Lower animals fight from a variety of causes.. Some fight because, as beasts of prey, they live by killing and devouring. Animals may fight their own kind in a tussle over a mate or some choice morsel of food. They fight to defend their young, their homes, or their own lives. Some are aggressive and go about seeking what they may devour; others fight as a last resort when they are cornered.
Men, being two-legged animals, may fight for any or all of these reasons. But because they have minds capable of being moved by abstract ideas such as honor, glory, freedom, sympathy, justice and patriotism, men fight also for what they believe to be the right.
Thus, in an article entitled Psychology for the Fighting Man, the January Infantry Journal introduces a series of chapters on the psychology of war, a subject the peace-loving U.S. has long neglected. The articles are prepared by a committee of the Government's National Research Council headed by Dr. Edwin G. Boring, professor of psychology at Harvard.
Why Men Enlist. The psychologists believe that reasons for man's enlisting his whole effort may be separated from the reasons he fights. Twelve reasons are offered for enlisting. Among them: mass suggestion, adventure, personal glory, natural combativeness, maintenance of selfesteem, "feeling of oneness with the nation and faith in the nation's leaders," faith in democracy, spirit of sacrifice.
Once he is up against the enemy, a man fights for three chief reasons: 1) loyalty to his comrades and his unit (the highest type, long exemplified in the Marines, where organization consciousness is highly developed), 2) because he is led out of confusion and "will follow a stranger to attack a machine-gun nest if . . . officers are gone, if the stranger speaks and acts with assurance," 3) because there is literally nothing else to do.
"In general, it is the deeper motives that can best carry a man through the hardships and emotional tests of war. For this reason it is important for officers and enlisted men alike to understand the war aims of the nation and become convinced that these aims are in harmony with their own ideals."
How Men Meet Defeat. "When a man is faced with a very difficult problem or a series of them . . . when things become too difficult, there are just three sorts of things he can do." The three: work at it harder, from new angles; get mad and attempt to destroy the obstacle, or himself, or something else; give up in despair and sit in apathy or run away.
The first way is the healthy way. The second usually implies a goal that can never be reached: "the shipwrecked man who has tried vainly to signal for help and finally reverts to calling his mother's name over & over until he is exhausted is an example of how thinking breaks down under the strain of failure."