Typology and Performance: In Anthropology and Folklore

Altogether folklorists and the psychologist Bartlett have conducted six different demonstration experiments in which the basic issues treated as independent variables were: the structure, length, and impressiveness of the material; the social and cultural conditions of the subjects; the age of the subjects; the time lapse between the recitation of the material and its reproduction by the subjects; and the media used in the transmission of the material to and from the subjects.

1. Structure: Structure was one of the presumed “independent variables” of Anderson’s 1951 demonstration experiment. Anderson recognized the relevance of the structure of the material to the process of learning and remembering: “for text[,] a ... simple ... legend was selected” [151].
2. Length: Length was another presumed “independent variable” in the Anderson experiment of 1951. Anderson perceived the importance of this secondary structural feature to the process of learning and retention and wrote, “for text[,] a ... simple ... legend was selected” [152].
3. Impressiveness: The impressiveness of the tale was a third presumed “independent variable” in Anderson’s 1951 demonstration experiment. Anderson noted that this relative psychological factor, differing from one culture to another, was important to the process of learning and retention, and stated that the “legend” was “very impressive” [153].
4. Subjects: The social and cultural conditions of the subjects were one of the presumed “independent variables” of Bartlett’s demonstration experiment. This demonstration experiment was designed to establish the influence of social and cultural factors on the reproduction of a “... story ... [which] belonged to a level of culture and social environment exceedingly different from those of ... [the] subjects” [154]. Wesselski, Anderson, Ortutay, and Schier chose their “independent variables” on a basis differing from Bartlett’s.
5. Age: The age of the subjects was a presumed “independent variable” of Anderson’s 1951 demonstration experiment. He observed that neither Wesselski’s nor Schier’s subjects were selected according to Von Sydow’s view that “... one should have strictly distinguished between active and passive bearers of traditions!” [155]. Dundes agreed with Anderson’s criticism, stating “Most children are strictly passive bearers as far as Märchen are concerned” [156].
6. Span (time): Time, or “recency” was one of the presumed “independent variables” in both Bartlett’s 1920 demonstration experiments and Anderson’s 1951 demonstration experiment. In comparing the 1951 experiment in Kiel with the 1920’s experiments in Dorpat, Anderson wrote: “the time between listening and writing down was always only 24 hours (whereas in the Dorpat experiment always 3 days ...).” He found that the dependent variable (the result), was very different, for “... the occurring changes still were starker” [157].

Dundes also recognizes the importance of this “independent variable” in the transmission of folklore material: “The time element in particular is critical. Bartlett’s subjects had a half-hour interval between receiving and transmitting; Anderson’s interval was one day” [158].

7. Media: The media used to transmit the material to and from the subjects was an “independent variable” in Schier’s demonstration experiment of 1955. Schier felt that one of the “five most serious sources of error” in Anderson’s experiment was that “The oral rendition is imparted through writing-fixty” [159]. Similarly, Dundes states, “Even non-folklorists know that there is a great difference between the conventions of writing and speaking. One does not write as one speaks, nor does one speak as one writes. Bartlett made quite a point of the amount of rationalization that was added to the test material ... Had the subjects reproduced the tale orally, there may or may not have been the same amount of rationalization” [160].

Had these experiments been conducted according to the psychological criteria for experimentation, all of the so-called “factors” would have been independent variables and the “results” dependent variables.

Definition of learning

Learning is conceptualized as a “... change in performance which occurs under the conditions of practice” [161]. In 1945 Hilgard proposed a more detailed definition, describing learning as “... a process by which an activity originates or is changed through training procedures (whether in laboratory or the natural environment) as distinguished from changes by factors not attributable to training” [162].

• Hilgard rephrased his definition in 1956; stressing the negative aspects of learning which are absent in his 1948 definition: “Learning is the process by which an activity originates or is changed through reacting to an encountered situation, provided that the characteristics of the change in activity cannot be explained on the basis of native response tendencies, maturation, or temporary states of the organism (e.g., fatigue, drugs, etc.) “ [162].

In 1963, Postman verified Hilgard’s 1945 interpretation, stating that “... few investigators are likely to object to the definition offered by Hilgard” [163]. This general agreement is possible because “learning” has been very loosely defined by theorists. Hill observed that “... psychologists use the term “learning” more broadly than it is used in popular speech,” adding, “we can at least note certain phenomena to which the term is or is not applied” [164]. Miller and Dollard state that “Learning” is relevant to phenomena which “... range all the way from the simple, almost reflex, learning of a child to avoid a hot radiator to the complex processes of insight by which a scientist constructs a theory” [165].

Hill outlines the vast field of learned behavior: “In psychological usage, what is learned need not be ‘correct’ or adaptive (we learn bad habits as well as good); need not be conscious or deliberate.” Sometimes we consciously try to learn and practice folklore activities, as in the case of apprenticeship, while on other occasions we realize that we can recollect a legend, joke, or proverb heard casually sometime earlier, or that we can still perform a game, dance, or rites previously witnessed or practiced. We also “... need not involve any overt act (attitudes and emotions [i.e., affect] can be learned as well as knowledge and skills),” in our attitudes towards certain folklore activities. For example, members of a Christian community revere Christan saints (e.g., St. Patrick of Irland), feel cheerful at the sight/(idea) of Santa Clause, and--like members of other communities--hate “villainy,” admire “heroism,” fear ghosts,” and are intolerant of “deception” within the communal circle. Skilled knowledge of folkloric activities can involve a wide range of pursuits: folk medicine and the efficacy of various saints in particular situations; the events of a folktale or sequence of verses in a folksong; the dramatic elements of successful performance (evoking audience participation, accenting certain parts, dramatic pauses); performing a physical activity, such as a folk dance or folk game; manufacturing a folk artifact, such as a basket, musical instrument or earthenware item. “Reactions as diverse as driving a car” or playing a folk game; “remembering a pleasant vacation” or a pleasant tale-telling session; “believing in democracy” or in the existence of ghosts or (monsters), and “disliking one’s boss,” or a boring minstrel, “all present the results of learning” [166].

Miller and Dollard concluded that concerning learning, “Throughout the whole range ... the same fundamental factors seem to be involved, ... These factors are: drive, response, cue and reward” [167]. Most learning theories include two [168] or more of these basic factors, with stress on a particular element or relationship between elements as the fundamental operant in the learning process [169].

