Psychology and Propaganda
Author(s): Leonard W. Doob and Edward S. Robinson
Source: The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science , May, 1935,
Vol. 179, Pressure Groups and Propaganda (May, 1935), pp. 88-95
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. in association with the American Academy of
Political and Social Science
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1020283
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms
and Sage Publications, Inc. are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access
to The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
This content downloaded from
86.49.225.189 on Mon, 02 Oct 2023 09:58:44 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Psychology and Propaganda
By LEONARD W. DooB and EDWARD S. ROBINSON
THE term "propaganda" has come
to mean the employment of nonlogical,
or affective, appeals in the
public dissemination and modification
of ideas, attitudes, and beliefs. Propaganda
is to be contrasted with those
types of communication that make use
of factually accurate and logically adequate
explanation. It is related to
"persuasion," which connotes, in addition,
a more intimate contact with people
and a more thorough marshaling of
evidence.
Looked upon in this way, the conception
of propaganda is psychologically
significant. When programs of
publicity differ in the amount of reflective
thought which they stimulate,
such differences are clearly psychological.
There are, however, certain
popular conceptions of propaganda
which must be carefully eliminated
from the psychological description of
this class of phenomena.
CURRENT VIEWS OF PROPAGANDA
A naive, yet widely current, view of
propaganda, which has resulted largely
from the evils associated with the war,
identifies the term simply with the
dissemination of ideas that are false,
unwholesome, or subversive. To
many members of the American Bar
Association a realistic discussion of
constitutional law is "propaganda,"
while the conservative and idealistic
treatment of the same subject is "education."
There are undoubtedly radicals
who would merely reverse the
application of these terms. In either
case, propaganda in this sense is a
moral and partisan rather than a psychological
concept. Its application
depends, not upon a naturalistic description
of mental processes, but upon
the ethical and political standards of
a limited social group.
There is no linguistic rule that outlaws
this moral definition of propaganda.
Nevertheless, from the standpoint
of the investigator who desires a
better understanding and control of
the mechanisms of communication,
such usage is a handicap. A graduate
student in psychology set out not long
ago to write an essay on propaganda,
but he soon returned with the report
that there was nothing to discover or
to say about the subject except that it
was "vicious." What had actually
dawned upon him was that essentially
similar psychological principles may
be involved in the dissemination of
valid and invalid opinions-and he
had been unable to shake loose from
the popular notion that propaganda is
necessarily bad. He felt called upon
to point out some fundamental peculiarity
in the dissemination of subversive
ideas, and he was balked by his
own realization that no such peculiarities
existed except in the subversiveness
of the ideas disseminated.
Another impulse to identify propaganda
with the false and vicious comes
from the more sophisticated view that
the value of any psychological influence
is to be identified with the
amount of reflective thought which it
arouses. From this it follows that a
statement surrounded by elaborate
statistics or dialectics is fairly sure to
be more valid than a statement devoid
of such elaborative support. This
theory is analogous to the ethical notion
that conduct is necessarily better
88
This content downloaded from
86.49.225.189 on Mon, 02 Oct 2023 09:58:44 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
PSYCHOLOGY AND PROPAGANDA
if it proceeds out of conscious deliberation-that
a man who has difficulty in
making up his mind to be decent is
more to be admired than a man who
is decent automatically.
It is of course true that men are
often victimized through suggestion,
and that acquaintance with the facts
may be the best protection against the
statement that cigarettes are a source
of physiological energy, or that husbands
who do not use a trade-marked
shaving soap are liable to lose the
affection of their wives. But it is also
true that children are most likely to
adopt good manners as a result of
direct example, and that motorists are
most likely to acquire caution as a result
of some simple emotional appeal
or experience. The psychologist is
interested in the fact that attitudes
may be altered or constructed either
through the arousal of reflective
thought or through the devices of
propaganda, but he does not assume
that either of these procedures is a
guarantee of the social value of its own
results.
The nature and the.consequence of
an opinion or attitude must be examined
before we are in a position to
evaluate the psychological mechanisms
through which it was established.
