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vi Psychology: The Science of Who We Are

management, and security. Dr. Stith contributed his expertise in boxed moments throughout the text that are
related to chapter content. We felt this emerging sub-field of psychology would both be of interest to students
and offer timely, real-world examples of psychology at work.

Cross-Cultural Cases
Since the audience of this textbook is primarily American students, we wanted to give them the
opportunity to explore how other cultures relate and respond to elements of psychology. In each chapter,
narratives relating to the chapter material present current events, studies, and cultural aspects that provide
points for further study and discussion.

Review/Reflect/Write
The end of each chapter provides readers an opportunity to assess their recall of the information using both
open-ended questions and multiple-choice questions, and to engage in deeper processing of the information.
The “reflect” questions ask you to engage more deeply with the material as you process your opinions and
feelings regarding the material. These questions will help you to apply the concepts into your life in a
meaningful way. Finally, the “write” questions encourage you to seek out new information, integrate these
findings with course materials, and then write out your thoughts.

Integration with the American Psychological Association Guidelines for

the Undergraduate Major—Version 2.0
In August 2013, the American Psychological Association created a new set of guidelines to help undergraduate
programs prepare students for professional careers in psychology. We were mindful of these guidelines, and
used them as a framework for our decision-making as we shaped this text. The goals outlined by the APA
include:
Goal 1: Knowledge Base in Psychology
Goal 2: Scientific Inquiry and Critical Thinking
Goal 3: Ethical and Social Responsibility in a Diverse World
Goal 4: Communication
Goal 5: Professional Development

As you read this text, you will find these themes appearing throughout the narrative. For example, we discuss
throughout the text the scientific nature of psychology and the importance of asking questions about how the
world works, independent of our perceptions and opinions regarding behavior (Goal 2). Another theme that
you will find in the text is the importance of culture and diversity (Goals 3 and 4). Finally, we have built into
the narrative discussions of the career options available in psychology as well as ways to apply psychology to
whatever professional path you select (Goal 5).

We used what we know about psychology to build a text that facilitates your learning. The success of this
book is determined by the degree to which you are able to use the information from these pages to engage
with the world around you. We hope to convince you that psychology is not just a vibrant and exciting
science, but can also help you achieve your personal goals and improve your relationships.
 Table of Contents 1

TABLE OF CONTENTS
About the Authors v
Preface vi

1 Understanding Psychology 8
What Is Psychology? 10
Psychology Is a Science 10
Psychology Is about the Individual 12
Psychology Is Interested in Interaction 13
Psychology Is the Study of Behavior 14
Breadth of Psychology 16
Major Perspectives of Psychology 16
Structuralism 16
Functionalism 17
Gestalt 17
Behaviorism 17
Psychodynamic theory 18
Humanism 18
Subfields of Psychology 19
A Brief History of Psychology 21
Intellectual Influences on Psychology 21
Wundt’s Laboratory 22
The Expansion of Psychology 24
Psychology Leaves the Laboratory 25
Psychology Today 27
Psychology in Context 29

2 Science of Behavior 32
The Science of Psychology 35
The Scientific Method 36
The Four Goals of Science 39
How Psychologists Study Behavior 40
Behavioral Research Methods 44
Behavioral observation 45
Experimental research 48
Indirect measurements 52
Comparative research 53
Research Ethics 53
Science Is the Foundation of Psychology 56

3 Biopsychology 60
Neural Structure and Function 62
Neural Communication: Electrical Signals 63
Neural Communication: Chemical Signals 64
Drug Effects on the Brain 65
2 Psychology: The Science of Who We Are

The Nervous System 68

Structure and Function of the Brain 70
Middle Brain Structures 71
Emotional Processes in the Brain 74
Autonomic arousal 75
Somatic arousal 76
Cerebral Cortex 79
Occipital lobe 79
Temporal lobe 79
Parietal lobe 80
Frontal lobe 82
Brain Localization 84
Brain Laterality 86
Biopsychology Connections 88

4 Sensation and Perception 92

Light and the Optics of the Human Eye 94
The Retina and Visual Transduction 97
Visual Processing in the Brain 100
Perception of Color 102
Trichromacy: Three primary colors 103
Color opponency 104
Vision: Perception of Motion and Form 107
Gestalt and Perception of Form 108
Depth Perception 110
Perceptual Constancy 112
Hearing: Anatomy and Sound 113
The Nature of Sound 113
The Outer and Middle Ear 116
Auditory transduction in the inner ear 118
From the ear to the brain 119
The Chemical Senses 120
Touch and Pain 123
Sensation, Perception, and Psychology 126

5 Development Through the Life span 130

Three Organizing Questions of Development 132
Nature vs. Nurture 132
Stages vs. Continuity 132
Stability vs. Change 133
Neonatal and Early Childhood Development 133
Life Before Birth 134
The Newborn 135
Cognitive Development and Motor Control 136
Development of Thinking and Memory 137
 Table of Contents 3

Egocentrism and Theory of Mind 139

Social and Emotional Development 140
Self-Concept 143
Effects of Parenting Styles 144
Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood 146
Physical Development 147
Cognitive Development 148
Moral Development 148
Social Development 149
Parent and Peer Relationships 151
Adulthood 152
Physical Changes in Middle Adulthood 153
Physical Changes in Later Adulthood 153
Physical and Mental Health in Adulthood 154
Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease 155
Cognitive Development in Adulthood 155
Social Development in Adulthood 156
Adulthood’s Commitments 157
Love and marriage 157
Parenting 159
Employment 159
Death and Dying 160
Grief and Coping With Loss 160
Well-Being Across the Life Span 162

6 Sexuality and Gender 166

Biological Sex 168
Sex Characteristics 168
Gender 170
Gender Roles and Gender Identity 170
Theories of Gender Role Development 171
Psychodynamic theory 172
Social learning theory 172
Cognitive development theory 173
Gender schema theory 173
Sexuality 174
Human Sexual Behavior 175
Sexual Behavior and Orientation 176
Development of sexual orientation 177
Sexual Dysfunctions and Problems 180
Sexually Transmitted Infections 180
Human Sexuality and Psychology 183

7 Learning and Behavior 186

Behavior Analysis and Behaviorism 188
4 Psychology: The Science of Who We Are

Classical Conditioning 191

The Importance of Pairing 194
The magnitude of the UR 194
The salience of the NS 194
How many times the NS and US have been paired together 194
The time between the presentation of the NS and the US 195
The degree of contingency between the NS and US 196
Extinction of Classical Conditioning 197
Classical Conditioning and Conditioned Emotion 198
Operant Conditioning 200
Operant consequence 202
Positive reinforcer 203
Negative reinforcer 204
Positive and Negative Consequences 204
Punishment 207
Schedules of Reinforcement 210
Intermittent schedules: Ratio and interval 213
Schedule specific response patterns 215
Behavior, Learning, and Psychology 216

8 Consciousness and Sleep 222

What Is Consciousness? 224
Philosophical Background 224
The Easy and Hard Problems of Consciousness 228
Mental Imagery 229
Selective Attention 231
Circadian Rhythms and Sleep 234
Why Do We Sleep? 236
Stages of Sleep 239
Dreaming 241
Altered States of Consciousness 243
Hypnosis 244
Hypnotic analgesia 244
Psychoactive drugs 245
Stimulants and depressants 246
Hallucinogens 247
Marijuana 247
Consciousness and Psychology 248

9 Memory 252
The Model of Memory 254
Sensory Memory 254
Short-Term Memory 256
Working Memory 258
Long-Term Memory: Forgetting 260
Constructive Memory 261
 Table of Contents 5

False Memories 263

Amnesia 265
Physical Storage of Memory 269
Myth #1: There is a Single Place in the Brain Where Each Memory is Stored 269
Myth #2: A Memory is a Faithful Copy of an Experienced Event 270
Distributed Nature of Memory 271
Memory Across Psychology 273

10 Thinking and Intelligence 278

Thinking: Processes and Concepts 280
Mental Concepts 281
Problem Solving 282
Obstacles to problem solving 285
Decision Making 286
Language 289
Defining Intelligence: Theories and Evidence 292
Theories of Intelligence 294
The roots of general intelligence 294
Crystallized and fluid intelligence 295
Multiple intelligences 296
Intelligence Testing 300
Origins of Intelligence Testing 302
IQ: The Intelligence Quotient 305
Intelligence Testing in Work and Life 311
Thinking, Intelligence, and Psychology 312

