Mental Factors of Particular Importance for Juvenile Court Consideration

U NDER this topic we might very well take up for discussion the type of children who get into juvenile courts. We might show from the cases that have been studied by the Bureau of Mental Health and Hygiene of the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare, how important a part is played by the mental make-up of a child in his difficulties of adjustment that lead to his being brought into the juvenile court. Such cases would make it clear that defect in general intelligence and faulty organization of normal general intelligence both play important roles in juvenile anti-social behavior. We might also quote statistics on these points, both for juvenile and adult delinquents. Such a treatment would be both interesting and profitable. Presentation of such cases and such statistics would emphasize the importance of factors in behavior difficulties that can not be too much emphasized. That is why, even though these points have been mentioned many times in connection with discussions of the problems of the juvenile court, I have felt compelled to again mnake a reference to their importance. However, the point upon which I wish to concentrate at this time is of a more general nature. I want to present the significance of a single mental factor that is of very great importance in all the various situations in which living beings find themselves, and yet a factor which is all too frequently left out of account by those who are trying to plan so as to guide human behavior. This factor may be referred to as mental set, neural set, or determining tendency; or, in less technical language, as expectation. The results of the following simple experiment give conclusive evidence of how strongly these sets may affect behavior. A class of psychology students served as the experimental group. The instructor standing before this class said, "I want to see how well you can make size discriminations. I have in my hands two blocks that are almost, but not quite identical. I am going to hold them up in front of you for just a brief moment. During that moment, please decide which of the two blocks is the larger. Is the block in the left hand or the block in the right hand the larger?" The instructor then held up before the class two wooden cubes, identical in size, measuring thirty-six millimeters to a side. Despite the size identity, eighty-eight of the total group of ninety students were so influenced by the set established through the instructor's suggestions that the boxes were of unequal size, that they made the erroneous judgment of one of the two blocks being larger than the other. Each situation to which an individual reacts is met by him with a certain set or expectation. Insofar as we neglect to take this factor into account, we are really failing to understand human behavior-we are frequently expecting people to do things that they can not do because of their sets; we are failing to take steps to establish sets or expectations that might be valuable. But what bearing has this upon juvenile courts? As I look back to conditions as they were before juvenile court procedure came into xistence, and think of the handling of young children who had behaved contrary to the established codes of conduct,