It is here that what should be called the sociological method of approach becomes necessary, even for the psychologist. While it appears to me perfectly possible to treat the sociological method as, for its own purposes, completely independent, I am not disposed to agree that social psychology may be treated as similarly independent.[1]
One further illustration will make my position still more clear. Dr. Haddon speaks of "that rigid conservatism of the native mind which is the sheet anchor of the ethnographer."[2] But this tendency to preserve is not equally operative upon all kinds of material. Thus, when he is discussing the character of masks from the Papuan Gulf, Haddon points out that their very great variety is due to the facts that (1) the material of which they are made is ready to hand, is very easy to work, and is perishable; and (2) there is a custom to destroy masks soon after the completion of the ceremonies for which they are constructed. The tendency to construct anew, therefore, or to invent, triumphs over the tendency to conserve. But the superiority of the former is not due to anything inherent in the tendency itself, but to the relation of both impulses to the material upon which and to the environment within which, in this instance, they are operative.
The argument should now be clear. In attempting a psychological study of the popular story, we must look first for those fundamental human tendencies which find their expression within such tales. The most important principle directing our search is that the folk tale is a mode of social expression. This will at once lead to a study of the effect of such deep-lying tendencies as those of impressionability, submissiveness and assertiveness in determining the general character of the material dealt
- ↑ Cf. W. H. R. Rivers, Kinship and Social Organisation, London, 1914, Lect. iii., and also The History of Melanesian Society, Cambridge, 1917, vol. ii. chap. i.
- ↑ Op. cit. p. 179.