Causes of behavior

Studies in learning psychology commonly employ three terms to denote causes of behavior: stimulus, drive, and motivation. Although these terms may appear to be synonyms, they are not interchangeable; over the past fifty years, their meanings have altered so greatly that today each represents a particular aspect of behavior.

Stimulus, drive, motivation

A stimulus is “Any energy change which excites a receptor [170],” or, more simply, “... anything a person can receive through one of his senses [171],” while a drive is “an aroused state of an organism, which motivates action” [172]. A drive can be an extended stimulus, for any stimulus may become strong enough to act as a drive. While a stimulus is simply a state of excitement or arousal a drive is positively compelling. Miller and Dollard define drive as “... a strong stimulus which impels action” [173], and Kimball Young states that “... a drive is a strong stimulus resulting from disequilibrium in the organism which impels it to respond and react” [174]. In folkloric behavior, when a person observes “I feel like singing (telling a joke, or dancing),” he is reacting to a particular stimulus, and when this “feeling like” turns into the actual singing, telling the joke, or dancing, he is responding to a drive.

The term motivation is “exceedingly broad,” and its study being “... a search for the determinants (all determinants) of human and animal activity” [175]. However, the functional aspect of motivation (stimulus, drive, need) causes “deprivation,” “restlessness” [176] and a general state of “disequilibrium” [177].

Social and biological motivation

Following the Hullian learning theory (see note. 53, above), Miller and Dollard distinguish between two classes of motivation: primary or innate, and secondary or acquired.

First: “While any stimulus may become strong enough to act as a drive, certain special classes of stimuli seem to be the primary basis for the greater proportion of motivation. These might be called the primary or innate drives. One of these is pain” [178].

Second: Man, being “active, purposeful, predictive, and capable of controlling his responses” [179], does not satisfy his primary needs as they originally appear but transforms them through “acquired” (cultural and social) factors into needs which are acceptable and satisfiable in the context of his society. Thus, he does not grab the first woman he sees to satisfy his sex drive, nor does he urinate wherever he may happen to be, the moment he feels the drive to relieve his bladder. Every primary drive is altered and practiced within the confines of cultural and social institutions. Thus, Miller and Dollard write:

• The importance of the innate drives is further obscured by social inhibitions [...]. The conditions of society tend, besides obscuring the role of primary drives, to emphasize certain secondary or acquired drives. These secondary drives are acquired on the basis of the primary drives, represent elaborations of them, and serve as a facade behind which the functions of the underlying innate drives are hidden [...].
• Such terms as pride, ambition, and rivalry point to another powerful core of acquired drives. These are probably related to the desire for approval, but are somewhat more generalized and have crystallized into the desire for institutionalized symbols of approval somewhat analogous in function to money [180].

Similarly, in her article “Are Basic Needs Ultimate?” Dorothy Lee writes:

• I believe it is value, not a series of needs, which is at the basis of human behavior. In my opinion ..., the motivation underlying Hopi behavior is value. To the Hopi, there is value in acting as a Hopi within a Hopi situation; there is satisfaction in the situation itself ... [181].

Early psychologists attempted to ascertain the power of the drive-force exerted by social and cultural situations on the individual under particular social and cultural circumstances (cues).

In 1941 Miller and Dollard suggested as probable the concept that social and cultural situations possess a drive-force similar to that of their underlying primary drives. This proposal has since become accepted as a fact, and in 1954 J.B. Rotter presented a psychological theory that classified social learning according to “six major needs”: “recognition-status, protection-dependency, dominance, independence, love-affection, and physical comfort” [182]. Of Rotter’s six major needs, only one - physical comfort - is purely innate, the other five being social and cultural. Later M. Horwitz demonstrated that some “needs” are generated by the social environment, and reported several experiments proving that the social situation is capable of creating motives. According to Cofer and Appley, Horwitz maintains that such social situations possess ... motives as paralleling, for the social or psychological case, such physiological motives or drives as hunger and thirst” [183]. L. Festinger states that “Just as hunger is motivating, cognitive dissonance is motivating. Cognitive dissonance will give rise to activity oriented to reducing or eliminating the dissonance. Successful reduction of dissonance is rewarding in the same sense that eating when one. Is hungry is rewarding” [184]. Muzafer Sherif proposed a classification for “social stimulus situations” using “... ‘stimulus situation’ as a generic term for factors which at a given time are external to the individual, the skin being the usual limit for externality” [186]. As Sherif suggested, “The conception of stimulus situations that has functional significance in social psychology deals with objects and situations in their contextual relationship” [187]. Thus, “The individual experiences and reacts to social objects, persons, groups, cultural items (furniture, tools, words, music, and so on) in terms of meaningful relations prevailing in the characteristic patterning of these stimulus agents.” This concept is not new to folklorists or cultural anthropologists, Malinowski having introduced it as “functionalism” two decades earlier

Finally, Cofer and Appley concluded their study of acquired motives with the statement:

• The hypotheses and findings we reviewed ... were developed to a large extent in the context of drive theory. This is to say that learned motive states, such as fear and anxiety, aggression, and dependency, have been conceived as logically equivalent in status, character, and function to such drives as hunger and thirst [188].

Social motivation in marxist psychology

At the time that social motivation was slowly gaining recognition among social scientists in America, it had already become popular in Europe [189] and was particularly attractive to the Marxist social scientist, who “... conceives of the individual as a product of institutions, whereas the Freudian scheme considers institutions to be the product of individuals.” As a general rule, “The Marxist locates sources of motives in the social structure rather than the individual” [190]. Thus, the origins of folklore are to be found in social and cultural motivation rather than in individual psychological mechanisms and organic factors. Lindesmith and Strauss partly agreed with the Marxist view of social motivation, stating that “There is a certain amount of significance and truth in the idea that [social and cultural conditions] ... are important sources of motivation [191].” They conclude: “The Marxist theory is much too one-sided [192],” because it discards all individual psychological factors, and the “Freudian conception of motivation, which emphasizes unconscious wishes and desires, has serious weaknesses arising mainly from the fact that no theory about the content of the ‘unconscious’ can be proved because the unconscious is, by definition, virtually unknown.” [193]. As a rule, “... gross organic needs ordinarily do not lead to anything but random or restless behavior, and ... merely prepare the organism to respond when an appropriate situation appears and thus to learn rapidly” [194].

