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The following points highlight the eight main postulates to study behaviour of living organism.
1. A human being is a living organism, and his behaviour is quite distinct from that of a physical body or a machine. The behaviour of even the most lovely organism cannot be explained on mechanical principles. Life is self- adjusting, self-maintaining, self-preserving and self-perpetuating. A machine has no such properties. A living organism is autonomous. It preserves itself and its specy. It reproduces. It exhibits a unity in diversity, as there is a system in all its parts.
2. A living organism, and so a man, experiences. It is conscious of what is happening around. A machine does not experience. Behind the experience, there is an experience (the subject of experience) and the environment (the object of experience). Though the western psychologists do not believe in an entity like ‘soul’, the Indian Psychologists talk Atman (the self) as the experience and the universe as the object of experience. The experience does exist, as can be inferred from the fact that there is continuity of all experience, and the same is conserved and modified.
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3. The living organism has an inner drive to act and experience. This inner drive has been explained by philosophers in diverse ways. Bergson called it, ‘Elan Vital’. Freud named it ‘Libido’. Vedic seers called it ‘Kama’ (desire). The universe is mentioned in Vedas as a fulfillment of the inherent desire of the Supreme Soul Sir Percy Nunn names it ‘Horme’. This urge acts in all the living beings in their conscious activities and in their unconscious behaviour. Hence this Horme or life urge is the basis of all human behaviour and experience.
4. A living organism accumulates experiences and consolidates these. It has been observed that each living organism gains new experiences, remembers these and even makes use of these. He has the power of retention and conservation of experience during his life-time. Not only that, the experiences of these whole races is conserved.
Even a worm has the power of conserving its own past. Small bits of experience take the shape of impressions or engrains, and these are stored up to be utilized at the proper time, Nunn named the power of conservation as ‘Mneme’. Our Indian Psychologists mention Sanskaras as the accumulated experiences since ages.
5. Every living being possesses a mental structure which stores the accumulated experiences. The mental structure is a sort of bed for the stream of experience (or stream of consciousness). Behind all experience or behaviour, there is a mental background or structure, which controls it. It is the enduring end growing frame-work of mind.
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It is a part of the living organism. This mental structure has been named diversely. Stout calls it ‘Mental Disposition’. Freudian School calls it, ‘Unconscious’. Indian Psychologists call it Chitta, according to them is the store-house of all the Sanskaras, past and present.
6. Trinity of experience:
There are three main types of experience or modes of being conscious.
These three are:
(i) Cognition,
(ii) Affect, and
(iii) Conation.
Cognition is the knowing experience; Affect is the feeling experience and Conation is the striving experience. These three are not entirely separate.
Each of these includes the remaining two in some measure. In solving a question in the examination hall conation is dominant, but cognition acts to the extent that the candidate knows what he is writing, and affect also exists to the extent that the candidate is overpowered with the feeling that if he is not able to solve, he might fail. If a child sees a bull and is afraid, affect is there in the form of fear. But cognition is there as the child cannot be afraid of a thing without knowing it.
Conation works as soon as the child runs away in fear. Thus these three entities are not mutually exclusive or separate. In fact experience is one, but these are its three aspects, one of which might predominate at a particular moment. Some experience has got greater share of cognition, some of affect and some of conation.
Indian Psychologists call these:
(i) Jnana,
(ii) Ichha or Bhava and
(iii) Karma or Sankalpa.
The intertwining of these three modes of experience is illustrated by the following diagram.
Explanation:
1. Means Cognition,
2. Means Affect, and
3. Means Conation.
Circle A has larger share of conation, hence it is conative experience. Circle B has larger share of affect and hence, it is affective experience. Circle C has larger share of cognition and it is cognitive experience.
7. In the process of mental experience, body and mental structure act together. The relation between the two has been of much philosophical discussion. The Western philosophers or psychologists have not come to one conclusion.
8. A living organism has a desire to exist. Every human being lives and desires to live. His entire life is spent in the process of living and striving to live. Thus all his behaviour and experience spring from a particular purpose. All actions are goal-directed. The goal-directness is described by saying that human behaviour is motivated.
In other words, at the deepest level there is a basic motive to live, and at higher levels, the same basic motive is differentiated into a varied cluster of goals or urges. Our daily actions are determined by our innate tendencies or motives.