Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

William James's views on the science of psychology were as provocative as his observations of psychological and behavioral phenomena. His perspective on psychology as a natural science is reviewed briefly, the concept of "levels" is defined, and several emerging principles illustrating the importance of multilevel integrative research on mind-brain relationships are described. These emerging principles, which are not derived from, but would be at home in, James's Principles of Psychology, are the principle of multiple determinism, the corollary of proximity, the principle of nonadditive determinism, and the principle of reciprocal causation. These principles illustrate how the understanding of social psychological phenomena can inform and be informed by the study of both environmental (situational) and organismic (biological) factors.

This article summarizes the distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description (or knowledge about) put forward by William James in Principles of Psychology. The relevance of this distinction for the Zajonc-Lazarus debate on the primacy of affect versus cognition is considered, and Gibson s ecological theory of perception is invoked to suggest that the initial pickup of events is "filtered" by special-purpose motivational/emotional systems, leading to knowledge by acquaintance of the event. The phenomenon of agnosia is considered as a case of a modality-specific inability to convert knowledge by acquaintance into knowledge by description. From this, a model of the appraisal process is presented in which appraisal is defined as the integration of the knowledge by acqaintance of the event and motivational/emotional responses associated with the event. Subjective experience is considered as the knowledge by acquaintance of the state of certain motivational/emotional systems (feelings and desires), as is spontaneous emotional communication fostering the knowledge by acquaintance of the state of "other minds" via the direct pickup of specific displays.

Most psychologists identify James's theory of emotion with the idea that we experience emotion because we act, for example, feel angry because we strike. Yet, the idea about emotions that was most central to James's psychology was his concept of emotion as feeling. He argued that when consciousness and cognition are without feeling, they are "void of human significance. " James's emphasis on expressive behavior as the source of sensory data for emotion experience inspired the contemporary facial feedback hypothesis of emotion activation. Many emotion theorists can find roots in James's writings, but his emphasis on the significance of feeling in giving meaning and direction to cognition and action has probably had its greatest impact on those who emphasize the motivational features of emotions. Behavioral scientists have overlooked James's conviction that feelings are central to personality and individuality and the best means of explaining the behaviors of everyday life.

William James proposed that emotional behavior is antecedent to emotional experience. The most distinctive empirical implication of James's model is that manipulations of emotional behaviors should lead to corresponding changes in self-reports of emotion. Numerous studies confirm this prediction for manipulations of facial expressions. Although the evidence is more limited, studies involving manipulations of autonomic arousal and instrumental behavior also support James's model Despite support for James's central premise that emotional behavior may be viewed as preceding emotional experience, empirical work suggests the need for refinements of James's model, particularly regarding the processes by which emotional experience is generated. The evidence is more consistent with the view that through a self-perception process individuals "construct" their emotional experience from a variety of sources, including physiological responses, expressive behavior, instrumental behavior, and contextual elements. Furthermore, there is evidence suggesting differences among individuals in the specific sources (i.e., physiological responses, contextual information) that are most critical in this construction process.

James's (1884) emotion theory was a precursor of Schachter's (1964) theoretical stance, the viewpoint that formed the basis of subsequent misattribution research. Schachter accepted the Jamesian notion that emotional experience depends on the perception of one's own bodily changes, but he differed from James in assuming that physiological reactions do not inform the individual of hedonic quality. However, several misattribution researchers have implied that hedonic tone can derive immediately from bodily reactions, thereby mixing Jamesian assumptions with Schachter's standpoint. Several pertinent studies are discussed and accommodated within a modified version of Schachter's theory, one which assumes that internal arousal can provide information concerning both the intensity and evaluative quality of affective experience, and that such internal arousal can precede misattribution. Thus, the proposed modification integrates the views of James and Schachter.

The influence of James's theory of emotions on modern theories of social behavior has been pervasive. Major modifications in Jamesian notions have occurred as a function of methodological, empirical, and theoretical advances in the field of psychology. An expanded but essentially Jamesian arousal-cognition model of arousal-based behaviors is proposed and described briefly. This model takes account of recent advances in psychophysiological research focused on individual differences in stimuli-elicited arousal and the perception of arousal.

William James used a "stream" metaphor to conceptualize the one-in-many-selves paradox. In the ensuing 100 years, seven additional distinctive metaphors have been proposed to describe how the self can be a single entity and yet have different, even contradictory parts. This article presents these metaphors and analyzes the dimensions they highlight. The authors offer a metaphor of self as a galaxy of identities, roles, and schemata that addresses the one-in-many-selves paradox more directly.