The theory of social drive is quite significant for the study of folklore. Assessing “National Folklore Theories, Dorson states that in Russia, “The association of folk tradition with the theme of social protest (which has social motivational function] is not to be shrugged off as simply propaganda.” The importance of social motivation is also reflected in American folklore; “Although labor folklore has received little attention in the United States, the pioneering collections ... reveal enough bitter resentment against harsh working conditions and selfish employers” [195].

Malinowski’s need, drive and function

Although psychological terms for motivation were not used in folklore studies, Malinowski’s influence brought such concepts as the “derivation of cultural needs,” “basic needs and cultural responses,” and “the nature of derived needs” into usage among anthropologists and folklorists. It should be noted that Malinowski used the terms “need” [196] and “drive” synonymously.

• Need” as defined by Malinowski is “... the system of conditions in the human organism, in the cultural setting, and in the relation of both to the natural environment, which is sufficient and necessary for the survival of group and organism (196).

Under the direct influence of Miller [197] - an exponent of Hull’s learning theory - Malinowski developed his theory of needs. It states that there are basic, organic needs that create a state of distress within the organism. The organism must act to reduce the need, eliminate the drive, and restore a state of equilibrium, according to the stimulus-response formula, “Habits ..., learned responses and the foundation, of organization ..., [are developed] to allow the basic need to be satisfied” [198]. According to Bidney, “Malinowski reinterpreted the concept of origin so as to eliminate any association with temporal historical sequences” [199]. Ralph Piddington, appraising this theory, states, “The specific contribution of the theory of needs, is that it emphasizes, at all levels, the biological determinants of cultural activities and so provides a principle of analysis and comparison of universal validity” [200]. This emphasis on biological determinism led to the interpretation of social and cultural institutions as extensions of primary, biological needs, and consequently, the drive-force of primary needs was attributed to social and cultural needs. Thus, Malinowski writes:

• The origins of science, religion, and magic are not to be found in some single idea, corporate belief, or particular superstition; nor yet, in a specific act of an individual or a group. By origins we mean the conditions, primeval and enduring, which determine the occurrence of culturally established response, the conditions which, limited by scientific determinism, define the nature of an act, device, custom, and institution. We mean the establishment of the primary biological need for such organized activities as the search for or production of food, the organization of mating and marriage, the building of houses, the production of clothing ...
• The search for origins thus becomes an analysis of cultural phenomena in relation, on the one hand, to man’s endowments, and on the other, to his relationship to the environment [201].

For Malinowski, “origin” is an analysis of biological and geographic needs (drives) and conditions, and the devices (responses) for their satisfaction: social and cultural institutions and conditions. The function of these devices is the de facto origin, for the original function and present function of an artifact is the same, time not influence function. Timeless, biological conditions are the only factors necessary to the invention (origin) of a social or cultural item: it is universal motivations or primary drives that produce the cultural responses.

Since function and origin are the same, and origin and needs are collateral, motivation, and function are inseparable. In a sense, functions denote drives as much as drives determine functions: this was the basic concept upon which Malinowski formulated his ethnological theory. His primary concern was the integration of parts into a culture. In his examination of Melanesian Culture, Malinowski attempted to show how deeply fairy tales, legends, sacred traditions, and myths affected native life, controlling the individual's moral and social behavior. In Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922), Myth in Primitive Psychology (1926), and Sex and Repression in Savage Society (1927), Malinowski presents his thesis and his collected evidence of the meaning and function, thus establishing the origins of various folklore genres. Malinowski noted that the native distinguishes between types of narratives, the time of year when they are told, and their use. There are the libogowo, which "we would call tradition;" the kukwanebu, or "fairy tales," recited for amusement at specific seasons; the wosi or "various songs;" the vinavina, or "ditties chanted at play or under other special circumstances;" the negwa or yopa, importing 'the magical spells;'" and the lili'u, depicting "myth narratives deeply believed" [202]. Natives perceive these narrative forms in terms of needs (or drives), social, cultural and geographical conditions (cues), and functions (reward, or the reduction of the drive through satisfaction of need).

• Parsons points out that “... even on the basis of learning psychology alone, Malinowski takes up only the one idea of instrumental learning and altogether ignores the possible significance of contiguity learning and classical conditioning.” Parsons, “Malinowski and the Theory of Social Systems,” (203).

Malinowski's theory of primary and secondary drives has repeatedly been attacked [203]. However, it should be pointed out that, despite his oversimplification, the theoretical core of his thesis is, generally, regarded as valid. Anthropologists and sociologists agree with Malinowski's historical assumption. Concerning the early stages of human motivation, Talcott Parsons states: "There is no reason to doubt that the motivation of all secondary drives or derived needs goes back in the genetic history of the individual to the satisfaction of primary drives" [204]. Parsons maintains, however, that "... in mature individuals the 'ultimate' motive for any specific act of learned behaviour must be the continuing satisfaction of a specific primary drive is certainly not an established psychological doctrine" [205]. Although Malinowski attributed all social and cultural behavior to biological primary drives, he was unaware--(nor was Parsons; cf. ante, page 26, n. 62)--of the position of contemporary psychologists who maintain that social and cultural situations, per se, possess a drive-force equal to that of a primary drive. While Malinowski's hypothesis that social and cultural institutions were established to satisfy "primary drives" has not been fully accepted, his concept of the social and cultural drives, per se, has been incorporated into the present psychological view: Social and cultural institutions do possess a drive-force equal to that of primary drives.

• The term “survival” was introduced by Edward Tylor in Primitive Culture (1871). He applied it to “... that great class of facts of processes, customs, opinions, and so forth which have been carried on by force of habit into a new state of society different from that in which they had their original home.” (206a). Thus a survival exists on the principle of “force of habit” rather than on its function. Tylor’s concept of survival influenced folklore scholarship to the extent that Andrew Lang defined “folklore” as “... the study of survivals” in Folklore Record. Malinowski, on the other hand, postulated that survivals in the sense of functionless “cultural fossils” does not exist. “The real harm done by the concept of survival in anthropology consists in that it functions on the one hand as a spurious methodological device in the reconstruction of evolutionary series; and worse than that, it is an effective means of short-circuiting observation in field-work.” (206b).