11 Emotion and Motivation 316

What Is an Emotion? 319
Positive and Negative Affect 321
Theories of Emotion 323
The Basic Emotions 326
Emotions in Context 330
Motivation 330
Biological Theories of Motivation 332
Maslow’s hierarchy theory 333
Evolutionary theories of motivation 333
Reinforcement Theory of Motivation 336
Social Theories of Motivation 337
Motivation in Context 339
Motivation and Emotion 339

12 Personality 344
Personality Defined 346
Views of Personality 346
Biological view 347
6 Psychology: The Science of Who We Are

Trait view 349

Psychodynamic view 353
Structure of mind and personality 353
Personality Development: Freudian Perspectives 356
Behavioral and Cognitive Views 358
Experiential and social influences 358
Humanistic Theories 360
Maslow and self-actualization 360
Rogers & the person-centered perspective 361
Assessment of Personality 362
Personality Across Psychology 364

13 Abnormal Psychology 368

Defining Psychological Disorders 370
Models of Abnormal Behavior 372
The Biological (Medical) Model 372
The Psychological Models 373
The Sociocultural Model 374
The Biopsychosocial Model 374
Classifying Psychological Disorders 375
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) 376
Determining When Behavior Is Disordered 377
The Issue of Labeling 379
Specific Psychological Disorders 381
Schizophrenia Spectrum and Other Psychotic Disorders 382
Causes of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders 383
Bipolar and Related Disorders 383
Causes of bipolar and related disorders 384
Depressive Disorders 385
Major depressive disorder 385
Causes of depressive disorders 386
Anxiety Disorders 386
Panic disorder 387
Causes of anxiety disorders 388
Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders 388
Hoarding disorder 388
Causes of obsessive-compulsive and related disorders 389
Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders 389
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 390
Dissociative Disorders 390
Dissociative identity disorder 391
Feeding and Eating Disorders 392
Anorexia nervosa 392
Bulimia nervosa 393
Causes of feeding and eating disorders 393
Substance-Related and Addictive Disorders 394
 Table of Contents 7

Personality Disorders 396

Causes of personality disorders 397
The Issue of Suicide 397
Abnormal Behavior and the Human Condition 398
14 Therapies 404
History of Therapies 406
Psychosurgery 408
Psychopharmacology 410
Antipsychotic medications 410
Antianxiety medications 411
Antidepressant medications 412
Mood stabilizers 413
Psychopharmacology Considerations 413
Psychotherapy 414
Psychoanalysis and Psychodynamic Therapy 415
Humanistic therapies 416
Behavioral therapies 417
Cognitive behavioral therapies 420
Group and Family Therapies 421
Effectiveness of Psychological Therapies 422
Alternative Therapies 423
Impact of Culture 423
Therapeutic Lifestyle Change 425
Therapy and Psychology 425
15 Social Psychology 430
Attitudes 432
Persuasion: Central and Peripheral Routes 434
Cognitive Dissonance 435
The Psychology of Prejudice 439
Stereotypes 441
Attributions 442
Attributions and biases 444
Behavior and Self-Fulfilling Prophecies 446
Social Norms and Behavioral Influences 448
The Stanford Prison Experiment 449
Obedience to authority 450
Behavioral and obedience research ethics 452
Conformity and influence 452
Social Influence and Helping Behavior 456
Understanding Social Psychology 457

Glossary 461
References 473
Index 489
 1 Understanding
Chapter

Psychology

After reading this chapter, you will be able to answer the following questions:
ƒƒ How is psychology the study of you?
ƒƒ What are the three characteristics of psychology?
ƒƒ How is psychology a science?
ƒƒ What does it mean to say that psychology is an integrative study of behavior?
ƒƒ How do the subfields of psychology help us understand behavior?
ƒƒ What are some of the key events in the early history of psychology?
ƒƒ How did psychology expand from the laboratory to become an applied science?
ƒƒ Where do psychologists work and what do they do?
P
sychology is the scientific study of you. It is the study of how you learned to walk, how
you talk, how you make decisions about what to eat, who to be friends with, and what
types of products to buy. And psychology is so much more. Psychology is also the study
of how you fall in love, why some situations make you scared, and what it is that makes you
intelligent (or not). Psychology helps to understand exceptional moments in your life, such
as when you choose to help someone else or when you are able to overcome challenges. It
also helps us to understand your greatest challenges—such as dealing with your own mental
illness or that of a friend or family member—and your darkest experiences—such as prejudice,
discrimination, hatred, bullying, and conforming to peer or other social pressures. Psychology
truly provides insight into all of the different experiences, thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors that
are part of what it is to be you.

To appreciate how psychology can help you understand who you are, take a moment to think
of what you did, thought, and felt over the past 24 hours. As you think about the number
of different things you did and the experiences that made up your previous day, you will
be making a list of the things psychologists study. For example, think about the last time
you watched television. As you watched your favorite show, sporting event, news program,
or movie, you were engaged in many activities examined by psychologists. As you read the
following paragraphs, consider some—but not all—of the ways a psychologist might study
your television-watching behavior.

As you watched the television, the sensory receptors in your eyes and ears received the
electromagnetic radiation emitted by the television (light) and the molecular motion
produced by movement of the speakers (sound). Once the sensory organs were stimulated
by this environmental information, the neural signals passed to your brain to be processed.
Psychologists interested in sensation, the conversion of real-world energy into a neural
code, and perception, the processing of neural sensory information, study how the sensory
organs, nervous system, and brain are able to receive, encode, transfer, and make sense of the
information in your environment. One of the major challenges in understanding the viewing
of television, computer, and movie screens is comprehending how the brain transforms
the two-dimensional screen image into the perception of a three-dimensional world. This
transformation is a major perceptual challenge, but one that occurs so automatically we
hardly ever stop to think about it.

While psychologists interested in studying

sensation and perception are researching
how you process the sensory information
received as you watch television, a
cognitive psychologist would be more
interested in studying the neural process
that results in you correctly understanding
an actor who says, “You can see the sea
from seat 3C.” Despite all those “sees”
in the same sentence, you are able to
understand that each identical-sounding
 10 Psychology: The Science of Who We Are
psychology
the scientific study of the
behavior of individual
organisms and how
environmental, physiological,
mental, social, and cultural
events influence these
behaviors
“see” has a distinct meaning. Yet another psychologist, a social psychologist, might
analyze your reaction to the aggressive discussion between a male and female character
on the show or investigate how the staged aggression between the actors influences
your behavior in the real world. Another psychologist might study your emotional
reaction to this interaction based on your racial, cultural, or sexual background. Or,
maybe, the psychologists studying your behavior are interested in how your reaction
changes based on the people with you while you watch the television program.
The possible questions raised by your television watching, as identified above, are only
a small sample of the questions psychologists can ask about this behavior. And notice
that they are not exclusive of one another. A psychologist investigating your sensory
experiences and one investigating your social experiences will come up with different
explanations of what is influencing your television watching because they are looking
at what you are doing in different ways. Television watching may seem like a simple
task to you, but the behaviors involved are complex and of great interest to a variety of
psychologists.
With so many questions we can ask about your television watching, imagine what would
happen if we looked at a more complex behavior, such as falling in love, dealing with
a school bully, or handling the loss of a loved one. Highlighting the types of questions
asked by different types of psychologists illustrates just how much about you can be
understood through psychological science.
WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGY?
Defining psychology as the scientific study of what you do captures both the breadth
and focus of psychology, but it is a little too informal for an academic introduction
to the discipline. More formally, we can say that psychology is the scientific study of
individual organisms’ behaviors and how environmental, physiological, mental, social,
and cultural events influence these behaviors. Take a moment to look back at the
definition of psychology, and you will notice that psychology is a complex discipline
with three main characteristics.
1. Psychology is a science.
2. Psychology studies individual behavior.
3. Psychology studies the variables that influence behavior (environment, physiology,
mental processes, social interactions, and cultural practices).
Understanding these three characteristics of psychology is critical to appreciating fully
how psychology can help you understand yourself, your friends and family, and others
in your world.
Psychology Is a Science
A key component of psychology’s definition is that it is a scientific discipline. As a
science, psychology aims to accomplish its goals through systematic observation
and measurement. Psychologists conduct their research using the scientific method
 Chapter One: Understanding Psychology 11

as a framework for exploring the world through developing and testing hypotheses.
Depending on the research question, a psychologist may use many of the same tools as
other scientists, including the same types of technology, methodology, and philosophy.
Similar to other scientists, research psychologists aim to describe, predict, explain, and
control behavior (we will explore this topic more fully in Chapter 2). However, while
psychologists share the same goals as other scientists, their area of study is unique. As
already established, their area of focus is you and what you do. Because your behavior is
so complex and you live in such a complex world, psychologists frequently use methods
and technologies that are distinct from those used by other scientists. For example,
psychologists often rely on surveys and self-reported experiences, two tools that are
rarely employed in the disciplines of physics and chemistry.

