Page:American Journal of Psychology Volume 21.djvu/247

 exert more influence than they really have. Hence we see that persons with an intelligence complex are usually not natural and unconstrained; that they are always somewhat unnatural and flowery; they show a predilection for complicated foreign words, high sounding quotations, and other intellectual ornaments. In this way they wish to influence their fellow beings, they wish to impress others with their apparent education and intelligence, and thus to compensate for the painful feeling of stupidity. The definition type is closely related to the predicate type, or to express it more precisely, to the predicate type expressing personal judgment (Wertprädikat-typus). For example:


 * flower—pretty;
 * money—convenient;
 * animal—ugly;
 * knife—dangerous;
 * death—ghastly.

In the definition type the intellectual significance of the stimulus word is rendered prominent, while in the predicate type it is its emotional significance. There are predicate types which are altogether overdrawn where there appear reactions like the following:


 * piano—horrible;
 * to sing—heavenly;
 * mother—ardently loved;
 * father—something good, nice, holy.

In the definition type an absolute intellectual make-up is manifested or rather simulated, but here there is a very emotional one. Yet, just as the definition type really conceals a lack of intelligence so the excessive emotional expression conceals or overcompensates an emotional deficiency. This conclusion is very interestingly illustrated by the following discovery:—On investigating the influence of the familiar milieus on the association type it was found that young individuals seldom possess a predicate type, but that on the other hand, the predicate type increases in frequency with the advancing age. In women the increase of the predicate type begins a little after the 40th year, and in men after the 60th. That is the precise time when, owing to the deficiency of sexuality, there actually occurs considerable emotional loss. If a test person evinces a distinct predicate type it may always be inferred that a marked internal emotional deficiency is thereby compensated. Still one cannot reason conversely, namely that an inner emotional deficiency must produce a predicate type, no more than that idiocy directly produces a definition type. A predicate type can also betray itself through the external behavior, as, for example, through a particular affectation, enthusiastic exclamations, an embellished behavior, and the constrained sounding language so often observed in society.