whose function it is to serve the commonwealth of learning. A different kind of insight is offered by Gordon W. Allport, whose subject is Imagination in Psychology. He believes that the present "impertinence" of psychology can best be cured by endowing it with more imagination. He demands a pluralistic approach to psychological investigation, which would not deny the insights yielded by traditional methods, with their characteristic minute analyses, but whose goal would be to fashion a conception of the human person that would exclude nothing that is valid, and at the same time preserve an ideal of rational consistency. This could lead, in turn, to a clear definition of the root motives of mankind, even to discovering new formulas for international peace by offsetting particularistic political demands. Finally, Paul H. Buck describes the Harvard House Plan as an example of Imagination and the Curriculum. This plan, modelled on the Oxford-Cambridge College system which is also followed in some Canadian universities, is an attempt to make all aspects of undergraduate life a process of education. And a truly liberal education for today and tomorrow, Professor Buck is confident, will combine a programme of general education, a programme of specialism, and a collegiate way of living.

Introduction By Norman L. Farberow. Additional Contributors Include Herman Feifel, Wardell B. Pomeroy, Edwin S. Shneidman, And Many Others.

Based On A Questionnaire Sample Of 1,935 Youth And Intensive Interviews With 100 Young People.

Additional Contributors Include Edwin G. Boring, Kimball Young And Arthur Upham Pope.

STUDIES IN EXPRESSIVE MOVEMENT BY GORDON W. ALLPORT, Pn. D. ASSISTANT PROFBSSOK OF PSYCHOLOGY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY AND PHILIP E. VERNON, M. A., Pn. D, FELLOW OF ST. JOHNS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY With a chapter on Matching Sketches of Personality with Script, by EDWIN POWERS, A. M. DARTMOUTH COLLEGE Nfttt THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1933 INTRODUCTION Investigations of personality may be focuspd upon any one of three different levels of phenomena. The first is the level of traits, interests, attitudes, or sentiments con sidered as composing an inner personality the second is the level of behavior and expression the third is the level of impression, the perception and interpretation of behavior by another. Since a discovery on one of these levels establishes a presumption that the phenomenon in question has some counterpart on the other levels, T problem which is elusive on one plane may often be more expediently attacked on another. This is the motive and, the plan behind the present study. Instead of approach ing the difficult problem of consistency or organization in personality through a study of inner dispositions which, of course, can only be known indirectly through tests and scales, we have chosen to refer the problem to the level of expressive movement and there to examine it in a more direct fashion. Besides being expedient, this policy of referring knotty problems of personality to the field of expression has con siderable theoretical justification. Unless we accept the epistemology of intuitionism, we are forced to regard our judgments of personality as inferential constructs based upon our sensory perception of expression and to as sume that it is only through our perceptionsof the physical bodies, speech, or gesture of our associates that we derive any knowledge of their natures From this point of view the direct study of expression is the most natural possible approach to the study of personality. ri INTKODUCTION This statement is not intended to imply that the prob lem of expressive movement is coextensive with the prob lem of personality. There are innumerable questions con cerning the dispositions that lie behind movement and the effect of this movement upon observers. It would be misleading, for example, to claim that whatever con sistency we may find in expression must have an exact counterpart in the latent dispositions of personality or in the perceptions or impressions of others. Kohler 89 pp. 261 ff, and Ichheiser 76, 77 have shown that the problem qf the interrelation of these three levels is very intricate although each in itself shows a certain struc tured quality, the central, the motor, and the phenomenal organizations may not strictly correspond. Ichheiser be lieves, for example, that there is much greater unity in the impressions gained from a persons acts than there is among the acts themselves, and he gives reasons why the ethical dispositional self and the aesthetic expressed self may likewise be at variance. Hence, in approaching consistency from the side of ex pression, we cannot claim to cover in full the problem of organization of personality. Consistency may be, and actually has been, studied on both the other levels. Re search on the internal consistency of attitude scales and tests for traits attack the problem from the point of view of inner JJ dispositions. The experiments of Wolff and Arnheim cf. pp. 11-15 study unity from theside of impression. A synthesis of all these approaches would contribute much to an understanding of the nature of organization in personality, but in the present preliminary state of research, investigators may be excused for pre ferring to confine themselves to one level. Jhe failure of experimenters and writers, however, to recognize other levels than the one on which they work, often leads to INTRODUCTION vii restricted and inadequate definitions of personality...