While psychology is a science, the majority of psychologists are not interested in

the strictly scientific side of psychology. Instead, a large portion of those who work
in psychology-related fields are interested in how to apply the discoveries made by
psychological researchers. For example, most therapists and counselors are not directly
engaged in research, but they study the work done by research psychologists and apply
it to developing ways to work with their individual clients. In this way, psychological
practice is informed by basic psychological research. At the same time, the challenges
and difficulties experienced by psychological practitioners often generate questions for
the basic scientists to explore. Regardless of whether the psychologist is working on
the production or the application of psychological science, his or her work is driven
by what we know based on our scientific explorations of human behavior (Figure 1.1).

Publish/Report
Psychological Practitioners
Psychological Scientists • Develop technologies
• Conduct research • Work with people/
• Develop theories clients
New problems/questions

1.1 The generation of future research

The connection between psychological science and application.

While psychology uses the basic ideas, technologies, and procedures of science, there
is a challenge in psychology that is unique to the social sciences. Psychology seeks to
understand how people behave, but the psychologists doing the research are themselves
people. This creates major challenges because we all have theories and ideas about why
people do things. In fact, it is very difficult to watch any object in motion without
developing an explanation for why it behaves the way it does. When conducting
psychological research, the explanations psychologists have for how people behave can
interfere with developing a scientific understanding of their behavior. Instead of focusing
on science-driven explanations, people have a tendency to take their observations
and informal explanations and use these to form theories to rationalize other people’s
actions. Sometimes these insights are valid, but often, they fail to accurately explain the
real reasons for behavior.
 12 Psychology: The Science of Who We Are
anthropomorphization
the projecting of human
experience and abilities onto
nonhuman objects
Take a moment and consider how odd it is for the researcher and the research focus to
be the same type of object. If we were geologists studying rock formations, we would
likely not be tempted to project our feelings and experiences onto the rock. However,
as the similarity between us, as the observer, and the object of our study grows,
the tendency to project our feelings, thoughts, and emotions into the situation gets
stronger (the projecting of human experience and abilities onto nonhuman objects is
formally called anthropomorphization). As psychological scientists, we must separate
ourselves carefully and purposefully from the topic of our study. While our experience
can give us insights into behavior, it is essential that we compare these insights with the
outcomes of well-designed scientific studies.
Another major challenge in conducting psychological science lies in the reactivity of
the subject to the study’s demands. Participants in psychological studies are influenced
by the way the study is designed, what happens before the study, and experiences
from their past. Associations between the study and other events, as well as unrelated
experiences (such as traffic, conflicts with coworkers or family members, or the length
of time since the participant last ate) can impact how a participant behaves during
the study. Because of the dynamic nature of human behavior, psychologists must use
different sets of tools and procedures to conduct their research than those we often
think of when we contemplate how and where a scientist works.
As you read this book and other psychological works, you will find some ideas that
confirm your beliefs about human behavior and others that challenge them. When you
find your ideas about behavior challenged, we encourage you to ask yourself, “Why is
this different from what I thought about behavior?” and “Where did my ideas about
how people behave come from?” By developing the habit of asking questions about
what you believe and the origin of those beliefs, you will gain confidence in using
scientific knowledge guide your decisions and actions. A similar set of questions should
be asked about other people’s beliefs about behavior: “Why do they believe this?” and
“Where did their ideas about behavior come from?”
Psychology Is about the Individual
As highlighted by the formal definition of psychology and the introduction to this
chapter, psychology is about the individual: you. Other sciences, such as sociology,
economics, and anthropology focus on how groups of people interact with one another.
Psychology does look at groups, but the focus of these studies is always how the group
influences the individual’s behavior. For example, psychological science has shown that
people tend to take on the characteristics of groups that are important to them, such as
their style of dress, political ideas, and manner of speaking. Psychologists are interested
in understanding why this happens at individual level. Is this tendency to conform
an attempt by the individual to gain support and protection from the group? Does
conformity reflect an attempt by the individual to bolster his or her self-esteem? As we
saw in the television-watching example, these two questions regarding the function of
our conformity behavior are not exclusive of each other, but they could be the focus
 Chapter One: Understanding Psychology 13

of two different lines of study. While much of the psychological literature involves
collecting data from a group of participants, the goal of a psychological study is to
understand how an individual behaves in a given situation and why.

Psychology Is Interested in Interaction

To understand the various influences on individual behavior,
psychologists take an integrative approach. Thanks to the breadth
of psychological research, we now understand that behavior is a Environment
product of many influences. Psychology separates these influences
into five general categories (Figure 1.2):
• Environment: The natural world around the individual, which Physiology Culture
can include illumination, temperature, sounds, weather, air Behavior
quality, and other features
• Physiology: The individual’s biological structure, organ
functions, and genetic makeup Social Mental
• Mental processes: The information-processing systems and Interactions Processes
structures that are part of the individual’s mental capacities
and process sensory information 1.2 The five interacting behavioral influences
• Social interactions: The groups and individuals we interact An integrated view of psychology states that
while we only have one experience of reality, our
with throughout our lives
behavior is simultaneously influenced by our
• Cultural practices: The norms and rules that have been biology, the environment around us, our mental
adopted by the individual’s social group and that have become processes, the people who surround us, and our
cultural norms.
part of the social structure of his or her environment

While we are not aware of all of these different elements’ influences at any given
moment, our behavior is continuously influenced by each of them. It is tempting—
and easier—to think of these influences in isolation, such as occurs in nature/nurture
debates when people wonder whether a particular behavior is inherited (nature) or
learned (nurture), but the belief that one of these influences can act in isolation from
the others is mistaken. All of the aspects of our environment we can detect are part
of the context that influences our behavior. Because we need to understand how all
of the aspects of the environment work together to produce our behavior, we say that
psychology is an integrative study of behavior.

We discussed our tendency to adopt the characteristics of the social group in the
previous section. The degree to which we conform to the characteristics of the group
is influenced by available sources of shelter/protection, our biological susceptibility to
stress, amount of information that needs to be processed, the size of the group, and our
cultural attitudes about the individual’s value compared to the group’s. For scientific
purposes, we may isolate one or two of these influences to better understand how they
impact behavior, but in understanding real world behavior, it is important to remember
that our actions are a product of all of these influences acting together.
14 Psychology: The Science of Who We Are

Concept Recall
1. What is the formal definition of psychology?
2. Why must psychologists and other social scientists be vigilant regarding
their own biases when conducting their research?
3. How does psychology differ from other social sciences, such as
sociology and anthropology?
4. What are the five types of interactions psychologists view as shaping our
behavior?

Psychology Is the Study of Behavior

While psychology is a complex field representing scientists asking a broad range of
questions about you, all psychologists share one thing in common: They focus on
the study of what you do—your behavior. What exactly is behavior? Broadly defined,
behavior is anything that the organism does. Ogden Lindsley, a behavior analyst (a
scientist within a branch of psychology that focuses on the interaction between
behavior and the environment, described in more detail in Chapter 7), defined behavior
as anything that passes the dead person’s test (Lindsley, 1991). According to Lindsley,
a behavior is anything that a dead person cannot do. Can a dead person walk? No.
Can a dead person talk? No. Sing? Think? No and no. So, walking, talking, singing,
and thinking are all behaviors. Table 1.1 gives several examples of both behaviors and
nonbehaviors according to Lindsley’s dead person’s test.

