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part activities. Our own view is that they are of the con-
ditioned reflex type and are therefore acquired. The whole
level should receive a far more extended study since the peda-
gogical aspect for parent and teacher is most important. To
dwell for any length of time upon it here is out of place. But
it is believed that the child is often made or broken at just this
stage. One needs only to call attention to the mass of objects that
gets tied up with the fear responses, or the way the eighty-day-old
infant learns to control its attendants by crying and giving way
to rage. We recall these statements made in other connections in
order to emphasize the point here that habits of the type we
shall now consider are not the earliest to develop.

The Nature of Habit. --Any definite mode of acting, either
explicit or implicit in character, not belonging to man's hereditary
equipment, must be looked upon as a habit. It is an individually
acquired or learned act. We have already pointed out that
from the moment of birth the infant when not sleeping is
moving almost ceaselessly the arms, hands, legs, eyes, head,
and indeed the whole body. Stimulate him in any way and
these movements become more frequent and increase in amplitude.
Under the influence of intra-organic stimulation as seen in the
hyperactivity of the smooth-muscle contractions in hunger and
thirst, and especially in the hypersecretion of the ductless glands
in rage, fear and other emotional activity, these movements become
much more numerous. In pain, likewise, the number of move-
ments is increased. It can be maintained from our experimental
work on habit that the autonomic system furnishes the restless
seeking or avoiding movements of the body as a whole which
lead the organism to display the instinctive repertoire out of
which habits are composed. The question as to whether the ex-
teroceptive sense organs (eyes, ears and nose) ever furnish this
initial drive in the absence of autonomic activity is not so easily
answered. It is maintained by psychologists generally that the
moving, the flashing of bright objects, the sounding of noises,
and in general the application of distance receptor stimuli, can
increase the number and amplitude of these initial movements.
It must be remembered, though, that such stimuli arouse the

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Publication Information: Book Title: Psychology: From the Standpoint of a Behaviorist. Contributors: John B. Watson - author. Publisher: J. B. Lippincott. Place of Publication: Philadelphia. Publication Year: 1919. Page Number: 270.
    
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