Evaluation of the directive state movement

The re-examination of the experiments supporting the directive state hypotheses leaves us in considerable doubt. Many of then, if viewed by themselves, seem to point in the direction of the general thesis, and often in a striking manner. But when problems of control, of interpretation and of variations in other findings are considered, the matter becomes less certain. Let us leave to one side the hypothesis dealing with the effect of personality, since, as earlier noted, it is not a crucial test. Of the 5 remaining experimental prepositions none has succeeded in attaining both universal agreement on the findings and a method that forestalls ambiguities of interpretation.

In the first, though Murphy and his associates found effects of hunger on the number of food responses reported, the results were not supported through the use another method. They were also inconsistent for different periods of deprivation and had to be harmonized through ad hoc hypotheses not subjected to testing in independent experiments.   

In the second preposition, (on the effects of reward and punishment on figure and ground, magnitude of lines and weights, and perceptual speed for rewarded stimuli), though quite a number of experiments gave positive results, one investigation was negative. On the whole this hypothesis seems better supported than most of the others.

In the third preposition, word-value in relation to threshold and other recognition features, Postman, Bruner, and McGinnies found significant difference between valued and non-valued areas of word reference. Other investigators, too, have discovered such differences.

The fourth hypothesis, dimensional accentuation of need-related objects, has four experiments in its favor, but there are three in whole or in part against it.

In the sixth and final preposition, on the hypothesis of perceptual defense, though consistent results have appeared, it has not yet been possible to control completely the disturbing effects of the social environment.

Time differences in reporting crucial and non-crucial words at brief exposures have been found among patients having repressed areas of conflict. These delays of recognition, however, might have been due to avoidance factors operating in some manner other than by a slowing of the perceptual activities per se, and the problem of controlling the experimental-social factor again arises.

    

Through the concept of perceptual defense is coming into common use, experiments are not yet sufficiently controlled to show the meaning of the results obtained. That the subject’s behavior in the perceiving situation is affected is clear, but it is difficult to the sure the effect is truly perceptual.