Table 1.1 The dead person’s test

Behavior Nonbehavior

Passes Dead Person’s Test Fails Dead Person’s Test

(Cannot be done by a dead person) (Can be done by a dead person)

Running, walking, playing Not moving

Raising hand before speaking Not talking during class

Sleeping Lying on the ground

Eating fruits and vegetables Not eating foods high in calories or sugar

Awareness of what is and is not behavior is particularly useful when we aim to change
our behavior. People frequently decide that they would like to lose weight, and to meet
this objective, they will set a goal that goes something like this: “I will not eat any
junk food.” Is “not eating junk food” a behavior? Notice that a dead person does not
spend much time eating junk food, so this intention isn’t actually a behavior. Instead,
you will have more success adopting a specific goal, such as eating healthy food or
 Chapter One: Understanding Psychology 15

increasing your daily exercise, both of which are behaviors as neither of these are things
that a corpse can do. As living beings, behavior is what we do, so when trying to change
behavior, we have more success swapping one behavior for another than swapping one
behavior for a nonbehavior.

While eating healthy and exercising are directly observable behaviors, psychologists
focus on the full breadth of what an organism can do. As we look at the complexity of
behavior, we note that behavior ranges from complex, full-body movements—such as
those we would see from a professional dancer—to the microscopic changes that occur
inside a neuron, the cells that make up our nervous system (described in Chapter 3).
To appreciate the range of complexity in our behavior, think again of when you last
watched television. One large-scale behavior you were engaged in was to move your
arm toward the remote, securing the remote with your hand, lifting it, and pressing
the buttons. At the same time, the muscles surrounding the pupil of your eye were
adjusting to the brightness of the scene on the television. On the smallest level, neurons
in your brain were firing in response to the lights and sounds from the television. While
different in size and complexity, all of these behaviors are part of what you do (notice
that a dead person does not do any of these things), and all are important parts of the
experience we call watching television.

Not only do psychologists study behaviors of different size and complexity, but they
also study behaviors that occur outside the organism, such as movement of the limbs,
eye blinking, and talking, as well as the behaviors that occur inside the organism, such
as hormone secretion, changes in neurotransmitter levels, and changes in heart rate.
External, public, easily observable behaviors and internal, private, hard-to-measure
behaviors are part of what the organism does—its behavior. Figure 1.3 illustrates the
relationship between simple and complex behaviors as well as internal versus external
behaviors. All of these behaviors are important parts of understanding how we interact
with the world. Returning once again to the television-watching experience, if we
changed the way you interacted with the remote control, the way your pupils dilated,
Complex

Imagining Professional
your future dancing
Recalling the Changing the channel
“Gettysburg Address” with a remote
Internal External
Changes inside Jumping at an
neurons unexpected sound
Secreting Pupil adjusting to
hormones ambient light

Simple
1.3 Two major dimensions of behavior
Behaviors range from simple to complex, internal to external. Behaviors organisms exhibit
interact to increase the complexity of those behaviors.
 16 Psychology: The Science of Who We Are
perspectives of
psychology
philosophical ways of
thinking about the goals of
psychology and the nature of
human behavior
structuralism
the view that psychology’s
goal should be to identify
and understand the
basic elements of human
experience
Edward B. Titchener
or the neurons that are active as you watch your television show, we would change your
experience. As we think about our experience with the world, it is important to note
that: there are many behaviors occurring both outside and inside as we interact with
the world, and while we are not aware of all of the behaviors we engage in, we use all of
our behaviors to create a single, unified experience of the world.
BREADTH OF PSYCHOLOGY
Everything you do, whether big or small, outside the body or inside your skin, is of
interest to, and studied by, psychologists. Not only are psychologists interested in
everything you do, but they are also interested in all of the places where you engage
in behavior. If there is a place where you could behave, there is a psychologist who
studies the effect of that context on your behavior. For example, the United States space
program employs a large team of psychologists who work on a variety of projects,
including understanding the effect of being in space on behavior. We will discuss many
of the current areas in which psychologists work at the end of the chapter. In order
to understand the breadth of psychology and psychology studies, consider the major
perspectives of the discipline.
Major Perspectives of Psychology
Each subfield of psychology represents a unique focus and set of methodologies
brought to bear on the study of the individual. Although psychologists might identify
themselves as members of one or more particular subfields, their work parallels the
work of psychologists in other disciplines, as psychology strives overall to produce a
broader understanding of human behavior.
Over the years since its founding, psychology has seen the rise and fall of a number
of different perspectives of psychology: philosophical ways of thinking about
psychology’s goals and the nature of human behavior. While there are a number of
different perspectives at any given time, psychology is typically dominated by a
particular perspective at any given moment. Understanding the different perspectives of
psychology is an important step in appreciating modern psychological thought. These
psychological perspectives represent formalized philosophies regarding the primary
goals of psychology as well as specific methodologies for accomplishing those goals.
The six major historical perspectives of psychology are structuralism, functionalism,
gestalt, behaviorism, psychodynamic theory, and humanism.
Structuralism
As the oldest perspective of modern psychology, structuralism suggests that
psychology’s goals should be to: reduce experience to its basic elements, discover the
laws that govern these elements, and connect these elements to physiological conditions
(Schultz & Schultz, 2004). As you can see from these three objectives, structuralism’s
founder, Edward B. Titchener, believed that there are basic components to our
experience, and these components can be organized in a lawful way to produce our
behavior, no matter how complex. Frank J. Landy (1999) described structuralism as “an
 Chapter One: Understanding Psychology 17

attempt to outline the elements of consciousness from the inside out.” Titchener was functionalism
the view that psychology’s
strongly influenced by chemistry’s periodic table of the elements and argued that
goal should be to study how
psychology should similarly strive to identify and understand the basic elements that consciousness and experience
make up our experiences of the world and reduce conscious experience to its most aid in adjusting to the
elementary components (Cummins, 1991). environment

evolutionary
Functionalism psychology
a subfield of psychology
Functionalism asserts that psychology’s goal should be to study how consciousness
that aims to understand the
and experience aid in adjusting to the environment (Schultz & Schultz, 2004). Rather evolutionary pressures that
than focusing on experience itself, as suggested by Titchener, the functionalists shaped behavior and the
believed psychology’s emphasis should be on why we have experiences and what they adaptive function of behavior
accomplish. The functionalists emphasized understanding how mental operations
work, why they work that way, and how they help the organism to survive in its
current environment. Functionalists focused on how mental activities, such as
memory, perception, imagination, and judgment, enable us to evaluate, organize, and
act on experience. William James, considered by many historians to be the father of
American psychology, was the best-known proponent of the functionalist view. Today,
the ideas of functionalism are embodied in the field of evolutionary psychology: a
subfield of psychology that aims to understand the evolutionary pressures that shaped
behavior and the adaptive function of behavior. With its heavy emphasis on how our
behavior adapts to the world around us and what a given behavior’s function is in that
world, functionalism became a strong influence on the development of psychological William James
approaches to solving real-world problems (Landy, 1999).
gestalt
the view that psychology’s goal
Gestalt should be to study experience
The gestalt perspective argues that psychology’s goal should be to study experience as as a whole rather than the sum
of its parts
a whole rather than the sum of its parts. Gestalt psychologists rejected the structuralist
claim that consciousness could be broken down into its elemental components, and behaviorism
instead they claimed human experience is more than the sum of its component parts the view that psychology’s
goal should be to study
(Schultz & Schultz, 2004). A good way to understand the gestalt movement is to directly observable behavior
imagine eating all the ingredients of your favorite food separately. If you particularly and to understand how the
enjoy apple pie, you would likely be disappointed in the experience you would get from events in the environment
eating apple chunks, then sugar, cinnamon, eggs, and butter. You have all the right outside the organism produce
behavior
ingredients, but there is more to a pie than just the ingredients (and you really should
avoid eating raw eggs). Similarly, human experience is not the same if we try to break it
down into just the basic sensory components.

