Revival: The Psychology of Persuasion (1920)

William MacPherson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781351339308
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

In the first three chapters of this book the elements of persuasion as a mental process are distinguished, and various forms of false persuasion in individuals and groups are described; it is shown how, from the very nature of the process involved, our persuasion of ourselves is only too apt to degenerate into self-deception, and how our persuasion of others may eaily assume the form of a deliberate attempt to exploit their mental or moral weaknesses. Chapter IV indicates how the tendencies of false persuasion may be counteracted, and on what lines persuasion may be rightly directed. Up to this point the subject is treated mainly in its psychological aspect.

The subsequent chapters, which are closely related to, and follow naturally, the study of persuasion as a mental process, deal with persuasion more exclusively as a form of expression. In this part of the book special attention is given to such modern forms of propaganda as advertisements, newspapers, the cinematograph, the novel and the drama.

CHAPTER I

THE PROCESS AND ELEMENTS OF PERSUASION

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PERSUASION

CHAPTER I

THE PROCESS AND ELEMENTS OF PERSUASION

MAN has been described as a reasoning animal; and every one likes to think that the description is applicable to himself. The instinctive and impulsive side of our nature, as contrasted with the rational, has been apt to be ignored both by the man in the street and by the writer on psychology: it has been considered, perhaps, to be not quite respectable. In recent years, however, writers on psychology have come to recognise fully the important part that impulse and emotion play in human life. As a matter of fact, men do not, usually, act rationally in the sense that they first carefully calculate the means that will enable them to realise their end, and only then act; and, whether they calculate thus or not, the fundamental source of their actions is always some instinct or emotion that they seek to satisfy. To say this is to say nothing derogatory to human nature; indeed, as we all know, to act on impulse is often much more respectable than to act from calculation. If much of the wrong-doing of the world may be attributed to the uncontrolled working of selfish impulses, it should also be remembered that impulse is the source of art and science, and of many of the best things in life.

Impulse is one of the non-rational elements in our nature, but this does not imply that it is necessarily irrational, or that it works against reason. In this chapter an attempt will be made to show that the process of persuasion is, fundamentally, a non-rational process, dominated much more by the emotional and impulsive part of our nature than by the rational. But this circumstance, while it accounts, partially, for the extreme ease with which we are able to delude ourselves and others, must not be regarded as in itself a condemnation of the process, or as implying that it is, of necessity, irrational.

The starting-point of all persuasion, of ourselves or others, is a belief or wish. Holding a certain belief, or desiring that a certain course of action shall be pursued, we set out to justify our belief and the conduct that it implies. Thus, before he begins to speak, the orator whose aim is persuasion has already present in his mind a belief or wish, fully formed, from which all his arguments and appeals flow; and the effectiveness of his persuasion will be proportionate to the clearness and fulness with which the belief has been defined, and the degree of conviction with which it is held. When we persuade ourselves, also, it is no less true that the belief or wish we seek to confirm is given beforehand. In this respect persuasion differs from the process of rational logic.

When we employ the process of rational logic our object is either to discover or to demonstrate. We may desire, for instance, to discover the conditions under which a candle will burn, and this we may do by a process of induction from a series of experiments. The mere fact that here we are seeking to discover a true conclusion indicates that it is not given beforehand. Again, when logical demonstration is our aim, a proposition is advanced hypothetically, no pre-supposition being made as to its truth or falsity, and the whole course of the reasoning is directed to furnish proofs of its inherent validity. The methods of logical discovery and demonstration are most successful when they are applied to natural phenomena on which we can experiment, but they are also applicable to human affairs: men do reason logically and disinterestedly about human conduct (especially other people’s conduct), discriminate between alternatives, and refuse to assent to beliefs the implications of which they have not investigated. The method of persuasion, however, is much more common. In it we start from a belief or wish that is given beforehand: instead of following, the belief precedes the process. Superficially, indeed, the logic of persuasion may resemble, or simulate, a logical demonstration, but in reality, starting not from a hypothesis but from a belief already fully formed and accepted, and destined to dominate it throughout, it is quite different.

