She constantly has the idea that her beauty will bring her a wealthy husband. She lies about other people to these relatives and about them to others. They have a comfortable home and are very anxious for Amanda to do well, and many times have had serious talks with her, all to no purpose. They themselves have attempted to a.n.a.lyze the nature of the girl"s characteristics, and say it is quite evident that the telling of untruths with this girl is the result of quick reaction on her part. Fictions of all kinds come up in her mind constantly and are uttered quickly. It is doubtful whether she premeditates her stories.
She has threatened suicide. They think she is the biggest liar that ever lived and can"t understand how she can engage in such unforesighted behavior unless she is somewhat abnormal. Only once did they ever notice anything suggestive of a mental peculiarity other than her lying. Then she did talk quite incoherently and at random for a time (she is a great talker anyhow), but later she said she realized what she had done, and said not to mind her--she had just let her tongue rattle on and did not mean anything by it.
On two or three occasions Amanda has started to school in the morning and wandered off and kept going all day. She had been immoral with boys, but not to any great extent. She undertook to be religious for a time, but her sincerity was always in question. She knows the character of her own mother and threatens at times to follow in her tracks.
The racial heredity of this girl is a strange mixture. Her father was a Scandinavian and her mother colored. The maternal grandfather was colored, and the maternal grandmother was an alcoholic Irish woman and died in an insane hospital. It is possible, also, that there is Indian blood in the family. The mother kept an immoral resort and drank at times. The father is said, even by his wife"s relative, to have died some years ago of a broken heart about her career. She died of tuberculosis a few years after him. Amanda was the only child. About the early developmental history we have no reliable information. The girl was taken by relatives before her mother died, but was allowed to visit her, and there was evidently real affection between mother and daughter. Long contention over religious affairs in the family led to some bickering about placing the girl.
We found Amanda to be rather a good looking girl with very slight evidences of colored blood. Quiet and normal in her att.i.tude and expression. Slightly built--weight 93 lbs.; height 4 ft. 10 in.
Vision R. 20/80, L. 20/25. Coa.r.s.e tremor of outstretched hands.
No evidence of specific disease. All other examination negative.
The girl complains of occasional sick headaches with photophobia.
Pelvic examination by a specialist negative.
On the mental side we quickly found we had to deal with a girl of decidedly good general ability. Tests were almost uniformly done well. Memory processes decidedly good-- span for eight numbers auditorily and for seven numbers visually. No evidence whatever of aberration.
Results on the ""Aussage"" test: Amanda on free recital gave 12 details of the picture; on questioning she mentioned 32 more items, but a dozen of these were incorrect. Of 7 suggestions offered she accepted 6. This was an exceptionally inaccurate performance.
In the course of our study of this case we obtained from Amanda a very good account of her own life, deeply tragic in its details, and a probably correct a.n.a.lysis of her beginnings in lying. It seems that she remembers well her mother, particularly in the later visits which the relatives allowed. These must have been when she was about 5 or 6 years old. ""I know a lot. There isn"t anything bad that I have not seen and heard. I try to forget it, but I can"t. What"s the use anyhow? When I think of my mother it all comes up again. When I was very little I would sit in a room with my mother and a crowd of her friends and they would say everything in front of me. I would see men and women go into rooms and I kept wondering what they did in there. I think I was quicker and sharper then than I am now. I think I was about 3 when I used to see them smoking and drinking. Then I used to think it was all right. I thought it was swell and that I would like to do it too. I thought about it a lot. Mother, you see, would tell me to be good one minute and the next would teach me how to swear. I remember once when I was about 7 they brought her home drunk. She looked terrible. I can close my eyes and see her just as plainly as if it is there before me. A protective society once found me and took me to their place.
Then I lived with my grandfather. Mother stole me from them and then my uncle took me. I lived around in lots of places. I have done lots of bad things. . . . .
""I picture these things too--I can"t help it. The pictures come up in my mind as plain as can be--not just at night, but in the daytime too. The only thing I have ever been really afraid of is the dark. Then I imagine I hear people talking. I see things too. I see whole shows that I have been to. But then, as I have said, I see them when I"m awake and in the daytime. I dream about them also. Sometimes they are so real I don"t know whether I"m asleep or awake. For instance, a long time ago I read Peck"s Bad Boy and I can see those pictures now just as plain as when I read the book. It is always that way about what I read. The things I read I always see in pictures. It"s that way with the love stories too. I used to read lots and lots of them. I like to read about murders. I can see those too. When I read about the R. murder in the papers lately I just felt like I was there.