Behaviorism
Behaviorism suggests that psychology’s goal should be to study directly observable
behavior and to understand how the events in the external environment produce
behavior. American psychologist John Watson, who coined the term “behaviorism,”
argued that psychology could not become a science if it continued to focus on
nonobservable, subjective mental experiences. Thus, while structuralism, functionalism,
and gestalt psychology argued about how best to understand the unobservable mental John Watson
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for her the little bright red tartan shawl which just covered her stout
shoulders, but left her arms unincumbered and her hands free. On
the half-paved road before her stood a mill-girl, with whom work was
“slack,” and who had spent a full hour this morning elaborating the
beautiful plaits and braids of her crisped hair. This young lady, with
much gesture and many superlatives, was describing to the busy
little worker an itinerant show which had fixed its temporary quarters
at Port Dundas, wherein there was a giant and a dwarf, a beautiful
lady who danced, and a boy who had pink eyes, and which she
herself was on the way to see; but Maggie clipped and shook her
head, unfolding the web, to show her tempter how much had to be
done before one o’clock, when she must lay it by, to take up the
pitcher with her father’s broth, and carry to him his wholesome
dinner; and when the idler sauntered on, to seek some less
scrupulous companion, Maggie returned to her labour with such
alacrity, that Cuthbert fancied he could almost hear the sound of the
shears, and the loud clear lilt of the “Learig,” to which they kept time.
Yet Maggie McGillivray was only a humble little girl, while Harry
Muir, in his way, was an accomplished man. Cuthbert looked back
upon the young man’s fine intelligent face, on which the proud look
of defiance still lingered, with a sigh of pity and regret—not so would
he have overcome the temptation.
 CHAPTER V.

“She had such a nature,

You would have thought some fairy, ’ware o’ th’ hour,
When out of heaven came a young soul, predestined
For a King’s heir, to make a conqueror of him
Had, by some strange and wondrous art, diverted
The new-born spirit from its proper course,
And hid it in the form of a poor maiden;
Leaving the princely weakling in his cradle,
Shorn of the fate that waited him: the other
Chafing at its caged limits all its days——”

old play.
A self-willed, proud, ambitious woman, with a strong, clear, bold
intellect, a passionate temper, and vehement feelings, Martha Muir
had been born. So much education as she had, tended all to reduce
her to the due humility of poverty and womanhood, but surrounded
always by placid natures, who never fully comprehended the stormy
spirit with which they had to deal, Martha, dwelling alone, and hiding
in her own heart the secret aspirations which no one round her could
have understood, remained as proud, as self-willed, and as
ambitious as she had been born.
For hers were not the hopes and fancies common, as people say,
to youthful women. Advantages of appearance she had never
possessed, and the children who were growing up at her feet
absorbed all the passionate affections of their grave sister; but
Martha’s hopes were visions of unmitigated ambition, eager to work
out for itself a future worthy of its own bold spirit—for it was not of
windfalls, or happy chances, or of fortune to be bestowed on her by
another, but of that ladder “to which the climber upward turns his
face,” that the solitary woman dreamed.
To raise them—these children—to that indefinite rank and honour
which exists in the fancy of the young who are poor—to win for them
exemption from those carking cares amid which her own youth, a
strong plant, had grown green and flourished. Such hopes were
strong in the heart of the passionate girl when people round her
thought her only a child; and when darker necessities came—when
following many little pilgrims, the father and the mother went away,
leaving her the head of the sadly diminished family, her strong
desire, intensified by great grief, possessed her like a fiery
tormenting spirit. She was then a woman of only twenty years, while
Harry was but thirteen; and Martha prayed in an agony for means—
only means, to let her strong energies forth and labour for her
children: but the means never came—how could they? and all she
could do in her passion of ambitious love was to toil day and night for
their bread.
No one of all her friends knew how to deal with Martha—so that her
impatient soul knew no discipline except the inevitable restraints of
poverty, and these, if they humble the pride, are but spurs to the
eager fancy, burning to escape from their power. Through all the
years of romance the wish and hope to do somewhat, had filled
Martha’s mind with visions; but then came those slow, gradual,
steady years, wherein the light of common day began to blot out the
radiant mists of the morning, and as her hopes fell one by one, and
one by one the months lengthened, filled with the tedious labour
which gave such scope for thought, bitterness came in like deep
waters into the fierce heart, which rendered all its strength to that
might of disappointment, and wrestled with itself like a caged eagle.
To find that after aspiring to do all, one can do nothing—that soaring
in fancy into the broad firmament, in the body one must condescend
to all the meanest and smallest cares of daily life—to dream of
unknown heights to be attained, and to find instead that by the slow
toil of every long uninteresting day one must labour for daily bread—
it is not wonderful that the awaking was bitter; and all the more,
because in both the dream and the awaking she was
uncomprehended and alone.
They all lay dead these hopes of her strange solitary youth—but as
they died others rose. This boy, in whom the young beautiful life rose
with a grace which she knew it never had in herself—what might he
not do? and so she set herself to train him. The old lore that is in all
hearts, of the brave and of the great, the histories of Scripture, which
live for ever; all that God has recorded for us of his servants’ stout
lives, and much that men have written in lesser records. The lonely
young woman, feeling herself grave and old among her neighbours,
poured all her vehement heart into the glowing intelligence of the
boy. She began to think it well that those chimeras of her own had
fallen like withered leaves to enrich the soil—and in him should be
the glorious spring.
How was it now? The deep red flush which sometimes burned on
Martha’s cheek, the anger which only one of so dear regard could
awaken, and sadder still, the utter heaviness with which her heart
sank in the rebound, proclaimed the end of her second harvest. The
first time she had sowed in proud wilfulness—it was meet she should
reap disappointment; but the second seed-time had been in hope
more Christianlike, and with strong crying for the sunshine and the
dew—the wonderful sunshine and dew of high heaven, which had
never fallen upon her seed.
It seemed that her fate had been born with her. The proud and
passionate temper to be thwarted and crossed at every turn—the
vehement ambitious mind, to be disgraced and humbled—and with
those arrows in her heart, she was now fighting with herself a greater
fight than she had ever hazarded before, subduing herself to herself,
and to the Higher One, who thus painfully had brought back the rebel
soul to His allegiance. It was hard to subdue the old passion—the
old pride—but she had begun to sanctify her contest now, when it
had come to the bitterest.
No other trial could have been so hard to her as this; it struck at her
very life. Misfortunes against which she could struggle would have
been happy discipline to Martha, but to look on helplessly while
these elements of ruin were developing in the life of her brother; to
stand by and see him fall lower and lower into the poor and petty
sins which she despised—to watch the slow coming of disgrace and
wretchedness which she could not lift a finger to avert—who can
wonder that the proud spirit was chafed into passions of fierce anger
sometimes, and sometimes into very despair; but Martha never
spoke of what she suffered—she only said “Poor Harry!”
“Shall I read my uncle’s letter now?” asked Rose, when Cuthbert
was gone.
“Surely,” said Harry, whom some slight incident had restored to
perfect good-humour. “Surely, Rosie, let us hear what the old man
says.”
“I write this to let you know that I am quite well,” read
Rose, “though a little troubled with the rheumatism in my
right arm, which always comes on about the turn of the
year, as you will all mind; and I am very sorry to hear of
Harry’s accident; but there is less matter for lamentation, it
being gotten in a good way, as I have no doubt Martha will
mind. The town crier, Sandy Proudfoot, broke his leg at
Hogmanay, and it’s never mended yet; but I cannot see
what better the daidling body had to expect, it being a
thing well known, that when the accident was gotten, he
was as he should not have been, which is a great comfort
in respect of Harry. I hope all the rest of you are well and
doing well, and desire to see some of you at Ayr as soon
as ever it can be made convenient. If Violet is inclined to
be delicate, send her out to me for a change. The guard of
the coach would take good care of her, and I will pay her
passage myself. I hope she is minding her lessons and
learning to help the rest with the opening, and that Rose is
eident, as the cottar says, and minds her duty duly, and
that Harry is steady and ’grees with his wife. As for
Martha, seeing she knows what is right, better than I can
tell her, I have nothing to say, but that I hope she keeps up
to the mark, which she knows, and has her own judgment
in her favour—of which, if she is sure, I know she will be
 feared for no other in the world. And so I remain, my dear
bairns, your affectionate uncle—Alexander Muir.”
“What do you say, Agnes,” said Harry, “do we agree?”
The little wife smiled. “When you behave yourself, Harry,” she said,
laying her child in the cradle.
“If we could manage it,” said Martha, “when Harry is able to walk,
Agnes, I think you should go down together to see my uncle. You
have never been in Ayr.”
Agnes looked up brightly. “And I should like so well to go; and it
would do Harry so much good. But then, Martha, how can we afford
it?”
Harry winced visibly. Some debts of his own, recklessly and
foolishly incurred, had made the long-projected journey to Ayr
impracticable a year ago; the fifteen pounds could do so little more
than provide for the bare wants of the quarter; and yet again there
were other debts waiting for the next payment of salary. Poor Harry!
“I have been thinking,” said Martha, quietly; “I see how we can
manage, Agnes; we shall only work the more busily, Rose and I,
while you are away, and Harry will be the better of it. I see how we
can do it. It will do Harry good to see my uncle and the little quiet
house again.”
Harry felt that there was meaning in her voice. To dwell again under
the humble roof where all her hopes for his young life had risen;
where she had nursed and tended the dawning mind within him, and
laboured to lift his eyes, and teach him to look upward bravely, like a
young eagle to the sun. Alas, poor Harry! For this revival of the
unstained hopes of youth, Martha was willing to toil all the harder at
her tedious unceasing toil; and he felt, almost for the first time, how
hopeless these hopes were. How different were his expectations and
hers.
“It is a shame,” he said, abruptly, “for a rich man like Buchanan to
keep us down so. We require a little relaxation, a little ease, as well
as them; and I should like to know how it is possible we can get it on
sixty pounds a year?”
 “Peter McGillivray has only fourteen shillings a week,” said Rose.
“And what then?”
“He keeps a family on it, Harry; at least his wife does; but then she
is very thrifty.”
“Thrifty! nonsense. Is not Agnes thrifty too? You are a foolish girl,
Rose,” said her brother; “you think a few shillings is a great fortune.
There now, a pound or two would take us comfortably down to my
uncle’s; but how can we spare that, off the pittance they give me.”
Yet Harry remembered that his own private expenses—the little
debts of which his wife and sister knew nothing—amounted to more
than that needful pound or two, and the remembrance brought a
flush to his face and made him angry.
“There is a meanness attends this mercantile wealth,” he exclaimed
hastily; “a want of thought and consideration of others. What are we
clerks but the stuff these masters of ours are made of? and yet how
they keep us down.”
“They were themselves kept down, and overcame it,” said Martha.
“Well, it is not a very noble art, the art of making money,” said Harry,
with assumed carelessness. “Dick Buchanan and the rest of them
are shallow fellows in spite of it all. And their father—he has made a
fortune—but the honest man is no genius.”
“But it is a noble art to refuse to be kept down,” said the ambitious
Martha, with a kindling of her eye. “I am ashamed to think that Mr.
Buchanan or any other ordinary person, can keep down my brother;
and he cannot, Harry. You have less perhaps than you ought to have
now, but win more; that is your refuge. And don’t let us throw the
responsibility on other people. We have only to answer for
ourselves.”
“Well, Martha,” said Harry, looking up, “we have not much of the
mammon of unrighteousness to answer for. I will tell my uncle you
have grown charitable; that is, if it be at all possible to get to Ayr.”
“What do you think, Martha?” said Agnes, with some solicitude in
her face.
 “You must go; that is all,” said Martha.
The little wife was by no means self-opinionated. She had a great
reverence for, and faith in, the decrees of Martha, and knew that
what her grave sister resolved would be accomplished “some way,”
so she returned pleasantly to the cradle.
“And I don’t want to go, Martha,” whispered little Violet, desiring to
have her sacrifice appreciated. “My uncle will give the money to
Agnes, and I will stay at home and help you to open.”
“But you would like to go, Lettie?” said Rose.
“No; I would rather stay at home with Martha and you. I think,
Martha,” whispered Violet again, “that it will be fine to be our lane
just for a wee while—when Agnes is with Harry.”
In the elder mind there was a response to the child’s thought—To
know that Harry was safe, with the good uncle, and the anxious little
wife to guard him, while yet they themselves were left a little while
alone, freed from their constant anxiety, to rest and take breath for
the future which remained, with all its unknown cares, before them.
There was something in the thought which gave Martha relief, and
yet oppressed her with a heavier sadness; but Agnes was already
gay in anticipation, and eagerly discussing what she should take of
her little wardrobe, and how many frocks for baby Harry—for Agnes
was still only a girl, and the unusual pleasure filled her with
wholesome natural delight—a good and happy contagion which soon
spread itself in softened degrees over all the rest.
 CHAPTER VI.