Folklorists and cultural and social anthropologists alike have adopted Malinowski’s principle of functionalism, without necessarily accepting his biological interpretation. In psychological terms,” function” designates a complex operation with a fixed sequence of collateral phases. In contrast to a “survival” [206], a “functional” element implies a need that gives rise to a drive requiring satisfaction through a particular cultural or social device. Lee stresses the occurrence of behavior as a reaction to the state of deprivation and restlessness that accompanies a need; she writes, “I use the term need in a broad sense, to cover the stimulus-response phrasing of behavior” [207]. Thus “functionalism” simply designates the instrumentality of a certain item in reducing a drive through satisfying a particular need. In application, functionally oriented folklore studies are those that attempt to ascertain the motivations behind folkloric activities.

Motivation and folkloric behavior

In folklore studies, motivation must be divided according to its function into two classes: the informant’s motivation and the operant’s motivation.

1. The informant’s motivation: Most of the research on motivational factors in folklore studies has dealt with the problem of stimulating informants to yield their folkloric knowledge. Some folklorists feel that stumbling onto a motivated, willing informant is “... very much a matter of timing, chance, and circumstances” [208], while others believe that finding the proper informants is a matter of planning, motivating, and responding. Whatever the folklorist’s orientation, he will find, even in the case of “transient collecting” [209], that the informant is motivated by external factors (other than the collector himself).

A motivational factor can be personal psychological gratification, as Sean O’Sullivan remarked in his observation that “The country people seem to realize instinctively that we (folklorists] are doing something important for them” [210]. Similarly, Dorson noted that “illiterate old Trefflé Largenesse sat idly on a porch fronting the main street in town, bursting with content and hungry for visitors” [211].

Monetary payments have been used as incentives to elicit cooperation, Vansina recognizes the difference between drives exerted by genuine, communal social and cultural forces and artificial stimuli created by the collector. Alteration of traditions which may occur “... so that the tradition should fulfill its social function is usually unintentional” [212] and thus are significant to our assessment of the actual value of the item in the society.

Drives created by the payment can lead to intentional distortion because of the informant’s expectancy of reward and his eagerness to tell the collector material which will net him the greatest reward. To combat this tendency, Vansina cautions: “... the amount paid must be reckoned according to the number of hours ... and never according to the quality” [213]; Notes Queries on Anthropology [214] and Piddington [215] offer the same advice.

A gift or non-material aid can present similar obstacles to collecting authentic information as a monetary payment. George Pullen Jackson stated that “collectors and people who want to give something have often to be very sly about it,” and he has resorted to such schemes as carrying “... two or three bags of tobacco ... and [ask] the storyteller [to] relieve him by accepting just a little of it” [216]. Kenneth S. Goldstein divided the informant’s motivation into “Psychological gratification,” “material inducement,” “non-financial assistance,” and “liquor” [217], all of which have been utilized by collectors in the field. Although the psychological principle of stimulus-response (S-R) relationship was not recognized by these fieldworkers as the basic operative force in the collecting process, this principle accounts for the fieldwork phenomena.

2. The operant’s motivation: The operant’s motivation is his everyday behavior as a member of a community in his social and cultural milieu. The solar mythologists regarded folklore as a symbolic representation of (response to) heavenly phenomena, while “Another and rival group beheld in the records of folklore the surviving relics of savage customs and beliefs” [218]. Such early theories ignored the crucial roles of the individual, whose behavior is partially determined by folklore, and of society, whose values reflect folklore as a functional, dynamic class of responses.

Freud interpreted folklore phenomena as a product of the individual and a symbolic projection of the psyche. For Freud, such genres as myth, legends, fairy tales, and jokes were responses to the individual's psychological drives that were denied fulfillment in actual social life because of unfavorable social and cultural conditions (cues). Therefore, the psychological school ascribed the origin and occurrence of folkloric phenomena to wish-fulfillment drives. Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (1905), and (with Oppenheim) Dreams in Folklore (1909), as well as Abraham's Dreams and Myths (1913), Rank's The Myth of the Birth of the Hero (1909), and Das Inzestmotiv in Dichtung und Sage (1912), and, more recently, Warren J. Baker's "The Stereotyped Western Story" [219] (1955), Kenneth Munden’s "A Contribution to the Psychological Understanding to the Origin of the Cowboy and His Myth" [220], (1958), and Boyer's "An Example of Legend Distortion ..." (1964) are studies examining folklore as a response formula to wish-fulfillment. Investigations of non-narrative folklore genres, such as Hedwig Keri's "Ancient Games and Popular Games: Psychological Essay" [221], J.L. Fischer and Marc J. Swartz's "Socio-psychological Aspects of Some Trukese and Ponapean Love Songs" [222] and Israel Zwerling's "The Favorite Jokes in Diagnostic and Therapeutic Interviewing" [223], are also based on the premise that folklore is essentially institutionalized response to psychological drives.

The reduction of folklore to purely psychological motivations has proved unsatisfactory for both folklorists and anthropologists (see ante, page 4). While accepting the relevance of psychological drives, Malinowski and the functionalists introduced social and cultural drives as companion aspects of folklore also worthy of consideration. The functional school thus attributes the rise [and continued existence] of myth, legend, and other narrative folklore genres and beliefs in a given society to logical needs/(drives). Malinowski criticized the psychoanalysts for having “... come at last to teaching that the myth is a daydream of the race, and that we can only explain it by turning our backs upon nature, history, and culture, and diving deep into the dark pools of the subconscious ...” [224] He and other functionalists viewed myth as a living reality; “... it expresses, enhances, and codifies belief; it safeguards and enforces morality; it vouches for the efficiency of ritual and contains practical rules for the guidance of man ...” [225] Accordingly, myth occurs as a response not merely to organic psychological drives but to social and cultural drives as well.

