Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/615

 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF RACE-PREJUDICE $97

nated fashion and ornament to a large extent in human society, and this is particularly true in historical times in connection with women, who are both the objects of sexual attention and the exponents of fashion. The white lady uses rice powder and rouge to emphasize her white-and-pink complexion, and the Afri- can lady uses charcoal and fat to enhance the luster of her ebony skin. The most characteristic features of woman the bust and the pelvis are brought into greater prominence by lacing, padding, balloon sleeves, pull-backs, hoop-skirts, and other such like devices ; and the interest in characteristic expressions of femaleness is even carried over from the person to the objects habitually associated with the person, as when the lover shows a fetishistic regard for the pocket handkerchief or the slipper of his mistress. 1 In this connection Hirn remarks :

By exaggerating and accentuating in their own appearance the common qualities of the tribe, the individual males or females have thus created a more and more differentiated tribal type. And the inherited predilections and aversions of the opposite sex have, on the other hand, by continuously influencing positive and negative choice, contributed to the fixing of these types as tribal ideals, not of beauty, but of sexual attractiveness.*

In both of the conditions growing out of reproduction which we have examined we find a significant tendency to single out characteristic signs of personality and attach an emotional value to them. In still another connection, that of co-operative activity, there is a tendency to knit alliances with others ; and here also the attention shows the tendency to fix on character- istic signs and attach emotional values to them. It was pointed out above that the first efforts of the animal to adjust itself to its food environment were on a purely chemical and physical basis, and we find that its first movements toward a combination with other organisms in an associational relation are equally unreflective. This is very well illustrated by the following description of the association of plants and animals growing out of a dearth of water :

A mesquite springs up on the plain ; within two or three years the birds resting in its branches drop the seeds of cacti, some of which, like vines, are

1 The pathological expressions of this interest are well known to the psychiatrist.

2 HIRN, Origins of Art, p. 212.