“He left me, wi’ his deein’ breath,

A dwelling-house, and a’ that.”

old song.
“I want a next of kin, Charteris,” said an Edinburgh W. S., entering
the little office where Cuthbert sat, solemnly considering the
morning’s paper, opposite an elbow-chair, which had very seldom
been honoured by the presence of a client. “I want a next of kin, and
I can’t tell where to find him.”
The speaker was a young man about Cuthbert’s own age, who like
himself had newly begun to encounter on his own behalf the cares
and responsibilities of business. They had come together through
the training of the High School and College, and now were great
friends and allies, furthering each others progress, by all means in
their power.
“Advertise,” said the laconic Cuthbert, from behind the folds of his
newspaper.
“Oh, oracle!” answered Mr. David Lindsay, throwing down a black
crumpled “Times,” which struck upon the fair broadsheet of “The
Scotsman,” and compelled the reader’s attention. “And suppose I
have advertised, and failed—what then?”
“It’s a cold day, Davie,” responded the learned advocate. “Sit down,
Lord Lion, and tell me all about it.”
“I say, Cuthbert, there’s a story,” said the W.S., mysteriously.
Cuthbert stirred the fire, and prepared to listen.
“Up near the links of Forth, there is a gray old house called
Allenders,” said Lindsay, with some importance, “and in the house
there dwells a family as your penetration will guess—or rather, dwelt
a family—for they are now extinguished—Allenders of Allenders—
and between four and five hundred a-year; now that’s what I want a
man for, Cuthbert.”
“Between four and five hundred a-year,” repeated Cuthbert gravely.
“I would take it myself, to oblige you, Davie.”
“Thank you—I could get lots,” said the representative of the poet
King-at-Arms. “But the right man, Charteris—by-the-bye, I should
say the right woman—the right two women—where to lay my hands
on them!—”
“So the heir is extant after all,” said Cuthbert; “you know that, do
you?”
“Wait a little, and I’ll tell you what I know. They have always been a
highly respectable family, these Allenders, mind, and you know what
that means; comfortable, slow, common-sense folk, with no hair-
brained sentimental traces about them. Well! the last father of them
had seven sons—there was no appearance of a lack of heirs then—
and one of the sons, the third or fourth I think, took it into his head to
be a—what is your newest philosophical name for it—the Allenders
said a sentimental fool—which means, you know, that he married
somebody.”
“I beg to assure you that there is no sort of philosophy in that
achievement, Lion,” said Cuthbert.
“Don’t interrupt me, Charteris—why, man, a romantic episode in the
history of a dull family is a treasure. This son—his name was John—
everybody’s name is John—married some poor girl or other in
Stirling; and thereupon followed a regular tragic disowning of the
refractory son. The good people were startled out of their propriety;
never an Allenders had been known before, to do anything out of the
ordinary jog-trot, and the example of his daring aroused his father
and his brethren. They cast him out—they banished him from the
paternal countenance, and from all hope of ever inheriting the
paternal acres, and so left him to seek his fortune, as he best could.
That was seventy years ago.”
 “Seventy years! why, the man must be dead,” said Charteris.
“Very possibly. It does not concern me that,” said Lindsay. “Well,
Charteris, this sentimental John got some sort of situation in Stirling,
and was by no means annihilated by the family ban. He throve and
multiplied for a few years—then his wife died suddenly, leaving him
with two daughters, and then he disappeared.
Where he went to, there is not the least clue. The man was half
mad with grief, I suppose. It was said he was going to England—and
it was said he was going to America. It seems quite impossible to
discover—every trace of him is gone. And now all the seven sons
are exhausted; after all, it must be best to be stagnant, Charteris—
for see you, whenever this romance stepped in among the decent
people, what a blight it brought upon them. Four of them died
unmarried—other two had children who have grown old and died
during the lingering lifetime of the last proprietor. He was a childless
widower—and now the old man has gone too; and where am I to get
those heirs?”
“Did he know nothing of them,” said Cuthbert.
“Nothing; he died very old—upwards of ninety—and his senses
failed him; but his memory seems to have turned with a strange kind
of affection to this poor sentimental lost John. There are some far
away cousins who would claim as heirs, but the old laird left a will,
ordaining that search should be first made for the children of John
Allenders—children! they will not be quite youthful now.”
“And there is no trace?” said Cuthbert.
“None, but a rather fantastic one,” said Lindsay, smiling. “The
favourite female name of the Allenders’ family was Violet—old
Allenders thought it certain that one of those children would be called
Violet—and their mother’s name was Rose. What’s the matter,
Cuthbert?”
“Strange!” said Cuthbert, looking up, with a start. “Why, I met a
family in Glasgow, last month, in which there were both these
names.”
 “Ay—where? what’s their name? who are they?” said Lindsay
eagerly.
“Their name is Muir—they are rather a noticeable family in many
respects,” said Cuthbert, with a little hesitation; “but so far as
pecuniary matters go, very humble people. Could it be? Rose and
Violet—there can be no mistake about the names. I’ll tell you what,
Lindsay, I’ll go through, myself, to the west, and find it out.”
“Many thanks. I had no idea you took so much interest in these
professional investigations,” said Lindsay, with some curiosity, “I
think it is more in my department than yours, Cuthbert.”
“You don’t know them, Davie—you’re an alien and a foreigner, and
an east countryman—whereas my mother is a Buchanan! I am free
of the city, Lion, and then, I know the Muirs.”
“Well, Cuthbert, you know your own secrets, I suppose,” said
Lindsay, laughing, “and whether all this is pure professional zeal, or
no, I won’t inquire; but as for your rubbish about east countrymen,
you don’t mean me to believe that, you know. Of course, if you are
acquainted with the family, that is a great matter. But mind, be
cautious!”
“Look at ‘The Scotsman,’ Davie,” said Cuthbert, “and keep silence,
while I read your advertisement. There now, be quiet.”
Two stories up in the honourable locality of York Place, lived
Cuthbert’s mother. They were not very rich, certainly, but the old lady
had a sufficient portion of the means of comfort, to prove her a
Buchanan. She was a little, brisk, active woman, under whose
management everything became plentiful. It was not an economical
propensity, but, refined and somewhat elegant though Mrs.
Charteris’ own individual tastes were, it was an indispensable thing
with her that there should be “routh” in her house. So there were
dependants hanging about her door at all times, and stores of bread
and broken meat dispensed to all comers. Mrs. Charteris had
unlimited faith in her two neat, blooming, sister servants. She
thought they could discriminate the line between plenty and waste,
almost as distinctly as she did herself—yet when Cuthbert returned
home that day he found his mother delivering a short lively lecture on