Following Malinowski's precepts, William Bascom ascribed four basic functions to folklore, encompassing psychological, social, and cultural "functions" (drives): "wish-fulfillment," (the only psychological drive in the Freudian tradition accepted by Malinowski)," validating culture," "education," and "social approval" [226]. All of these drives, except for the first, are socio-cultural drives. Studies of non-narrative folklore genres, such as, Kru Proverbs" by Melville J. Herskovits and S. Tagbwe [227], Jabo Proverbs from Liberia by G. Herzog [228] and "The Role of Nigerian Proverbs in a Nigerian Judicial System" by John Messenger [229], as well as studies of folksong, such as "Folksongs as Regulators of Politics" by Betty Wang [230] and American Folksongs of Protest by John Greenway [231], interpret folklore along functionalist lines as a response to social and cultural drives (stimulus-response formula). Having asserted that "functions denote drives as much as drives determine functions," (see ante, page 36) it may be concluded that folklore activities occur as responses to social and cultural, as well as to purely psychological, drives.

Cues and responses

Thus far, we have established the principle that social and cultural situations and objects do possess motivational forces as powerful and effective as those exerted by primary biological drives. We have also established the fact that primary drives are generally satisfied within the social and cultural contexts of society. However, the acquired or primary drive must be perceived by the organism if reactive behavior is to occur: "Without drives, either primary or acquired, the organism does not behave and hence does not learn" [232]. Thus, any sort of behavior - simple or complex, biological or cultural and social - occurs only as a response to a definite drive. To eat, drink, or sleep, or to sing, narrate a tale or dance; to learn and practice folklore material or to repress such material and deny knowledge of it; to believe in mythical and legendary figures and their powers or to disbelieve in their existence: all such activities are not haphazard occurrences, but are responses produced by motivation possessing drive-forces. Hill in Learning states that, for Hull as well as "... for Watson, Guthrie, Thorndike, and Miller, all behavior involves stimulus-response connections. A response is never simply emitted; it is always a response to a stimulus" [233].

Responses and motivations (drives) are closely connected; David K. Berlo, a communication process specialist, states: "We can define the term response in terms of a stimulus. Given an individual who has perceived a stimulus, a response is anything that the individual does as a result of perceiving this stimulus. A response is a reaction of the individual organism to a stimulus, behavior that is elicited by a stimulus" [234]. Responses do not occur in vacuo, but within definite confines. A drive, whether original or acquired, impels the organism to respond to certain "cues," but "Before any given response to a specific cue can be rewarded and learned, this response must occur" [235]. 

A cue is defined by Drever as an “... often obscure, secondary stimulus, which functions as a guide to our response, by way either of perception or of action, to a situation, though it may not itself be discriminated [against]” [236]. In folkloric terms, a child feeling boredom is receiving a stimulus and, if this stimulus grows to a certain intensity, it will become a drive. The child will have to respond to this drive to restore his equilibrium and his response will be elicited by the cues that he perceives in his surroundings: a mother who can tell folktales, a father who is not supposed to tell folktales, a friend with whom he can play, a television or radio which can entertain; times of the day when he is expected to perform or avoid certain activities, and many other factors contribute to the child’s decision of the response which he will make. Cues are always perceived in wholes and, as Kimball Young writes, “... are largely innately [i.e., covertly] determined and the response follows at once” [237].

Miller and Dollard report that cues and stimuli are very closely related, thus they write:

• In general, stimuli may vary quantitatively and qualitatively; any stimulus may be thought of as having a certain drive value, depending on its strength, and a certain cue value, depending on its distinctiveness ... Since drive and cue functions are two different aspects of the same thing, a stimulus, any given stimulus may possess ... an important amount of both functions [238].

Similarly, Kimball Young states:

• The term “cue’ has been used by Hull and others to mean a stimulus that determines how the particular response will occur ... Since both drive and cue have their source in a stimulus, they have much in common. The cue value of a stimulus, however, arises in its distinctiveness, whereas that of the drive, lies in its strength. Nevertheless, under certain circumstances, cues may serve as drives [239].

If a child is accustomed to having his mother tell him folktales at night the mere appearance of the mother at that time will serve as a stimulus for the child to ask for a tale, whereas the appearance of a policeman or milkman at the same time will not be a stimulus for a tale. In the earlier example of the child who is bored, the mother’s presence, in addition to the convenient time and place, will act as cues to determine the type of response he will make. In another instance, if a person feels the need to play music, his response will be limited by the instruments at hand, each of which serves as a cue determining the type of musical sounds he can produce; if there are no musical instruments available, his response may be limited to whistling. On the other hand, a person who can play a certain instrument will feel the drive to play the instrument if it happens to be in front of him.

The key to the role of stimuli, both primary (drives) and secondary (cues), is expressed by Sherif as follows:

• The individual experiences and reacts to social objects, persons, groups, and cultural items (furniture, tools, words, music, and so on) in terms of meaningful relations prevailing in the characteristic patterning of these stimulus agents [240].

Therefore, in a society where social distance is maintained between persons of different ages within a family, a child will not expect his father to tell him a folktale or to joke with him. Similarly, an individual cannot make use of an object unless he knows what it is used for, and a child stimulated by boredom cannot decide to watch television as a possible response unless he is aware of its function.

In the preceding example, the child’s request for a folktale will serve as a stimulus to the person he approaches and if this stimulus is sufficiently strong (insistence, crying) it will become a drive, forcing the mother to react. The mother’s response, in turn, is elicited by the cues surrounding her and the child. If she tells the child a folktale, her telling is a response to the stimulus of the child’s request, and if she refuses, the refusal is a negative response elicited by adverse cues. The mother might, for example, feel that it was not the right time for telling tales (in some rural areas of Egypt it is believed that a folktale told to a child during the day will cause the money of the teller’s father to rust), or she might consider her child too old to listen to folktales, or might feel that watching television or reading a book would be more profitable for him.

In short, as Whiting, Miller, and Dollard point out “The drive impels a person to respond. Cues determine when he will respond, where he will respond, and which response he will make [241].” Thus, the relationship between an individual and a folkloric activity is a “contextual relationship,” where “Emphasis on the relationship of parts within patterned wholes becomes indispensable in the characterization of social-stimulus situations ...” [242]. The activity will be determined by every factor the operant can perceive: the status of the individuals involved, the nature of the folkloric activity involved, the time and place, and the nature of the objects involved.

Social factors and perceiving cues: [Roles and norms]

These evaluations of individuals, objects, and activities can be summed up as the “norm” for the operant’s group, and the two basic social factors involved in the process of perceiving cues are: (1) the role of the individual, and (2) the norms of the group. Roles and norms are interdependent, roles being ascribed to certain individuals according to the social norms of the particular community.

