DETERMINING TENDENCY. Also called attitude, task (Aufgabe) and is partly synonymous with purpose in its more empiri cal use. Determining tendency was a term introduced by Ach and taken over into English to designate one of the wider influences which control the course of associations and so of thought and action. One ordinarily thinks of the course of thought as controlled by the closeness of the connection between the ele ments of which it is made up, and of these con nections in turn as due to the number of times the two experiences have occurred together in the past, the recency of their appearance to gether, etc. Determining tendency is looked upon as a factor of wider influence, which will make some one or some one class of the pos sible associates more likely to appear than others which are in themselves equally strong or even stronger. Thus if one is given a series of words and asked to speak the first other word that comes to mind each word may call up a number of associates. %/sten') e.g., might suggest ((drink)); lice,' etc. If, however, one has been asked to give the chemi cal composition of the substances named, alone comes to mind; if the request was to name the use of the objects, drinking or washing or other words of that class alone will appear. The request is the determining ten dency.
Determining tendencies are frequently not definite tasks, but are furnished by the knowl edge of the circumstances or situation. One tips one's hat to a male friend when he is with a lady, but only speaks when he is alone. One plays one card in a given situation when one suit is trumps; another under the same circum stances when the trump is different. One strikes one note for a given position when the selection is written in one key and another when the key is different. The awareness of the companion, the knowledge of the trump or of the key constitute in each case the deter mining tendency.
The influence of the wider setting has re cently been given wide vogue, chiefly through the work of the Wiirzburg school. It was noticed as a factor in the control of perception by Pillsbury in 1897, who spoke of it as °atti tudes or ((setting," by Watt in the control of association in 1904, whd called it Aufgabe, was emphasized under the present name by Ach in 1905 as a factor in the control of action and thought, and by Pillsbury again as mood or attitude as one of the conditions of attention in 1906.
The importance of emphasizing the wider controls as opposed to the immediate links which alone were considered by the associationist school is obvious. Were the strength of the mechanical connections alone to be taken into account, we would have no explanation at all of the adaptability and flexibility of human thought and conduct. If one were limited to a single response to a given stimulus or to a single thought in succession to any other thought, act and thinking would alike follow unvarying courses. One's existence would be a continuous treadmill. While we still think of all the successions as made possible by earlier associations, selection of the proper one in accordance with the situation or context in creases the adequacy of the thought and act.
We must look to the nervous interactions for the real explanation of these influences. The determining tendency acts only as it is accompanied by or induces activities in the neurones. In the nervous system an association has as its analogue a connection between neu rone groups induced by simultaneous action at some earlier times. Any neurone group is con nected with several other groups in such a way that it may excite any one of them when it is itself excited. The determining tendency de cides which of these shall be aroused. When a task is set or a wider context is effective, these preliminary stimuli partially arouse larger or smaller groups of neurones. These larger groups will have elements in common with the groups that will be aroused by the other direct stimulus. When this finds one associated group partially aroused, it will completely arouse that one, while the others associated with it will not respond sufficiently to influence consciousness. Possibly, too, the other associ ates may be actually inhibited, prevented from responding at all. More likely there is both a positive and a negative effect. One group of neurones connected with the stimulus is pre pared to respond by partial excitation and the others are blocked or inhibited. While we speak of determining tendency as an influence of task or setting or purpose, these terms are merely descriptive of the antecedents of the act or thought, of the circumstances under which determining tendencies act. The actual cause of the selection is to be found in the preparation for action of a group of cerebral elements by an earlier stimulus.