INTEREST (in psychology). Employed in a very wide the influence which objects exert met the attention. An unusual sound interests us. and at the same time attracts our attention. In such a CH..• it is not enrrect to sad t hat 'we at tend be cues' we lire• interested.' if by this we mean that the interest precedes the attention. In strictness. we are interested in it particular oh pet or line of thought only while WV are attend ing to it. Interest is, then, one aspect of atten tion. It is the feeling aspect. To be interested is to have likes which 'feel.' Ilence. an object interests 11,4 when it affects us pleasantly or mi• pleasantly; though it is more usual to Meiotic among interest ing objects only thOSI. which Fleasurable feeling. This explains the fact that, although attention and interest are, in part, identical, interest serves to prolong the stale of attention. If an impression affeets us pleasantly, we tend to retain it in mind, it 'holds the at tention.' This is true to the extent that the greatest voluntary effort to attend may result in failure, unless an intrinsic interest springs up with the state of attention.
The incentives to the arousal of interest are the same as the conditions governing attention (q.v.). The objective conditions include novelty, intensity, duration, and the 'vital' importance of certain impressions (an animal is fascinated by its enemies and its prey; a man is interested in his kind). The subjective condi tions of interest depend upon mental constitolion (q.v.). The is always inter
ested in machinery and the professional man is interested in 'whatever pertains to his profession. Interest is most easily aroused where an object has many relations to past experience; i.e. where it can be brought into contact with knowledge already acquired. The reason is that the feeling which is the essential part of interest is awak ened through the pro•esses of assimilation and through the mood of familiarity (q.v.). This fact is of importance in education. The child cannot learn things entirely new, but only such things as extend and modify his present stock of ideas and feelings. (See AceEnct:cnoN.) Never theless, a correct theory of education goes beyond that which is merely attractive as an excitant of the child's interest. It is essential that lie learn to attend voluntarily, i.e. that he learn to turn toward and fixate objects which do not at tract from the outset. Thus the Mall of science, by virtue of his general 'seientifie interest.' be comes absorbed in those minutest details of natu ral phenomena which to the dilettante are dry and uninteresting.
Consult : Stout, .Inalytical Psychology, vol. i. (London. 1896) ; Human Mind, vol. iii. ih., 1 ti92 ) 1 liiiler. Psyehologie (Vienna. 189i ) Handbook of Psychology, reeling and Will (New York, 1891) : Adams. Herhrrlian PsyehoIugy to Education (Boston. 1898).