The concept of role is defined by F.L. Bates as “A part of social position consisting of a more or less integrated or related sub-set of social norms which is distinguishable from other sets of norms forming the same position” [243]. Bates would describe the position of the head of a family as a composite of his role as provider, playmate, disciplinarian, spouse, and so on. J.W. Thibaut and H.H. Kelley agreeing with Bates, define role as “... the class of one or more norms that applies to a person’s behavior about some specific external problem or a special class of responses,” and conclude that it is “... apparent that even in the dyad each person may be in several different roles” [244]. Norman M. Brandburn emphasizes the function of expectation in the formation of roles: “A ‘role’ ... is a set of behavioral expectations associated with socially recognized positions such as ‘mother,’ ‘friend,’ ...” [245].

In terms of folkloric behavior, one of the mother's roles is to entertain the youngsters at night, thus keeping them out of adult activities; and the minstrel's role is to sing and perform for the community; it is the role of certain individuals to be the entertainers, of the group rather than other individuals because they belong to a special class of persons, entertainers. Thus, individuals expect particular types of behavior from certain persons, while the same type of behavior would not be expected from others. In certain cultures a child does not ask his mother to tell him a joke and a mother does not ask her child to tell her a Märchen, for this type of activity is not a prescribed aspect of their respective roles; and neither the child nor the mother would ask the father to perform a folk-dance for them at home although he might be the best performer in his own shilla (group, clique--see post, page 164) outside the home.

G. C. Homans defines norms as “... an idea in the mind of the members of a group, an idea that can be put in the form of a statement specifying what the members or other men should do, ought to do, are expected to do, under given circumstances.” The norm’s importance to a group is stressed by the fact that “... any departure of real behavior from the norm is followed by some punishment” [246]. Norms possess a social force which dispenses punishment for deviant behavior and reward for compliant behavior. L. Festinger, S. Schachter and K. Back state that this social force is “... a uniform set of directions which the group induces on the forces which act on the members of the group” [247]. Thus, norms are both abstract ideas and social forces constituting “... a pressure existing between a norm-sender and a norm-receiver’s behavior in a category of recurrent situations” [248].

Turning to norms as they are expressed in folkloric behavior, for example, the norms of an Upper Egyptian peasant community forbid a child to ask his mother to tell him a joke (especially an obscene one), and deviation will induce punishment. Similarly, a man is not permitted to tell Märchen, for the group norms assign this type of activity to women, and his violation of this norm brings about punishment [249]. Every folkloric activity is perceived in terms of its value to the group and the communal norms; roles are assigned to those members who best fulfill the particular requirements of the various positions. The role of tales in influencing social activities where social distance is rigorously maintained among separate social groups, especially between men, and women, and children [249].

Cues are covertly determined

Concerning folklore, cues are the social and cultural conditions that govern folkloric activities and determine folkloric responses. To an operant, every stimulus, (a cue being a secondary stimulus), contributes to the action or behavior which he will make in response to the drive (primary stimulus) motivating him to behave. For example, when a narrator is asked to tell a tale, he will consider the nature of the request, the person who made it, the relationship of this person to himself, the suitability of place and time, the audience, his own physical and mental fitness, and other factors perceivable at the moment of the primary stimulus for narrating. Cues are always perceived in meaningful wholes and “... are largely innately [i.e., covertly] determined and the response follows at once” [250].

Cues and folkloric behavior

For the folklorist or social anthropologist, it is important to determine the presence or absence of social objects and forces functioning as cues and to assess their influence on the operant. However, since cues are covertly determined, their role in social behavior is sometimes difficult to observe at all, much less to determine. An individual who has mastered a good deal of social learning can perceive the stimuli successfully. Cues (secondary stimuli forces) play their role by controlling his social behavior according to the norms and values of his culture. Failure to recognize cues results in improper or inadequate behavior and leads to punishment for deviation. The importance of cues has gained attention in folklore studies in recent years. In 1959, Melville Jacobs criticized both Boas and the Finnish School for diminishing the field of “folklore” to the study of abstract texts rendered lifeless by severing them from their original social and cultural context [251]. He repeated this criticism in 1964 in his presentation of a theoretical pattern for oral literature in cultural anthropology:

• When Boas, that most assiduous collector of precisely recorded anthropological folklore, suggested somewhat weakly about 45 years ago that a folklore collection mirrored the life of a people who had expressed it, he meant only that ethnographic items of technology, economy, social organizations, and religion ...

Boas resembled others in leaving most features of content, style, and connected socio-cultural phenomena untouched by theory [252].

Commenting on Jacobs’ statement, Dorson has written, “In Jacobs’ view, both the Boasian and the Finnish schools have reduced folklore study to an arid descriptivist and mechanical procedure” [253].

Melville J. and Frances S. Herskovits recognized the need for furnishing considerable additional information about the “given” norms and values of alien cultures. They state that their knowledge of such Dahomean cues as “... patterns of family life, economic structure, educational techniques; of aesthetic values, religious concepts, and ritual ... [and] of the political development” all “facilitated” their task in fieldwork [254].

Similarly, Jacobs realized the importance of social and cultural forces on folkloric activities. In The Content and Style of an Oral Literature, Clackamas, Chinook Myths and Tales; he sought to establish the role of these forces (i.e., cues, though he does not use the term or utilize learning theory) in understanding Clackamas narratives. Dorson has noted Jacob’s contribution:

• The most recent and most energetic suggestions for an anthropological theory of folklore came from Jacobs ... He seeks an imaginative advance over the Boas type of literal text which renders the oral literature of tribal cultures so perplexing and distasteful to Western readers. In his presentation of Clackamas narratives, Jacobs enlarges upon the literal text to supply details of cultural reference and nuance understood by a Clackamas audience but entirely lost to a Western reader [255].

The issue involved in this controversy is the perception and interpretation of the cues (social and cultural forces) influencing folkloric behavior. These cues are correctly and successfully perceived by natives because of their social learning and are incorrectly and unsuccessfully perceived by Western observers coming from a different background of social learning. The resultant misunderstanding leads to subsequent misinterpretation of the folkloric responses.