Our effective beliefs regarding human life and conduct are determined not by reasoning but by many unconscious and frequently irrational factors. We believe because we wish to believe, so that we may satisfy our instincts and emotions and sentiments, because our environment and education have made certain beliefs seem necessary, because our fathers have believed before us, or because it is convenient and expedient to think as our neighbours do. In self-persuasion the belief from which the process starts is often held by us quite unconsciously, having its origin in many remote factors, and the process itself may be to a large extent unconscious. In the persuasion of others we begin with a conscious belief, and the subsequent process is a conscious, deliberate, and more or less systematic attempt to impress our belief on others. But always, alike in the persuasion of ourselves and others, our purpose is to gain approval, our own or that of other people, for beliefs or wishes already formed and accepted by us.

We have used the terms ‘belief’ and ‘wish’ as if they were synonymous. Our beliefs and our wishes, indeed, are inextricably interwoven; or rather, they are not really to be distinguished. The state of mind from which persuasion starts implies an intellectual element, which we may express by the term ‘belief,’ and at the same time a practical element, a reference to conduct and action, which we may express by the term ‘wish’; but in an ultimate analysis those elements are seen to coalesce, the essence of both being that they are latent courses of action by which our environment may be modified. When a politician makes a speech in which he advocates the nationalisation of land, we may indicate the state of mind from which his persuasion starts by the term ‘belief,’ or by the term ‘wish,’ indifferently; he believes, and also wishes, that land should be nationalised; the fundamental character of his belief or wish is that it is a latent course of action. The object of persuasion is to make explicit and definite the course of action implied in the initial belief or wish, and to furnish adequate motives and justification for it.

A distinctive characteristic of the process of persuasion is the more or less direct reference that it implies to human conduct and action. John Jones, having pondered deeply on the evils produced by man’s love of beer, considers the remedies, and decides in favour of Prohibition. He makes propaganda, and persuades Samuel Smith that Prohibition is desirable. Smith’s conversion could not be described as effectual if, having in Jones’s presence joyously assented to Prohibition, later in the evening he had proceeded ruddily to the public-house and consumed his customary pint. His opinions having been changed, his behaviour too will be modified. His imagination has been caught, his emotional nature has been touched, his will moved, by Jones’s eloquence. In the face of that vivid picture of the degradation of life in the slums, fallen so low through the consumption of beer, in despite of the sympathy and pity it has evoked, how possibly could he consume the customary pint again? He will drink beer no more, the accursed thing must be prohibited, he too will make propaganda. Not merely his belief, but his behaviour, has been modified; he has been really persuaded.

By this direct relation to conduct the fundamental character of persuasion is largely determined.

Our beliefs and wishes, from which the process of persuasion starts, our latent and premeditated courses of action, depend mainly on the emotional elements in our nature. The motive force that impels men to action is always some instinct, tendency, emotion, sentiment, or passion. We accept a belief or wish, and act so that it may be realised, primarily with a view to satisfying some aspect of our emotional nature. Take, for instance, the case of a man who, his country being at war, wishes to volunteer for service in the Army. Underlying his wish there may be one or several emotional tendencies: he may have a nagging wife at home and anticipate escape and relief in foreign service, he may be actuated mainly by vanity, by the desire to appear worthily in the eyes of his neighbours and relatives, or by the desire for change and the love of adventure, or he may be prompted by the purest motives of patriotism and ideal duty; but, whatever his particular motives may be, if he is to act in accordance with his wish, his mind must be possessed and dominated not by the mere intellectual perception of a certain situation or state of affairs, but by some more or less powerful emotional tendency. The fundamental character of persuasion, as a process that aims at modifying conduct and inducing action, is that it is an emotional process. In this respect, again, it differs from the process of rational logic, which should have no tincture of emotion, or so little, and of such a character, as, having exercised no diverting influence on the course of the reasoning and on the conclusion ultimately reached, may be considered negligible.

Persuasion resembles rational logic in that it consists essentially in a series of judgments, but there the resemblance ends. Its judgments are quite different in kind from those of rational logic, in which the terms and propositions are related to one another solely in so far as the intellect perceives a resemblance between the things they denote: underlying the reasoning is the principle that things that are alike in some points will be alike in others. For example, if we argue that “all material substances have weight, and atmospheric air is a material substance, therefore it has weight,” the conclusion depends on the point of resemblance (materiality) stated to exist between atmospheric air and substances that have weight; or, again, our reasoning may sometimes be based on the assumption that, since particular examples belonging to the same class, or due to the same cause, resemble one another, a relation between them may be postulated. The cogency of rational logic depends on our being made to perceive and admit an inherent and significant resemblance between the terms and propositions employed, compelling us to acknowledge the truth of the conclusion. The process starts from a general or a particular proposition, and travels to its conclusion through a series of propositions strictly related to one another by the principle of resemblance, and constituting a rigorous chain of reasoning.

