The abilities of man : their nature and measurement / [Charles Edward Spearman].

  • Spearman, C. (Charles), 1863-1945.
Date:
1927
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The abilities of man : their nature and measurement / [Charles Edward Spearman]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    54/472 (page 42)
    Usually, we are here dealing with those individual differ- ences to which the name of “ types ” has often been applied. Trait of perseveration. Of great suggestive value has been the work of G. E. Muller on what he called perseveration. This he defined to be the tendency which every idea has, after having once occurred, “ to remount into consciousness spontaneously.” 1 The phenomena actually recorded by him derive only from his experiments in memorizing syllables. But so im- pressed does he seem to have been that—contrary to his usual cautiousness—he ventures to generalize over the whole region of thought and even action. He writes : “ Consistency of thought and action that extends beyond the immediately given is based to an essential degree upon perseveration. ... It is easy to see that individuals with strong perseveration will not be rightly placed in a vocation which needs a quick and frequent change of attention or a rapid disposal of numerous and quite different businesses.” 2 Subjective and objective types. In the same year, the announcement was made of a notable pair of antitypes, under the respective names of “ subjective ” and “ objec- tive.” These had been discovered by W. Stern during his long and fine investigations in the domain of testimony [Aussage). The subjective type is manifested in : “ the tendency of his description (of pictures) to give above all things himself, to bring to expression his per- sonal relations to the things, his temperamental, voli- tional, and imaginative reactions to them.” As regards the opposite or ” objective ” type, “ characteristic for these persons is the tendency of their descriptions to have a cool matter-of-fact (sachlich) nature, to seek to be just to the object as such.” 3 1 Gedachtnis, Muller and Pilzecker, 1900, ch. iii. 1 Ibidem. 3 Die Intelligenz der Kinder, 1922.