We may properly object to the use of
an affective appeal if such appeal leads
to a belief or act that would have been
rejected in the light of adequate
knowledge of the relevant facts. We
may also object to the use of elaborate
facts and arguments if they create an
attitude that throws an individual
seriously out of adjustment to his environment.
Thus propaganda is neither
invariably better nor worse
than "rational" discourse. The simple
emotional appeal, like statistical
and dialectical arguments, may be
put to good purposes as well as to
bad.
BIASED CLASSIFICATION
When propaganda is viewed in this
objective light, it becomes clear that
the "truth" implied in education and
the "falsity" usually ascribed to propaganda
are really the narrow judgments
of the earnest classifier. It is easy to
notice the propaganda which is not in
accord with one's own point of view,
and to give a more respectable label to
the efforts of those who represent what
one thinks or believes one thinks. As
a result, too many authors have
heaped their abuse upon propagandists
who are seeking to change aspects
of the status quo which they themselves
cherish, and they have been
almost completely blind to other
propagandists engaged in the process
of transmitting the basis of their own
beliefs, viz., the social heritage.
To be sure, many of the propagandists,
whose true function is seldom
recognized, do not appreciate the social
consequences of what they are
doing. Pedagogues, for example, may
honestly believe that they are elucidating
a portion of the "truth" when they
condemn the idea of sudden social
change; and yet the fact remains that
they are influencing their students by
the same means employed by the
public utility companies in their campaign
to gain support for private ownership
in the raw.
A strictly psychological distinction
must be drawn, therefore, between the
propagandist who consciously and deliberately
seeks to disseminate material
in his own behalf or in the interest
of a client, and the propagandist who
unwittingly spreads a particular doctrine.
Psychologically, the former intends
to accomplish what he does or
does not accomplish, and the latter is
generally motivated by factors that
have no direct connection with what
he is doing. Intentional and uninten-
89
This content downloaded from
86.49.225.189 on Mon, 02 Oct 2023 09:58:44 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
tional propagandists occupy positions
in society which possess different degrees
of prestige, but both of them
employ very similar techniques.
An explanation of these techniques
involves a psychological analysis of
what happens to the individuals whom
the propagandist is attempting to influence.
Such an explanation can be
most fruitfully outlined by means of
specific references to the psychological
problems of perception and suggestion,
for perception and suggestion
represent both the difficulties and the
procedure of the propagandist him-
self.
GAINING ATTENTION
Before people can be influenced by
outsiders, they must perceive the
stimulus-situation that is supposed to
affect them. A situation first has to
stand out from the vastly complicated
background which constitutes the normal
environment. Modern vehicles
of communication offer the propagandist
very efficient avenues of approach
to large numbers of individuals. The
intentional propagandist consequently
selects with great care the billboard,
the magazine, the radio program, or
the hall as his psychological megaphone,
and the unintentional propagandist
ex officio seems to have in his
possession the principal organs of public
opinion.
Most men and women, however,
actually do not like to be indoctrinated,
or rather they prefer to be unaware
of the indoctrination which is
pervading them. In real life, subjects
are not nearly so cooperative as are
students in a psychological laboratory.
The propagandist necessarily has to
overcome this resistance by making his
stimulus-situation as alluring as possible.
He does manage to attract attention
by employing devices which
merely attract attention and which
may have no connection with his own
aim. A violin solo, for example, does
not appear to be related to a laxative,
and yet it may entice radio listeners
voluntarily to perceive the name of a
particular pill.
The propagandist is not yet exhausted
in his effort to solve the problem
of perception. He very often simplifies
his message so that it can fit into
the range of perception. Making science
so easy that it can be grasped by
reading two or three lines of a placard
in a crowded subway train flatters
the reader and probably increases
sales. Finally, the propagandist is
acquainted with the laws of chance; he
knows that if he repeats his stimuli
sufficiently often, eventually more and
more people will begin to notice his
existence. Perceiving a situation may
be quite different from reacting to it in
a prescribed fashion; but perception
remains the first step in the process.
METHODS OF SUGGESTION
Propaganda demands a psychological
change within a group of personalities,
and that change is brought
about by suggestion. Sometimes the
propagandist reveals his aim, and then
he is resorting to direct suggestion.