I could see everything he did. I don"t know why I like to read such things so much. It was the same way last winter. I read a story with suicide in it and someway I just wanted to commit suicide myself. I did go to the railroad tracks and stood around until the train came and then walked away. . . . .
""My aunt says that I am too attractive and that I stare at the men. Well, when she was with me a man did stare at me and I stared back at him. I could have turned my head away, but I"m not that kind of a girl. I"m a bad girl. Everyone believes me so and I might just as well be. When I was little in my mother"s place I used to smoke and drink. I dream every night--often about men doing bad things. I wake up and sit up to see if men are there or if they are gone. My dreams are always just that plain. If I read a book I can sit down and imagine all the people are right before me. I can get it just by reading. If anybody speaks to me I jump, and it is all gone. When I go to the theatre or the nickel show I can come home and see the whole show over again. I have been that way ever since I could understand things. When I was small and people would tell me things I could imagine them right in front of me. Even now I will be sitting still and I will imagine I see my mother taking me up in the way she used to. When I came to see her she would rock me to sleep, and I can plainly see her lying in the coffin.
Often I think I see my mother brought home drunk.
""If I have anything to recite in school I just think of it all the time. I dream a good deal about what that boy did and about these other things. I can sit and think of everything he did to me. I go to bed and I lie awake and think all these things and I can"t get them off my mind and then I start to dreaming about them.
""There is always this trouble--my mother wasn"t good and I can"t be good. That"s what people say, but, of course, that"s not so.
I know I start talking to girls about these things when they are talking to me. I sometimes think that things will come back--that the Chicago fire is coming back, and that slavery is coming back.
""About my lying? I don"t know why I tell things like that about my aunt committing suicide--it just came into my head. Oh, I"ve got lots of things in my head. I never had any chance to forget.
I can"t forget at school. School does not interest me any more.
That"s why I want to go to work. Perhaps then I should be interested in something new.
""I used to tell lots of things that were not so out there at P.
Sometimes I did it as a joke and sometimes I meant it. It is hard sometimes to tell just what is the truth, I imagine things so hard. I can remember lots that I"ve read.""
Amanda in several interviews went on at great length in a very rational way, but altogether the gist of her view of her case is to be found in the above. She told that she was a masturbator, as might be supposed. She feels she can"t help this and never felt it was so particularly bad. Apparently it is a part of her life of imagination at night. She insisted frequently on the vividness of her mental content, and indeed was anxious to talk about her peculiarities in this respect. It was very apparent that she showed real understanding of the forces which had influenced her. It should be noted that we felt sure that it is not only the strength of imagery, namely, of actually recollected material, but also of imagination which is characteristic of this girl"s mental make-up. This was noticeable, as we have shown above, in the ""Aussage"" Test. In our notes on psychological findings we stated that the girl has both strong emotions and strong convictions, together with her other qualities. She expressed herself with considerable vehemence, and under observation we noted changes from pleasantness to extremely ugly looks when her relatives were mentioned. It was true that she had seen immorality in other households than that of her mother, and this, of course, rendered her even more skeptical about true values in life.
It seemed clear that this bright girl had experienced so many contradictions in life that she was much mixed about it all. We might venture to suggest that the delinquency involved in lying could seem very little compared to the actual deeds with which she had come in contact. No idea that falsification was wrong was expressed by her. She had used double sets of standards in behavior all through her life. What she was urged to be and to do seemed impossible in the light of her past and its connections. Even her apparent decency belied the reality underlying her career, she thought. With all this and her vivid imagery it is little wonder that her magnificent powers of imagination had full sway and that she said and half believed all sorts of things which were not true. Then, probably, habit-formation of indulging in day-dreams accentuated the falsifying tendency.
It is too early to report on further progress of this case. For some months she has been in a school for girls where discipline and education are both emphasized.
--------------------------------------------------------------- Mental traits: special powers of imagery Case 9.
and imagination. Girl, age 14 years.
Early immoral experiences: much later conflict about them.
Home conditions: unstable for many years.
Heredity (?): mother immoral, maternal grandmother alcoholic and insane.
Delinquencies: Mentality: Excessive lying. Good general ability, s.e.x. special capacities.
