Psychological Reports,
1961,
8,
239-242.
@
Southern Universities Press 1961
EMOTIONS IN THE INTERVIEW:
CAN
THEY
BE
MEASURED?'
FRANK
AULD, JR.
Wayne Sjate University
Irrational jealousy is the theme of Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale."
In
this play, King Leontes accuses his queen of unfaithfulness and has her cast
into prison. He then sends two messengers to the oracle of
Apollo at Delphi,
to get advice about the matter. When the messengers return, the king learns
from
the oracle that his suspicions are unjustified. The news comes too late:
a
servant reports that Leontes' son, sorrowing over the unjust accusation, has
just died; and the queen, hearing this, also dies.
Leontes is overwhelmed at
the revelation of his irrational jealousy and at
its tragic effects.
Sixteen years
pass, and Leontes goes to view a statue which, he has been told, bears
a
striking
likeness to his dead queen.
As he views
the statue-torn by remorse at what
he did to cause his wife's death-the statue moves, comes alive.
A
statue coming
to life is incredible; actors on a stage are surely not real; yet as
I
watched this
scene in
the Shakespeare Theater a couple of summers ago,
I
was moved to
tears. Though Shakespeare was no scientist of the human emotions, he knew
intuitively how to evoke deep emotional response in those who see his plays.
We need not go back to Shakespeare for playwrights who can stir us. The excite-
ment of Tennessee Williams' "Sweet Bird of Youth" rises to almost unbearable intensity
toward the end of the second act, as the viewer senses that Chance Wayne, the play's
hero, will stay in St. Cloud until he is killed, and as the viewer comes face to face with
the enormous evil of Boss Finley, a Southern racist demagogue.
To give but one more example of how emotion can be evoked: consider the Roman
poet Virgil's praise of the life lived dose to nature.
For me,
I
pray first of all to the kind Muses,
whose votary
I
am,
inspired with passionate love,
that
they may welcome me, show me the paths of the skies,
the sun's various failures, the travails of the moon:
how the earth trembles, by what force the deep seas swell
bursting their barriers, and then return to themselves again;
why the suns in winter hasten to plunge themselves
in the ocean, and what dogs
the slowly passing nights.
Yet if
I
cannot reach these distant realms of nature
because of some cold spiritless blood around my heart,
then let me love the country, the rivers running through valleys,
the streams and woodlands-happy, though unknown. Give me
broad fields and sweeping rivers, lofty mountain ranges
'A paper presented at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association
in Chicago, September,
1960,
on a symposium, "Contributions of Experimental Psychology
to the Study of the Interview," organized by Professor Joseph Zubin. Research reported
here was supported in part by Grant
M-648C6 from the
U.
S.
Public Health Service
to Prof.
J.
Dollard, Yale University.