In other situations-and it is these
situations that have irked so many
writers-the propagandist conceals
both his own identity and his goal.
Here he is hoping that through indirect
suggestion, people's preexisting attitudes
will be aroused and reorganized
to his advantage. Psychologically it
is wise to offer suggestions indirectly
when the prestige of the propagandist
or of his cause is such that the kind of
revelation required by direct suggestion
would create antagonism. It is
also possible to carry on an extensive
campaign, only in the course of which
are people given an opportunity to perceive
the propaganda as propaganda.
90
This content downloaded from
86.49.225.189 on Mon, 02 Oct 2023 09:58:44 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
PSYCHOLOGY AND PROPAGANDA
In this instance, first indirect and then
direct suggestions are given. The
latter, moreover, must be added at a
crucial moment after the psychological
atmosphere has been carefully pre-
pared.
The success of a suggestion depends
upon the arousal of attitudes or beliefs
which people already possess. If
these attitudes are momentarily active,
then they may be exploited by the
wide-awake propagandist. This is
what is meant by swimming with the
tide, or, in Propaganda Minister
Goebbels' terminology, "seeing with
the eyes of the masses." Those attitudes
which play a significant role in
the life of the personality can be
tapped quite readily, and the new integration
that emerges as a result of the
suggestion may be very influential.
To know which attitudes are active
and which are central requires a combination
of psychological intuition and
an insight into the social structure of a
culture in which many of these attitudes
have their genesis. It is also
important to vary the type of appeal,
since the reasons which induce people
to react in specified fashion never remain
constant.
And yet there are many individuals
who are not potential "victims" of certain
kinds of propaganda, since their
mental organization may be hostile to
the very ideas which these particular
changes involve. To capture them,
the propagandist must resort to one of
two methods of counter-propaganda.
In the first place, he may ignore the
hostility (and pray that it remain
latent) and instead employ positive
suggestion in an effort to build up favorable
attitudes. Naturally these attitudes
in turn are constructed on the
basis of other attitudes that are still
more distant from the propagandist's
goal. A second method of counterpropaganda
makes use of negative
suggestion; the propagandist tries
ruthlessly to break down attitudes
that are unfriendly to him, so that
they will no longer inhibit people from
joining his cause. Positive suggestion
must supplement negative suggestion,
inasmuch as the destruction of one
type of attitude implies the substitution
of a different type.
DEVICES OF THE PROPAGANDIST
Perception and suggestion, however,
by no means complete the picture of
how propaganda operates. For the
propagandist is dealing with a number
of people whose ways of life are both
varied and unique. He can never be
absolutely certain that a given stimulus
will bring about the same response
in every single individual. There remains
a sphere of unpredictability
which he cannot completely control.
As a realistic man of affairs, he must be
content with percentages and not seek
perfect scores. Any person living in
society is stimulated constantly, and,
since propaganda is often extended in
time, the propagandist may see his
efforts destroyed by a rival before his
own ends have been attained. It is
essential, therefore, for him to reduce
the sphere of unpredictability as far as
possible by means of a number of subtle
devices.
Submissive people are admittedly
very suggestible. Now submissiveness
seems to be largely a product of
the awe that clings to objects and
people with prestige. Propagandists
have readily discovered that the social
values within any culture do have
prestige, and they include such values
in their stimulus-situations. A flag, a
quotation from the Bible, an authority,
a sentimental reference to the
glorious past-these are some of the
typical values which help propaganda.
The propagandist may have to persuade
prominent people to lend their
91
This content downloaded from
86.49.225.189 on Mon, 02 Oct 2023 09:58:44 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
support, and thereafter he utilizes
them as instruments of propaganda.
Thus an advertiser is willing to pay
for a testimonial, for he thinks-and
he is probably right-that he can make
his prospective customers more gullible
by having some one else proclaim
the virtues of his product. An impression
of universality also provokes
submission, and the skillful propagandist
always strives to create this impression.
Politicians, for example,
love to have folks jump on their band
wagons.
