ABSTRACT
The kind of feeling a stimulus evokes is often more dependent on its relation to another, or to a past pattern of experience, than on the specific stimulus itself. The kinds of situation which evoke the same or different feelings vary from child to child, and change quite frequently in any single child, according to his stage of development and experience. The direction of the child’s activity is largely determined by the affective quality of past experience. The acquisition of speech contributes largely to the control of affect. Fears in childhood, like many other emotions, are also acquired from the parents. Small children tend to take over the fears which parents show in various situations, and many irrational fears, such as those of insects and mice, are acquired in this way. The capacity to feel pain would appear on first sight to be inborn, for babies cry when hungry or ill.