the subject—a lecture such as was rather a habit of hers—to the
elder of the two trusted confidential maids.
“You see, Lizzie, my woman, to lay the moulins out of the bread-
basket on the window-sill for the sparrows is very kindly and wiselike
—a thing that pleases me—but to crumble down one side of the
good loaf that we’re using ourselves, is waste. You see the
difference. It might have been given to some poor body.”
“Yes, mem,” said Lizzie, demurely, “and so I did. I gi’ed the ither half
o’ the loaf to Marget Lowrie.”
Mrs. Charteris looked grave for a moment. “We were using it
ourselves, Lizzie; but to be sure, in a house where there’s plenty,
there should aye be the portion for folk that have more need, and as
long as its lawfully used, Lizzie, I never find fault, but to waste is a
great sin. Now, you’ll mind that, and take the moulins after this for
the sparrows.”
“It’s Mr. Cuthbert, mem,” said Jess, the younger sister of the two,
returning from the door, and the little active old lady rustled away in
her black silk gown to her parlour, to see what had brought home her
son at so unusual an hour.
The parlour or drawing-room, for it might be called either, was a
handsome room, though it was on the second story, and its very
comfortable furniture had an air of older fashion than the present
time, which suited very gracefully with the age of its mistress. Near
one of its large windows stood an antique spider-legged table,
bearing a work-box of somewhat elaborate manufacture, an open
book, with Mrs. Charteris’ silver thimble lying on it for a mark, and
Mrs. Charteris’ work by its side—while within reach of these stood an
easy chair and a footstool. The spring was brightening rapidly, and
Mrs. Charteris’ chair stood always in this window, when the weather
permitted her to leave the fireside—for here, as she plied her
sewing, or glanced up from her book, she could observe the
passengers in the street below, and watch for Cuthbert as he came
home from his little office. Cuthbert had a slight look of excitement
to-day, his mother thought, as she took off her spectacles, and
looked at him with her own kindly unassisted eyes. Mrs. Charteris
fancied her son had perhaps got a brief.
“Well, Cuthbert, my man, what brings you home so soon?” said
Mrs. Charteris, sitting down in her chair, and drawing in her footstool.
“I think I will go through to Glasgow to-morrow, mother,” said
Cuthbert hastily.
The old lady looked up with her glasses on. There was certainly an
unusual flush and a happy embarrassed smile upon the face of her
good son.
“The laddie’s possessed!” said Mrs. Charteris. “What would you do
in Glasgow again so soon. It is not a month since you came home,
Cuthbert?”
“Neither it is, mother,” said the advocate, “but I have got some
business in hand—a mystery, mother, to exercise my legal judgment
on.”
Mrs. Charteris was interested. “Aye, what’s that?”
There was a good deal of hesitation about the learned gentleman—
it was evident there was no fee in this case.
“I told you about that young man, mother,—that family of Muirs.”
The old lady looked up quickly. She was a good deal interested in
this family of Muirs, partly because her son had spoken much of
them, and still more because he seemed so very willing to return to
the subject. “What about them, Cuthbert?”
“I had Davie Lindsay with me to-day,” said Cuthbert, lifting up and
turning over the pages of his mother’s book. “He is very anxious to
trace out the heirs of a small old estate near Stirling, and I’ve a
notion these Muirs are the people he wants.”
Mrs. Charteris dropped her work on her knee, and looked up with
much interest.
“The lost heir had two daughters called Rose and Violet,—rather a
singular conjunction. Now the two younger Muirs bear these names
—a strange coincidence, if it is nothing else; and if one could help
such a family—I told you how much they interested me, mother.”
“Yes,” said the old lady; “Violet—that was the little girl—I heard you
mention her—but which of them is Rose?”
Mr. Cuthbert Charteris looked a little foolish, and withdrew into the
shadow of the curtain, which fortunately was green, and neutralised
the slight unusual flush upon his face. “One forgets these girls’
names,” he said, with a short laugh, “though this is rather a pretty
one. The elder one is Martha, you know, mother—a grave enough
name to make up for the romance of the other two—the intermediate
young lady is Rose.”
“How old is she, Cuthbert?” interrogated his mother.
“I really am no judge—I could hardly guess—quite young though,”
said Cuthbert hurriedly, “but the similarity of names is very striking,
and if I could trace out a relationship, I should be exceedingly
pleased, mother; besides, that one is bound, as a matter of duty, to
assist in proving a birthright in any circumstances—and this young
man will never do in business, it is clear—whereas he might make a
capital country gentleman.”
Mrs. Charteris was a little prejudiced. She shook her head: “It is not
so easy to make a gentleman, Cuthbert; the transition from sixty
pounds a-year to five hundred, though it must be very comfortable,
no doubt, will never accomplish that.”
“Harry Muir, mother,” said Cuthbert, “is not a wise man by any
means—at five and twenty, I scarcely think I was very wise myself—
but Harry Muir with his sixty pounds, is a gentleman already. I am
afraid Dick Buchanan would suffer very greatly, if you saw them
together, and compared the two.”
“Ritchie Buchanan is your cousin, Cuthbert,” said the old lady,
warmly. “He is called after my father, who was a gentleman, though
he was not so rich as his son. To be sure these laddies were very
loud the last time I saw them, and I believe Ritchie had a ring, and
no glove upon his hand—but still, Cuthbert, you must not be an ill
bird.”
 “Well, we shall see,” said Cuthbert, smiling. “Wait till I show you
Harry Muir, mother—no discredit to Dick, or any of them—but my
uncle’s clerk is a very different person; poor fellow!—if he only had
half as much prudence as the youngest of them, it would be better
for him. He is of that class, who, people say, are nobody’s enemies
but their own.”
“And that is just the most hopeless class of all, Cuthbert,” said Mrs.
Charteris; “you may cure a bad man that has pith—you may turn a
vessel that is ballasted and steady, into another course—but for your
bits of gay pleasure-boats that float with the stream—alack and woe
is me! It is a hopeless work, Cuthbert: you never tried your hand at
anything so vain.”
“That is the sister’s work, not mine, mother,” said Cuthbert, “and I
can believe it is not a very promising one—but in the meantime, I
must try and lay my hands upon the clue which will conduct Davie
Lindsay to his end, and give him an heir to Allenders. Of course, I
will not speak of it to the family, till I have ascertained something
more about these names—but I think the result is very likely to be
what I heartily wish it may.”
“I will wager you a silver crown, Cuthbert,” said Mrs. Charteris, “that
the bairn is called after old Mrs. Violet Primrose of Govan, and that
Mrs. Hervey of Monkland, is the name-mother of the elder one; and
to make it the more appropriate, to-morrow is the first of April, and
Davie Lindsay has sent you on a gouk’s errand, for a credulous
callant as you are; now mind, I told you.”
“Very well, mother, we shall see,” responded Cuthbert.
 CHAPTER VII.

