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Human relations have commanded people's attention from early times. The ways of people have been recorded in innumerable myths, folktales, novels, poems, plays, and popular or philo-sophical essays. Although the full significance of a human relationship may not be directly evident, the complexity of feelings and actions that can be understood at a glance is surprisingly great. For this reason psychology holds a unique position among the sciences. "Intuitive" knowledge may be remarkably penetrating and can significantly help us understand human behavior, whereas in the physical sciences such commonsense knowledge is relatively primitive. If we erased all knowledge of scientific physics from our modem word, not only would we not have cars and television sets, we might even find that the ordinary person was unable to cope with the fundamental mechanical problems of pulleys and levers. On the other hand if we removed all knowledge of scientific psychology from our world, problems in interpersonal relations might easily be coped with and solved much as before. We would still "know" how to avoid doing something asked of us and how to get someone to agree with us; we would still "know" when someone was angry and when someone was pleased. One could even offer sensible explanations for the "whys" of much of the self's behavior and feelings. In other words, the ordinary person has a great and profound understanding of the self and of other people which, though unformulated of only vaguely conceived, enables one to interact with others in more or less adaptive ways. Kohler in referring to the lack of great discoveries in psychology as compared with physics, accounts for this by saying that "people were acquainted with practically all territories of mental life a long time before the founding of scientific psychology."
Paradoxically, with all this natural, intuitive, commonsense capacity to grasp human relations, the science of human relations has been one of the last to develop. Different explanations of this paradox have been suggested. One is that science would destroy the vain and pleasing illusions people have about themselves; but we might ask why people have always loved to read pessimistic, debunking writings, from Ecclesiastes to Freud. It has also been proposed that just because we know so much about people intuitively, there has been less incentive for studying them scientifically; why should one develop a theory, carry out systematic observations, or make predictions about the obvious? In any case, the field of human relations, with its vast literary documentation but meager scientific treatment, is in great contrast to the field of physic in which there are relatively few nonscientific books.
According to the passage, it has been suggested that the science of human relations was slow to develop because
A.intuitive knowledge of human relations is derived from philosophy
B.early scientists were more interested in the physical world
C.scientific studies of human relations appear to investigate the obvious
D.the scientific method is difficult to apply to the study of human relations
E.people generally seem to be more attracted to literary than to scientific writings about human relations
The author's statement that “Psychology holds a unique position among the sciences” (lines 8-9) is supported by which of the following claims in the passage?
A.The full meaning of a human relationship may not be obvious.
B.Commonsense understanding of human relations can be incisive.
C.Intuitive knowledge in the physical sciences is relatively advanced.
D.Subjective bias is difficult to control in psychological research.
E.Psychological facts are too imprecise to lead to great discoveries.
According to the passage, an understanding of the self can be
A.highly biased due to unconscious factors
B.profound even when vaguely conceived
C.improved by specialized training
D.irrelevant for understanding human relations
E.more reliable than knowledge about other people
It can be inferred that the author would most likely agree with which of the following statements regarding people who lived before the advent of scientific psychology?
A.Their understanding of human relations was quite limited.
B.They were uninterested in acquiring knowledge of the physical world.
C.They misunderstood others more frequently than do people today.
D.Their intuitions about human relations were reasonably sophisticated.
E.They were more likely to hold pleasing illusions about themselves than are people today.
The author refers to people who are attracted to “pessimistic, debunking writings” (line 44) in order to support which of the following ideas?
A.Interesting books about human relations are typically pessimistic.
B.People tend to ignore scientific explanations of human relations.
C.People rarely hold pleasing illusions about themselves.
D.A scientific approach human relations would undermine the pleasing illusions people hold of themselves.
E.It is doubtful that the science of human relations developed slowly because of a desire to maintain pleasing illusions.
It can be inferred that the author assumes that commonsense knowledge of human relations is
A.equally well developed among all adults within a given society
B.considerably more accurate in some societies than in others
C.biased insofar as it is based on myths and folktales
D.typically unrelated to an individual’s interactions with other people
E.usually sufficiently accurate to facilitate interactions with others