William James observed that there was a "selective industry of the mind, " by which he meant that people attend to and define as meaningful those stimuli and experiences that they perceive as personally relevant and as suiting their private interests. James considered "selective industry " to be integral to all basic cognitive processes but to hold a special place with respect to the self system because of its role in the formation of identity and the energization and direction of behavior. In James's discussion of the self, selective industry is manifested as (a) the selection of identities to be valued and invested in and (b) the selective processing of information to support advantaged standing on valued domains. This article discusses major developments in the contemporary psychology of the self that demonstrate and elaborate on these two forms of "industry" and discusses at least one lapse in James's thinking about the self and one of his observations awaiting exploitation.

William James's views on self-seeking, truth, and reality suggest that apparently inconsistent models of self-knowledge acquisition can be reconciled by arguing that strategic "self-seeking, " or self-enhancement, relies on an accuracy-driven self-assessment of capabilities and limitations. This perspective holds promise for reconciling data that suggest that individuals do seek accurate information about the self but also hold biased beliefs about their abilities.

William James, in The Principles of Psychology, proposed three primary facets of the empirical self. the material self (material possessions); the spiritual self, or self as knower; and the social self, as seen by others. This article draws parallels and distinctions between the spiritual self/social self dichotomy introduced by James and the current-day private self/public self dichotomy. It then reviews recent evidence for, and theoretical processes of, the affective components of the private self and public self. A model of self-presentation, suggesting that self-presentation behavior is often systematically aimed toward the regulation of self-affect, is discussed Evidence in support of this model is introduced—namely, that individuals who have negative self-regard use social relations and their "social selves" to enhance their self-concepts.

William James's distinction between the social self and the spiritual self is reflected in contemporary discussions of the public and private selves. This study examined the relationships among four measures of public and private self-processes: self-monitoring, self-consciousness, identity orientation, and exogenic-endogenic orientation. Results supported James's essential distinction between public and private self-processes and showed that the public and private selves are best conceptualized as bidimensional rather than as opposite poles of a single continuum. Furthermore, self-monitoring, as currently measured, appears to be associated primarily with the public self.

William James devoted a chapter of his Principles of Psychology to the nature and function of the will, elaborating several specific means by which individuals engage in willful behavior For James, the self was centrally involved in the will, and "willing" often involved perceiving the end state, or goal, in terms of the self Until quite recently most approaches to the will, intention, and motivation since James have minimized the role of the self This article describes recent conceptions of the self and discusses how these may allow us to refine and extend some of James's notions about the operation of the will. It focuses specifically on the importance of making an intention self-relevant, the ways that the self may allow the person to maintain attention on an intended act, and the process by which the self may control willful behavior. It is argued that further developments in understanding willfulness require thorough analysis of the interdependence between the structure and functioning of the self system and volitional behavior.

William James observed that, within the stream of thought, the ways we think fluctuate as a function of our emotional and physical conditions. Extrapolating from James, we propose that individuals vary along a dimension called levels of thinking. High-level thinking involves thoughts that are self-reflective, demonstrate awareness of emotion, and incorporate a broad perspective. Low-level thinking lacks these properties. Using a stream-of-consciousness methodology, two experiments examined the parameters of level of thinking. Level of thinking is reliably rated, stable over a 2-month interval, and consistent across modality (across writing vs. talking into a microphone). Whereas levels of thinking are positively correlated with measures of negative affectivity, extremes in thinking are linked to indicants of health problems. The second experiment demonstrated that when individuals face uncontrollable noise bursts, they move to lower levels of thinking that preclude awareness of negative emotions. The adaptiveness of thinking on different levels is discussed in terms of James's contributions to our current understanding of health and coping.

Guided by the spirit of William James, a research strategy is outlined for addressing the question whether the motivation to help associated with a devout, intrinsic, end orientation to religion is altruistic or egoistic. Conceptual analysis of the distinction between altruism and subtle forms of egoism suggests two egoistic motives to help that could easily be associated with intrinsic, end religion: (a) avoidance of social and self-punishment in the form of shame or guilt; (b) acquisition of social and self-rewards in the form of praise or esteem. Three research procedures are described that have been used to determine whether the motivation to help associated with intrinsic, end religion is directed toward one of these egoistic goals or whether the motivation is truly altruistic.

Central themes of the symbolic interactionist perspective are identified, and the relationships among such pioneers of this tradition as James, Cooley, Mead, and Dewey are briefly described. It is suggested that James's framework for self theory fits quite well with recent work by both proponents and critics of symbolic interactionism, although his view of the linkage of self to society provides only a small beginning for later work in this area.