CASE 10
Summary: A boy of 14, supernormal in ability, coming from family circ.u.mstances which form a remarkable ant.i.thesis to his intellectual interests, is found to be a wonderful fabricator.
His continuous lying proves to be directly inimical to his own interests and, indeed, his own satisfactions are thwarted by the curious unreliability of his word. The case unfortunately was not followed far, but study of it clearly shows beginnings in the early obtaining of advantages by lying, and brings out the wonderful dramatic and imaginative traits of the boy and his formation of a habit of falsification.
This case in its showing of intrinsic characteristics and incidental facts is of great interest. Robert R. for about a year when he was 14 years old we knew intimately, but after that on account of the removal of the family we have no further history of him. Intellectually and in his family and home background he presented a remarkable phenomenon. His parents were old-country peasants who just before Robert was born came to the United States. The father had never been to school in his life and could not read or write. Here he was a laborer; before immigration he had been a goose-herd. The mother was said to have had a little schooling at home and could read and write a little in her native language. In 15 years in the United States she had failed to learn to speak English. It is needless to say that our knowledge of the forebears is almost nil. Inquiry about mental peculiarities in the family brought negative answers.
These parents had had nine children, seven of whom had died in early infancy. Robert was the older of the two living. We did not learn that the other child displayed any abnormalities. The mother helped towards the support of the family by doing coa.r.s.e sewing.
About the developmental history we had the a.s.surance that it was entirely negative as regards serious diseases. Pregnancy and birth were said to have been normal. For long, Robert had been very nervous and frequently slept an unusually small number of hours. Sometimes he would go to bed very late and get up early.
Although he was a very small boy he was accustomed to drinking six or seven cups of coffee a day. No suspicion from any source of other bad habits or of improper s.e.x experiences. The boy"s home was clean and decent. The father was accustomed to celebrate once a month or so by getting intoxicated, but otherwise was a well behaved man.
On physical examination we found the boy in fair general condition, although very small for his age. Weight 80 lbs.; height 4 ft. 7 in. Well shaped, normally sized head. No prematurity or other physical abnormality. Somewhat defective vision. No complaint of headaches. All other examination negative. Regular sharp features. Much vivacity of expression.
A nervous, alert, responsive, apparently frank and humorous type.
Speech notably rapid.
Our acquaintance with this boy on the intellectual side proved to be a great treat. He was only in the 4th grade. His r.e.t.a.r.dation was the result of having been changed back and forth from foreign-speaking to English schools and having been sent away to an inst.i.tution for truancy. In spite of his backwardness Robert had a fund of remarkably accurate scientific and other information which a mature person might envy. We found our regular series of tests were all done unusually well, except those which called for foresight and planfulness. It was interesting to note that when a problem in concrete material was given that required continuous thoughtful effort he proceeded by a rapid trial and error method and without the application of the foresight that many a slower individual would show. He consequently did not always make a good record.
It seems an important fact that on the ""Aussage"" Test this exceedingly bright lad gave a fairly good detailed narrative account of the picture and proved himself not in the least suggestible, but he added a number of items which were not seen.
It was in the field of general information, obtained from a really wide range of reading, that this young boy shone. We found that he remembered an unusual amount of history he had read, that he had a lot of knowledge picked up from the newspapers, and that he had digested considerable portions of scientific works. He described correctly the main principles involved in the use of telescopic and other lenses, he knew well the first principles of electricity, and he could draw correctly diagrams of dynamos, locomotives, switchboards, etc. We noted he had read books on physiology, astronomy, physics, mechanics, etc.
It seems that neither his school nor his home offering him much intellectual satisfaction, he had frequented the public library, sometimes being there when he was truant from school, and staying there in the evening when his mother supposed he was out in a street gang. In regard to his selection of reading: he had perused novels and books on adventure, but ""I wanted to read something that tells something so that when I got through I would know something."" He copied plans and directions, and with a hatchet, hammer and saw attempted at home to make little things, some of which were said to have been broken up by the parents.
The boy had much in mind the career of great men who had succeeded from small beginnings, and he spoke often of Benjamin Franklin, Morse, and Bell, all of whom had started in the small way he had read of in their biographies. Robert had not been content with book knowledge alone, but had sought power-houses and other places where he could see machinery in actual operation.
