Abstract
As an attempt to investigate the mechanisms of the self's feelings toward others and of the perception of others feeling toward the self, theoretical hypotheses were made and experimental inspections of a part of these hypotheses were described in the previous reports (1) and (2). But the main points which were aimed to examine experimentally in these two reports were the mechanisms of the occurrences of feelings toward others, not the mechanisms of the perception of feelings from others.
In this report, an attempt was made to treat the mechanisms of the perception of other's feeling, to set up four working hypotheses made up by a part of the theoretical hypotheses related to the mechanisms of the perception of other's feelings, and also to examine these four working hypotheses experimentally. (Thetheoretical hypotheses described in report (1) were revised in this report.)
The four working hypotheses are as follows:
a) The self perceives that other's feeling toward the self is positive in a case; when the self infers the same pleasant feeling tone of other as that of the self, and then, the self manifests the self's pleasant feeling tone (i.e., ideal feeling tone which the self persues).
The self perceives that other's feeling toward the self is negative in a case; when the self infers a pleasant feeling tone of others contrary to that of the self, and then, the self manifests the self's pleasant feeling tone.
Compared with the self who has a positive feeling of self-image, the self who has a negative feeling of self-image perceives the other's negative feeling rather than the other's positive feeling toward the self.
b) In the following three condition are filled, the self who has negative or positive feeling of self-image perceives positive feeling from a strange person A, and negative feeling from another strange person B, by manifestating the self's feelings toward a person X and a person Z, when the self perceives that X has the same feeling tone of personality and Z has a feeling tone of personality contrary to that of the self, that a strange person A's feeling toward X is positive and toward Z negative, and that another strange person B's feeling toward X is negative and toward Z positive.
c) The self, who has positive feeling of self-image, perceives that the person. X's feeling toward the person Z is the same as the self's feeling toward the person Z, when there is a person X in whom the self perceives the same pleasant feeling tone, and a person Z in whom the self perceives the pleasant feeling tone contrary to that of the self. But the self who has negative feeling of self-image cannot perceive X's feeling toward Z.
d) The self who has a positive or negative feeling of self-image cannot perceive the person Z's feeling toward the person X, when there is a person X in whom the self perceives the same pleasant feeeling tone, and a person Z in whom the self perceives a pleasant feeling tone contrary to that of the self, But the self who has positive feeling of self-image can perceive the feeling which the person X percieves from Z toward X.
These working hypotheses were confirmed experimentally. The result proved to be statistically reliable, and supports these working hypotheses.
