Activity 4.4 (James Chapters 11 & 14)

Chapter 11

James is elucidating the difference between passive attention, which already holds some non-labored interest, and voluntary attention, which is attention with effort that can only be sustained for a short period of time. The task for teachers then is to grab hold of the students’ voluntary attention and by stimulating the internal interests within it will shift the effort it takes to keep it on the subject matter from being that of work to that of play.

(*Elucidate is the new word that I gained from reading James’ work this week and I just had to try it out.)

                I found, and often do find, my voluntary attention being maxed out or drawn towards other lines of thinking while reading James and other scholarly work. It actually happened within the first paragraph as he’s explaining the difference between to the two types of attention, my thoughts started drifting to other topics. I liked the example he gave of staring at a dot on a piece of paper or a wall and the act of asking questions pertaining to that dot will keep the attention focused on it. If there is no intention as to the importance or necessity of analyzing the dot and becoming more familiar with it, then our attention will stray to something else. What seems to work for me is looking back over the questions that are related to the reading or looking for my own connections. I’m curious to know; did he intentionally mean to do a play on words when he said, “Voluntary attention, in short, is only a momentary affair” (pg. 51)?

                The word ‘change’ tends to carry a lot of animosity and negativity with it, especially in the worlds of romantic relationships and workplace expectations. I’ve been thinking more and more about changing behaviors and how difficult it can be, but that it’s not impossible. One thing that struck me while reading this chapter was “it’s the old in the new that claims the attention, the old with a slightly new turn” (pg. 54). What if change could be presented as just that, a twist on what we already know? The familiar dressed up in different ways. Maybe then it wouldn’t be perceived in such a negative light and elicit such defensiveness. 

Chapter 14

                Apperception is the act of taking something into the mind, be it new or old. Whatever stimulus we are exposed to it gets taken in through our senses, attached to some material that already exists within us, and then brings about a response or reaction. Most new things after the age of 25 is considered to be a disturbance and will most likely be rejected or fought against.

                When I was looking into pursuing a Masters degree in Applied Psychology there were two different options, organizational or mental health counseling. I’d been asked prior to making my decision why I didn’t want to be a counselor. My first reason was because I enjoyed group dynamics too much and preferred to study them in the organizational world rather than in families. The second reason had to do with what James’ describes as ‘old fogyism’ (pg. 78). I can’t tell you how many times people that came to me for advice or perspective on their relational struggles would be 100% on board based on whatever prescriptive method I suggested for them. However, when I saw them at a later date and inquired about said struggles it was as if we never had a conversation, and they had no idea why the problems still existed. It was so frustrating and the temperament that I have does not coincide well with that line of work.

                James talks about apperception having two sides, or different perceptions depending on whose viewing it, and I began to think about absolute threshold. He uses different examples to explain how one person views or perceives something could be completely different than another’s. “Just as a room is neither dark nor light absolutely, but might be dark for a watchmaker’s uses, and yet light enough to eat or play in” (pg. 80). After reading this section I immediately thought of absolute threshold, which is essentially the lowest point in which something can be detected by the senses at least 50% of the time. Does it mean that someone who doesn’t have good hearing can detect the buzz of a mosquito from 5 yards away half the time? No. To me though it does reinforce the idea that not everyone sees and interprets things the same way, they have different thresholds, and sometimes it’s not detected at all. We can’t assume that just because we saw something that everyone else did too, or that if we interpret something a certain way that others will have similar interpretations.