Our acquaintance with Robert began and continued on account of delinquencies other than lying. He had run away from home at one time, he had stolen some electrical apparatus from a barn and was found in the middle of the night with it flashing a light on the street. He also had taken money from his parents and had threatened his mother with a hatchet. After much encouragement and help he yet stole from people who were trying to give him a chance to use his special abilities, and he began various minor swindling operations which culminated in his attempt to arrest a man at night, showing a star and a small revolver. Before we lost sight of him Robert had gained the general reputation of being the most unreliable of individuals.
Given splendid chances to use his special capacities, his other qualities made it impossible for him to take advantage of them.
His wonderful ability was demonstrated in the school to which he was sent; there the teacher said that if she had the opportunity she really believed she could put him through one grade a month.
His mental grasp on all subjects was astonishing and he wrote most admirable essays, one of the best being on patriotism. But even under the stable conditions of this school for six or seven months the boy did not refrain from an extreme amount of falsification and was much disliked by the other boys on account of it.
Robert had continued his lying for years. At the time when we were studying his case his prevaricating tendencies were shown in the manufacture of long and complicated stories, in the center of which he himself posed as the chief actor. These phantasies were told to people, such as ourselves, who could easily ascertain their falsehood, and they were told after there had been a distinct understanding that anything which showed unreliability on his part would militate against his own strongly avowed desires and interests. After special chances had been given this boy with the understanding that all that was necessary for him to do was to alter his behavior in respect to lying, on more than one occasion new fabrications were evolved in the same interview that Robert had begged in fairly tragic fashion to be helped to cure himself of his inclination to falsify.
A great love of the dramatic was always displayed by this boy, which may largely account for the evolution of his lying into long and complicated stories. When truant one day he boldly visited the school for truants, and when under probation, after having fallen into the hands of the police two or three times, he impersonated a policeman. The latter was such a remarkable occurrence and led to such a peculiar situation that much notice of it was taken in the newspapers. The incongruity between apperception of his own faults and his continued lying, considering his good mental endowment, seemed very strange. One day he sobbed and clung to my arm and begged me to be a friend to him and help him from telling such lies. ""I don"t know what makes me do it. I can"t help it."" Over and over he a.s.serted his desire to be a good man and a great man. This was at the same time when some of his most complicated fabrications were reiterated.
No help was to be had from his parents in getting at the genesis of this boy"s troubles; we had to rely on what seemed to be the probable truth as told by the boy himself. It is only fair to say that in response to many inquiries we did receive reliable facts from the lad. My a.s.sistant also went into the question of beginnings and was told at an entirely different time the same story. Robert always maintained that his lying began when he was a very little boy, when he found out that by telling his grandmother that his mother was mean to him he could get things done for him which he wanted. Later it seems he used to lie because he was afraid of being punished or because he did not like to be scolded. We found there was no question about the fact that his parents never were in sympathy with his library reading and his attempts to learn and be somebody in the world.
At first, then, there seemed to be a definite purpose in his lying. At one time he pretended to be hurt when taken in custody and thought because of this he would be allowed to go home.
On many occasions this boy made voluntary appeal to us, describing his lying as a habit which it was impossible for him to stop, and implored aid in the breaking of it. Up to the last that we knew of him he occasionally made the complaint to strangers of mistreatment by his family, which in the sense in which he put it was not true at all. The dramatic nature of his later stories seemed to fulfill the need which the boy felt of his being something which he was not, and very likely belonged to the same category of behavior he displayed when he attempted to impersonate a policeman in the middle of the night, and to pose as an amateur detective by telling stories of alleged exploits to newspaper reporters. A long story which he related even to us, involving his discovery of a suspicious man with a satchel and his use of a taxicab in search for him, was made up on the basis of his playing the part of a great man, a hero. When we ran down this untruth (it was long after he had told us what a liar he was) it seemed quite improbable that he had suddenly improvised this story. It was too elaborate and well sustained. Later, when the boy again tragically begged to be helped from making such falsifications, he said the incident had been thought out some days previously and it seemed an awful nice story about the things that he might do. Daydreaming thus masked as the truth.
--------------------------------------------------------------- Environmental maladjustment: Case 10.
incongruity between Boy, age 14 yrs.
supernormal ability and home conditions.
Innate characteristics: nervous, active, dramatic type.
Stimulants: excessive use of coffee.
Mental habit-formation.