The concept of cues in folklore scholarship

Cues as a psychological factor relevant to the learning process and behavior have been ignored in the study of folklore, although the concept of cues as an operative factor having empirical effects has been discussed by several fieldworkers. Folklorists have long been aware of the influences of social and cultural conditions on the transmission of folklore (i.e., the capacities to teach, to incorporate material into forms transmissible through time and space, and to learn) and on the folklore genres themselves. Folklorists devised hypotheses, and theories concerning the social and cultural setting of folkloric activities from their fieldwork experiences and independent of psychological learning theory. These theories, nonetheless, have psychological significance.

Perhaps the most important analysis and discussion of the concept of cues (social and cultural conditions) is that offered by Dégh [256] in her development of the theory of the “opportunity for narration” in various communities and groups. Dégh is here developing Iouri Sokolov’s suggestion that the folktale satisfies a social need and is practiced only within a social group:

• The tale is essentially a social phenomenon. If one can chant a song for one’s self, and independently of the milieu where one resides, the tale [is] to the contrary[;] the tale is said in loud voice, presupposes an audience for whom it is recited [257].

Along this line, Dégh writes as follows:

• The Märchen arises from a need experienced at a certain developmental stage in human society. It is the circumstances that engender a tale, that form its conception, its shape, and its narrative style; and as long as these circumstances persist, so will the Märchen [258].

There are three basic principles to the cues concept in Dégh’s formula, and all of them have been examined by several folklorists:

Principle 1: A stimulus-response relationship exists between the individual and the Märchen; man feels the need for entertainment and Märchen emerges as a response to satisfy this need. This principle is not limited only to Märchen but applies to every other folklore genre which occurs as a response to stimuli. As postulated by Sokolov and Dégh, the inevitable emergence of the folktale in response to human needs at a particular phase of social and cultural development is a stimulus-cue-response formula.

This same stimulus-cue-response formula has been introduced into cultural studies independently of its psychological learning content and has been adopted by functionalists. William Bascom was the first to apply the functional approach, and hence the stimulus-response formula, to folklore scholarship. The principle that folklore is a response to social and cultural as well as psychological drives has long occupied fieldworkers, for if folklore is elicited by social and cultural motivations and conditions, it must reflect the traits of that milieu. Boas introduced this concept, independent of learning theory, as early as 1891 [259] and developed it further in Tsimshian Mythology [260] and Kwakiutl Culture as Reflected in Mythology [261]. After Boas, the concept evolved in the works of students such as Ruth Benedict, who concluded in her study Zuni Mythology [262] that tales tally with, and yet do not tally with" the culture. Herskovits defined the role of tales in society, stating that "A substantial body of folk-tales is more than the literary expression of a people. It is, in a very real sense, their ethnography which, if systematized by the student, gives a penetrating picture of their way of life" [263].

In their study, “Socio-psychological Aspects of Some Trukese and Ponapean Love Songs,” [264] J.L. Fischer and Marc J. Schwartz explored the possibilities for content analysis and responses elicited by cues and concluded that the content of the songs is following the male-female relationship as provided and formed by the social forces in these two Micronesian subcultures. As Dorson points out, their study also discloses the fact that “The psychological attitudes revealed in the songs are ... genuine and can be traced to anxiety-producing situations in the culture” [265]. In other words, Fischer and Schwartz, through their analysis of empirical phenomena, arrived at the same conclusion as psychological theory: songs are responses elicited by cultural and social cues to the psychological drive of anxiety.

Dégh classifies the “tale-telling communities” into three major groups: “migrant working communities outside the village,” “village work communities,” and “involuntary work communities, which last for a short duration” [266]. Tale-telling in all three groups follows a characteristic pattern: Presence of drive, convenience of cues leading to the traditional response of tale-telling (such as the presence of a narrator and an audience because “There is no such thing as solitary story-telling” [267] and being able to spare the time), and reward. Tale-telling is a rewarding response because it successfully reduces the drive for entertainment or wish fulfillment among these groups.

Principle 2: The conditions under which the Märchen exists and operates in a society determine two major facets of Märchen as a folklore genre.

A. It determines the relationship between the Märchen and the cues necessary for its elicitation as a response to certain motivations. W. Eberhard and Pertev N. Boratav confine Märchen activities to particular social classes, whose economic life limits the possibilities (cues) for entertainment (drive) and the folktale appears as the most convenient response. Eberhard and Boratav observe that “... Märchen are always told in circles of the middle classes or of the poor” [268]. Similarly, Wilhelm Wisser, in his introduction to Plattdeutsche Volksmärchen, states that “For the most part, the persons who narrated to me, belong overwhelmingly to the lowest strata of the population” [269].

Jan De Vries ascribed two separate “functions” to the Märchen: an original function as entertainment, and a wish-fulfillment function developing at a later stage. He postulated that

“The Märchen as a product of a singular culture-phase in aristocratic circles, has so characteristically come to be,” and that it “... was able to maintain itself in its original function for only a short period,” for it has acquired a different function with a change in stimuli. The Märchen now (1954) “... found the way easily to the lowly folk stratum[,] where it acquired an important role as a sort of wishful-poetry” [270]. In other words, Märchen as a folkloric phenomenon originally occurred in response to the entertainment drive under the cues provided by aristocratic society, but today it occurs as a response to the wish-fulfillment drive under the cues provided by the lower social classes.

The historical aspect of change in Märchen’s role in society is also stressed by the psychoanalyst Martin Grotjahn, who wrote:

• The folklore and fairy tales of yesterday take up where the mythology of the ancients left off. They are, as Freud said, the run-down mythology of former times. Today a new form has been found. It is represented by the movies, the funnies’ or comic strips, and most recently by the new art of television, which is the latest stage in this progression [271].

Thus, although human motivation remains the same throughout the stages of social and cultural development, responses differ from age to age as the cues eliciting them change.

B. Cues also determine the form and structure of Märchen. This principle has been accepted both by theorists, such as Stith Thompson, and by fieldworkers, such as Eberhard, and Lord. Thompson attributes the development of the frame story to “Vagabonds [who] often use their narrative ability to secure food and lodging.” Under such a drive and with convenient circumstances “One of the frequent tricks ... is to string out their stories to an inordinate length so that they will last till dinnertime or bedtime.” Moreover, “Sometimes, indeed, the scheme of Scheherazade is successfully employed and the hearer left in suspense until the next day [272].” 

