ABSTRACT
IN the study of the psychological integration of the personality, attention was drawn to the constitution of the sentiments, with the self-regarding sentiment as the dominant and controlling influence. These sentiments may, or may not be permanent, and may wax and wane, according to changed circumstances in the environment. A sentiment has been defined as the organization of a series of dispositions in relation to an object, and the best examples of sentiments are those of love and hate. The organization in the case of love is so constituted that the object of the sentiment is continually benefited by the resulting behaviour. On the other hand, in the case of hate all behaviour is to the detriment of the object. From the teleological standpoint, therefore, these two sentiments are diametrically opposed. Yet, according to the principle of ambivalence of the emotions, enunciated by Freud and referred to in Chapter IX, the same object may be loved and hated alternately; indeed, it would seem that in some cases the two sentiments were in operation almost coincidently. Again it is a familiar observation that the object of a sentiment of love or hate may change with bewildering rapidity with some people, so that they are on with the new love almost before they are off with the old. Thus it is evident, that not only may the group of emotional dispositions, organized in relation to an object, rapidly change, but also the object may change in relation to the emotional disposition. The dissociated personality exemplifies this mutability of the sentiments in an exaggerated degree, but a study of such personalities serves to illustrate an important feature in the normal. For example, consider the possibilities of dissociation within the self-regarding sentiment, which is the organization of the emotional dispositions in relation to the ego and its reactions with the environment. This
sentiment is a late development as McDougall1 points out, for “the conception of a self must have reference to other selves”; it is only by comparison with other beings that the ego can be appreciated as a unity different from the rest. Consequently, like all recently acquired functions, it tends to be instable and easily modified. Further this self-regarding sentiment largely depends for its constitution on the experiences which have been enjoyed in the past, as Prince2 has pointed out, both in respect to their influence in moulding the ego, and in so far as the ego makes reflective judgments on these experiences.