The logic of persuasion, on the other hand, starts from a belief or wish, and proceeds to its conclusion, which is really given beforehand in the initial belief or wish, through a series of judgments related to one another, essentially, only in so far as each serves to promote the realisation of our belief or wish, and the consequent satisfaction of its underlying emotion. In persuasion the attitude of the subject is exclusive and one-sided: all his judgments assign value to objects, persons, and actions only in so far as they tend towards the satisfaction of the emotions, sentiments, or passions underlying the initial belief or wish. For instance, lately (vide News of the World) Gwendoline Guinevere, an attractive young lady, had made the acquaintance of a number of young officers, and, prompted mainly by vanity and the love of pleasure (vide headline, “Vanity her Downfall”), she desired the acquaintanceship to continue. To realise her purpose she must make herself as attractive as possible and adorn herself with the latest things in fashionable attire. Unfortunately she has no money. No matter: for ready money ready wit may serve. In the course of a walk through the West-end, she visits several millinery establishments, where she explains that she is the scion of a noble house, and, by what are afterwards described (in the newspaper report of the proceedings) as “fraudulent representations,” succeeds in obtaining “large quantities of ladies’ clothing”. In this instance the belief from which the persuasions of Guinevere started was that to preserve her friendship with the officers a supply of fashionable clothing was necessary—in her own simple and emphatic words: “I have met with a number of officers during the past fortnight, and wanted to get better clothing to keep in their company”. This belief or wish would be followed by a mental process in which all considerations unfavourable to the realisation of the wish would be swept aside as being of no value, and means devised for the satisfaction of the egoistic emotions or sentiments involved.

In the more conscious and systematic forms of persuasion the same process is implied. A speaker whose aim is to persuade an audience to act in accordance with his beliefs propounds a series of judgments essentially related to one another only by the circumstance that they will assist him to realise his object. There may be little or no logical connection between them; they may be, and often are, even logically inconsistent with one another; but they will be accepted by him as valuable in proportion to the closeness of their relation, real or apparent, to his ultimate aim, in proportion to their capacity to satisfy the emotions, sentiments, or passions by which he is animated. For this reason there will always be found, in the arguments of a speaker or writer whose end is persuasion, however cool or dispassionate he may be, an appeal to the emotions and sentiments that seem likely to lead to the action he desires. Before a man will act he must be persuaded that the action will answer some end; and that which gratifies no emotion or sentiment in his nature can never be an end for him. The judgments, then, that constitute the process of persuasion, are judgments of approval or disapproval, or judgments of value, in which we estimate the value of things relatively to the emotion that underlie our beliefs or wishes. Underlying or motivating our judgments of approval there may be admiration, gratitude, self-regard, honour, pride, interest, patriotism, or any other emotion or sentiment induced through sympathy; while our judgments of disapproval are prompted most frequently by shame, reproach, scorn, anger, or fear.

So far we have not distinguished between ‘emotions’ and ‘sentiments’, considered as the basis of persuasion and the motive force of all our beliefs and actions; but it is of more than theoretic interest for our purpose that we should do so.

The emotions, as distinguished from the sentiments, are sudden reactions of our egoistic and altruistic instincts: they endure only for a short time, and their influence is more or less fleeting. They prompt to action; but their motive power is not sufficiently lasting and not of such a kind as to result in a deliberate, sustained, or organised course of action. Persuasion rings the changes on all the emotions; fear, disgust, wonder, anger, subjection, elation, tender emotion, admiration, awe, reverence, scorn, contempt, loathing, envy—all may serve to vitalise our beliefs and motivate our actions, but they fulfil this function more effectively when they are aroused within the circle of such a more widely organised system of emotional tendencies as is denoted by the term sentiment. A sentiment, such as love or hate, differs from an emotion, as, for instance, anger or fear, in that it is not merely a transient mental state, but an enduring tendency to experience certain emotions. Thus, as is pointed out by Mr. McDougall in his Social Psychology,¹ we may be said to love or hate a person even when he is not actually present to our thought; and the sentiment with which we regard him, being a potential source of emotions, may appear in anger, fear, jealousy, reproach, etc., according to the situation in which he occurs to our minds. The persuasions of a speaker who aims at recruiting volunteers for the army of a nation at war starts from the belief that men are required and the wish to help in obtaining them. Underlying this belief and wish, guiding and governing it in all its directions, may be the sentiment of patriotism. The emotions potentially comprised within this sentiment are many, and the speaker may weave a wide circle of appeal. He may move his hearers to anxiety and fear: our enemies are strong, and may defeat us in the field, or starve us to surrender. He may arouse pity, disgust, scorn, contempt, loathing, and horror: our enemies have maltreated women, killed children, massacred the innocent, done deeds unspeakable. He may stir up anger, moral indignation, and revenge: shall the enemy not be made to pay for treaties broken, rights disregarded, lands plundered and ravaged? He may appeal to pride (itself a sentiment and nursery-ground of emotion), recalling to his hearers the glorious achievements of their ancestors. He may invoke curiosity and expectation, the spirit of adventure, the tendency in man to dare all in defiance of danger. Those feelings in themselves would be potent to induce the action that the speaker desires; but, being related and unified within the more stable and abiding sentiment of patriotism, the product, in part, of years or centuries of national life, their effect will be all the more pointed and weighty. Beliefs that have become crystallized into widely prevalent or national sentiments, and that are not the product of merely passing emotions, are the most powerful sources of appeal in persuasion.