Also, Eberhard noted the influence of the Moslem fasting month of Ramadan on minstrel tales in Turkey: “The structure of narration is influenced by its social function as an evening entertainment. The greatest logical length is the twenty-eight evenings of the Lenten month of Ramadan [273].” The identical influence of Ramadan as a cue is noticeable among the Moslems of Yugoslavia. Lord observed that “... the festival of Ramazan [was] ... a perfect circumstance for the singing of one song during the entire night,” for “... men fast from sunrise to sunset and gather in coffee houses all night long to talk and listen to epic [274].” 

Principle 3: The Märchen exists intact only as long as the favorable conditions exist, and if these conditions change corresponding aspects of Märchen will change accordingly.

As has been pointed out, a “cue” is a “... secondary stimulus, which functions as a guide to our responses” [275] and the term “... ‘cue’ has been used by Hull and others to mean a stimulus that determines how a particular response will occur” [276]. Thus, all social conditions could serve either as stimuli or cues to folkloric activities. The perception of the cue value of an object, person, or situation is not a fixed, mechanical process, but varies from one culture to another and, to a lesser extent, from one person to another within the same culture [277]. Sherif has analyzed the flexible nature of stimuli as follows:

• The conception of stimulus situation that has functional significance in social psychology deals with objects and situations in their contextual relationship. [...] relations among various items, even in simple judgment and perception, are as important as the component items themselves. The psychological significance of any item cannot be determined independently of others which constitute a functional system. [...] The individual experiences and reacts to social objects, persons, groups, and cultural items (furniture, tools, words, music, and so on) in terms of meaningful relations prevailing in the characteristic patterning of these stimulus agents [278].

An engineer, for example, does not derive the same significance from a folktale as a five-year-old child, and similarly, in a peasant community, a long, complex epic does not have the same significance for a five-year-old child that it has for an adult. It follows that whenever the “terms” of these “meaningful relations between the individual and these social objects, groups, [or] cultural items” change, the type and nature of the stimuli-value and cue-value attached to them will also change. Thus, what was acceptable yesterday is rejected today, and those who were deemed respected and desired and had “status” in the community are regarded differently today. Change in attitude because of a change in stimulus-cue value accounts for the appearance and continuity, as well as the vanishing and discontinuity of folkloric activities.

Changing cues and folkloric behavior

As Edward Sapir stated, “Every profound change in the flow of civilization, particularly every change in its economic basis, tends to bring about an unsettling and re-adjustment of cultural values [279].” Folklorists have noted that broad social trends (changes) have altered folkloric activities and phenomena so radically that entire genres vanish from folk life (as in the case of mythical “priestly and literary” traditions in Europe “which have long ceased to enjoy currency,” [280]) or will decline, shrinking in geographical area or in the social group which employs them. Dégh ascribed the recession of folklore in West European countries to a historical phenomenon: “The powerful industrial development in West Europe raised the peasantry into the middle class at an early date, banishing folktales to the circles of small peasants, petty tradesmen, and children” [281]. That is, industrialization not only affected the quantity and quality of material production but also affected social relations, causing cues responsible for eliciting folkloric genres, such as folktales, to disappear. “With the gradual disappearance of collective jobs tales [became] confined more and more to the family circle,” [282] where social conditions (cues) remained unchanged to eliciting tales as responses to the entertainment drive.

Correspondingly, wherever social conditions did not change, the entertainment drive continued to be satisfied through the traditional channels. “The powerful industrial development in West-Europe” forced the folktale’s influence to recede to areas unaffected by industrialization,” ... whereas in the economically backward countries of East-Europe tales were sustained till 1945 by the agricultural proletarians of the capitalist-landowner system whose manner of life was hardly different from that of the cotters and servants of the feudalism,” [283] Lord reported the similar decline and retreat of the Yugoslavian epic tradition to areas where conditions still encouraged its elicitation as a convenient response:

• What we have been describing ... was in existence in Yugoslavia in the 1930s and to an extent still continues ... In the old days, the ruling class of Moslems celebrated the feast of Ramazan in its courts rather than in the Kafana. When the Turkish rule was overthrown, the celebration took place more commonly in the Kafana rather than in private Moslem homes [284].

Likewise, Eberhard noted that the Turkish tradition of minstrelsy “is close to its end” because of changes in the social milieu and that it continues only under traditional conditions [285].

Economic changes have not only affected the social structure of communities but have also altered the traditional roles of the individual, changing his norms and values as he ascends the social scale. Miller and Dollard, observing the function of alcohol in different social classes, state that “If an individual moves from one of these social classes to another, he must change his habits about the use of alcohol.” For example, “If he moves into the lower-middle class from the lower

Social and cultural forces and the process of learning: A concluding statement

In summary, social and cultural forces and learning are interdependent upon one another. Social and cultural forces provide the stimuli that drive the individual to behave, as well as the cues that determine the type of behavior elicited (folkloric response, scientific response). These forces also provide rewards and punishments for the responses, the amount being determined by the value of the reward or the punishment for the individual in his social and cultural milieu.

We have also seen that other laws of learning are determined by social and cultural forces. Whenever a folkloric response is elicited by these forces the principles of repetition and recency affect the learning process. On the other hand, when social and cultural forces are adverse to a folkloric response and the response vanishes for some time, the three processes of loss of learned responses (forgetting, extinction, and inhibition) [286] become pertinent. It will be remembered that forgetting is due to lack of recency and repetition, extinction due to lack of reward, and inhibition to punishment. If extinction and inhibition periods are long enough retention could be affected by forgetting (lack of use or maintenance).

Thus, since social and cultural forces provide: 1) the drive for folkloric behavior, 2) the cues eliciting folkloric responses, 3) the reward and punishment of the folkloric responses and value of models for folkloric behavior, and 4) norms for folkloric behavior - as well as such learning principles as ego-involvement, meaningfulness, recency, and repetition -it is apparent that these forces determine two facets (variables) of the learning process:

1. The material to be learned.
2. The process of learning, as well as the process of losing learned responses.

Whenever social and cultural forces change, the process of learning will change accordingly, thus stamping in new modes of behavior and stamping out the old modes. This “change” in the process of learning is not a change like learning itself, but rather a change occurring in the cultural and social mechanisms which guide the learning process.