“He has a secret motive in his search,

Honest, yet would he not that all the world
Saw full into his heart:—a right good heart—
Devising nothing evil, yet aware
Of certain silent secrets of its own.”

old play.
It was not without a little embarrassment that Cuthbert presented
himself next day at the office of his uncle. It was the day before the
despatch of one of the mails, and everybody in the office was very
busy. Round the desk of Mr. Gilchrist, the cashier, who had the
capital business head, and the two hundred yearly pounds, the snuff
lay in little heaps, and all the clerks of meaner degree were working
furiously, with scarcely time to interchange now and then, the usual
badinage of the counting-house; while, in Mr. Buchanan’s room,
Richard sat writing letters beside his father.
“Better get away out of town, Cuthbert,” said the merchant, “we
shall be late to-night; but your aunt and Clemie are at home, and are
always glad to see you, you know, whereas we shall only bore you, if
you wait for us. I think you had better go down to Greenbank at
once.”
“Very well, uncle,” said Cuthbert. He was quite resigned to
postpone his enjoyment of their company for a few hours. “I have
some business to do, but I shall get home before you, I think.”
“I say, Cuthbert,” said Richard in an aside, “why don’t you ask for
Harry Muir? I believe you’ve been there already.”
“Then you believe nonsense, Dick,” said Cuthbert, with a little heat.
“How is he, poor fellow?”
 “He’s gone down to Ayr. Oh, he’s recovering fast,” said Richard.
“These women made it worse than it was, you know, with their
lamentations. I suppose you’re going to call, Cuthbert?”
“I am going to look after a case which my friend Lindsay is engaged
in,” said Cuthbert, with some dignity. “I must do that before I make
any calls. There now, that will do—you are sure to be late with your
letters, Dick.”
“I should not wonder,” mused Dick Buchanan, as Cuthbert made his
escape, “if his business was in Port Dundas after all.” And the
curious young merchant endeavoured to discover, through the
opaque window, which course his cousin took; but the endeavour
was quite unsuccessful. The dim yellow pane preserved Cuthbert’s
secret.
It was past mid-day when Cuthbert reached the busy road to Port
Dundas. It was, as usual, noisy and loud, and crowded, with echoing
carts on its causeway, and streams of mill-girls pouring along its
pavement, returning to the factories after dinner. Little stout round
forms—faces sometimes sallow, but by no means unhealthy—hair
dressed with extreme regard to the fashion, and always excellently
brushed, and in the finest order—made these passengers, in their
coloured woollen petticoats and bright short gowns, a very comely
part of the street population. Very true most of them planted broad,
sturdy, bare feet upon the dusty pavement; but the free loud mirth,
no less than the comfortable habiliments, showed them quite
removed from the depressing effects of extreme poverty—as indeed
they were.
And opposite Harry Muir’s house, in the little half finished street,
Maggie McGillivray still sat clipping, with her brisk scissors in her
hand, sending her loud clear voice into the din like an arrow—and
still another branch of the Glasgow feminine industry, came under
the amused observation of Cuthbert, before he reached the little
parlour.
Miss Aggie Rodger, with her large shoulders bursting from under
the little woollen shawl, and a great rent in the skirt of her faded
large-patterned cotton gown, sat on the highest step of the stair,
holding in her hand a very dingy piece of embroidered muslin, which
she was jerking about with wonderful rapidity as she “opened” it.
Miss Aggie, like the humbler clipper, was lightening her task with the
solace of song; but, instead of the clear flowing canty “Learig,” Miss
Aggie, with great demonstration, was uttering the excellences of the
Rose of Allandale. Both the natural voices were tolerably good; but
Cuthbert thought he preferred Maggie McGillivray’s.
In the little “green,” to which the paved passage from the street
directly led, Miss Rodger, the elder sister, was laying out the collars
and caps of the family to bleach. Miss Rodger was, in her way, a
very proud person, and had a severe careworn face, which, six or
seven years ago, had been pretty. From the green, Cuthbert heard
her addressing her sister:
“Aggie, haud your tongue. Folk would think to see ye that you kent
nae better than the like of that lassie McGillivray. They’ll hear ye on
the street.”
“Ye can shut to the door, then, if ye’re so proud,” responded Miss
Aggie, drawing out the long quavers of her song with unabated zeal.
Miss Jeanie, the prim intermediate sister, looked out from the
kitchen window, and interrupted the dialogue in a vehement whisper:
—“Aggie, will ye come out of that, and no let yoursel be seen, such a
like sicht as ye are? do ye no see the gentleman?”
Miss Aggie looked up—saw Cuthbert standing below—and,
snatching up the torn skirt of her gown in her hand, fled precipitately,
leaving behind her a considerable-sized dilapidated slipper, trodden
down at the heel, which had escaped from her foot in her flight.
“I’ve lost yin o’ my bauchals. Throw it into us, woman, Jean—what
will the strange man think?” cried Miss Aggie, disconsolately, as she
reached the safe refuge of the kitchen.
Miss Jeanie was dressed—for this was the day, on which they
carried home their finished work, to the warehouse which supplied
them. Miss Jeanie was very prim, and had a little mouth, which she
showed her appreciation of, as the one excellent feature in a
tolerable face, by drawing her lips together, and making them round.
She was magnificently arrayed in a purple silk gown, bound round
the waist with a silken cord, from which hung a superb pair of
tassels. This dress was by far the grandest article of apparel in the
house; and with great awe and veneration, Violet Muir had just
intimated to her sisters, that Miss Jeanie was going to the
warehouse, and that she had on, her Adelaide silk gown. Adroitly
extending the skirt of this robe of state to cover the unlucky “bauchal”
of Miss Aggie, Miss Jeanie primly stood by the open door, admitting
the visitor, and Cuthbert entered without making any further
acquaintance with the family.
The same universal feminine work re-appeared in the parlour,
where Martha sat by the window in her usual place, busy with her
usual occupation, while Rose, seated by the table, and occasionally
pausing to glance down upon an open book which lay before her,
listened with a smile, half of pleasure, half of amusement, as Violet,
standing by her side, with a glow upon her little pale face, poured
forth page after page of the Bridal of Triermain. Martha too, raised
her eyes now and then, with a smile of playful love in them—for little
Lettie’s low-voiced intense utterance, and enthusiasm, refreshed and
pleased the heart which knew so many harder sorrows than the evils
of romance. Rose was Violet’s governess; in an evil hour the young
teacher had bidden her pupil choose any poetry she liked for her
task, and learn as much of it as pleased her. Now Violet did at that
time particularly affect the minstrelsy of Sir Walter, and the result
was, that already one canto of Triermain had been accomplished,
and another, and another, remained to say.
Out of doors in the sunshine, Maggie McGillivray sang the “Learig,”
and with a gay flourish of her shears accompanied the swell of the
“owerword,” as she ended every verse. At the window in the kitchen,
Miss Aggie Rodger sat in a heap upon the table, and stayed her
needle in mid-course, while she accomplished the Ro-o-se of A-ah-
allandale; and within here the little form of Violet expanded, and her
small face glowed, as her story progressed; while Rose smiled and
worked, and glanced at the book; and Martha, with fresh and
genuine pleasure, listened and looked on. After all, the gift of song is
a fair gift to this laborious world. There was nothing very grand or