It is sometimes said that a speaker, if he would move men to act, must appeal to their passions. If, however, the term ‘passion’ be used not loosely but in its stricter and more scientific meaning, the statement can hardly be accepted as correct. Passion differs from emotion in being more enduring and more dominating; and, on first consideration, it might therefore be thought to be a more potent source of appeal than emotion. But, for the orator or writer who seeks to persuade a large number of people, it cannot be so regarded. For so dominating is a real passion that comparatively few people are capable of experiencing it; and, when it is experienced, it generally operates only during some particular or limited period. Again, the passions vary with individuals to a much greater extent than do the emotions and sentiments; and the number of passions that can coexist in the same individual is limited. While the emotions, and many sentiments, are common to almost all men, or to all of a particular race or nation, the passions are more individual marks of character, and therefore do not constitute so universal a ground of appeal. Nevertheless, in self-persuasion, or in the persuasion of another individual whom we know to be dominated by a certain passion, its impulse may be compelling indeed. Under the influence of the fixed idea which passion pre-supposes, an individual will persuade himself, or may be persuaded, to any course of action that seems likely to satisfy it, and will interpret the most trifling and irrelevant incidents as justifying his conduct. While, then, passion prompts powerfully to belief and action in individuals, when our aim is to influence large numbers of people our appeal must, strictly speaking, be rather to the emotions and sentiments.

The distinction that has been drawn above between emotion, sentiment, and passion is of both theoretic and practical interest; but the main point to be emphasised here is that in all cases of persuasion the emotional element in one form or another, working by way of instinct, tendency, emotion, sentiment, or passion, is fundamental and essential. This, however, does not imply that there are no intellectual elements in persuasion. The judgment of value itself involves an intellectual representation whose function is to give concreteness and stability to the more variable and unstable emotional element. Further, the logic of persuasion frequently expresses itself in the form of rational inference.

The belief or wish from which persuasion starts necessarily involves the intellectual perception of a certain situation or state of affairs which the subject desires to modify. According to the degree in which his representation of that situation has been detailed and complete, his persuasion will be more or less effective. If the situation has been conceived only vaguely and generally, the subsequent persuasion will also be of a vague and general character. If, on the other hand, the whole si...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• CHAPTER I THE PROCESS AND ELEMENTS OF PERSUASION
• CHAPTER II THE GENTLE ART OF CAMOUFLAGE
• CHAPTER III GROUP PRESSURE AND THE SENSE OF POWER— METHODS OF IMPRESSION AND EXPLOITATION .
• CHAPTER IV THE RIGHT DIRECTION OF PERSUASION
• CHAPTER V PERSUASION AS A FORM OF EXPRESSION—WORDLESS PERSUASION : GESTURE AND ACTION, PRESTIGE, PERSONALITY; MUSIC AND PAINTING, THE CINEMATOGRAPH
• CHAPTER VI VERBAL PERSUASION—CONVERSATION, SALESMANSHIP, ADVERTISEMENTS, NEWSPAPERS 7
• CHAPTER VII FORMAL PERSUASION IN SPEECHES AND BOOKS
• CHAPTER VIII PERSUASION IN THE NOVEL AND THE DRAMA
• CHAPTER IX THE PERSUASION OF THE FUTURE
• INDEX