The propagandist wants conflict
only when the battle will be to his advantage.
More often than not he will
be afraid to present, or his training in
the mores will prevent him from transmitting,
what might be considered
true on the basis of some other criterion.
Such truth would be damaging.
To avoid this possibility, he may
shrewdly or unconsciously limit his
stimulus-situation by suppressing, distorting,
or fabricating the possible
sources of disturbance. Any one or all
of these methods have shocked too
many pious observers who still have
the mistaken notion that everything
about any situation can, should, and
will be presented.
When the propagandist has changed
people psychologically, he often wants
to retain their patronage. To do this,
he must strengthen the new attitudes
which have emerged within these patrons.
Again he repeats his stimulussituation,
this time not to make more
people perceive his message, but to
have those who have perceived it remain
static in at least one respect.
Again he varies the situation, not to
gain the support of the unconverted,
but to furnish additional intellectual
and emotional reasons for the beliefs
that have now come to exist. And
again he seeks to induce new attitudes
from older ones, not to draw in the
tardy or the stubborn, but to fortify
the faithful. It is clear, then, that
repetition, variation, and the construction
of new attitudes have simultaneously
both a perceptual and a reenforcing
function.
Like Sir Basil Zaharoff, propagandists,
especially the unintentional ones,
are fond of children. For children are
plastic, and the propaganda which is
sprayed upon them at an early age is
likely to last. Similarly any propagandist
is eager to be the first force to
reach people, since an initial attitude
is relatively stable. The principle of
primacy, consequently, is one of the
surest ways of coping with the sphere
of unpredictability.
It must not be thought, however,
that the propagandist merely wants to
change people's attitudes; on the contrary-and
especially in the long run
-he is anxious to have these attitudes
lead to action. Moral support is not
substantial enough; it must bring
about overt behavior. The propagandist
is seldom shy; without a blush
he indicates the paths of action along
which people who feel as he has made
them feel can most satisfactorily release
"their" feelings.
Finally, the propagandist may find
that he cannot influence some people
by means of the wide appeals contained
in his propaganda. He may
have carefully prepared the way and
yet they will resist him anyhow. At
this point he confines his attack to a
very small group and even to a single
individual; by using persuasion in a
face-to-face contact, he is able to vary
his technique to meet the exigencies of
the personalities confronting him.
OBLIGATION OF THE PSYCHOLOGIST
These are the principal mechanisms
that underlie propaganda, regardless
of the ends that are involved. The
attitudes aroused by the propagandist
92
This content downloaded from
86.49.225.189 on Mon, 02 Oct 2023 09:58:44 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
PSYCHOLOGY AND PROPAGANDA
and the amount of emotion or intellect
which they contain will vary with the
individual and with the situation. It
is hopeless, then, to try to distinguish
true education from all types of propaganda
in terms of the method of communication
or the psychological processes
at work. Such a distinction
requires that some one analyze carefully,
in the light of the prevailing
scientific and aesthetic notions of an
era, both the content of what is
transmitted and its social effect upon
people.
To some it will appear that the task
of psychology must end with description
at this level. Many social thinkers
believe that the psychologist is
limited to description at the disinterested
level of perception and suggestion,
and that others must come
forward to decide how our scientific
knowledge of propaganda is to be used
in the regulation of human affairs.
Such a position, however, fails to take
account of the fact that the value or
the danger of a new attitude or belief
produced by propaganda or education
can be understood only in terms of
other attitudes or beliefs of the com-
munity.
Granted that a certain type of
propaganda is the most effective
means of arousing patriotism or a
desire for Martini cocktails, a further
valid basis for a decision as to whether
such sentiments should be established
is to be found in an examination
of their psychological consequences.
Nationalistic feelings and desires to be
smart are never established in a psychological
vacuum. They are additions
to or modifications of some existing
organization of psychological
traits. It is a fact of distinctly psychological
nature that a man who has
a mild opinion that Jews are not
Americans may express an increase
in his general patriotism by becoming
overtly antagonistic to his Jewish
neighbors. It is also a psychological
fact that a man who comes to attribute
prestige value to Martini cocktails
may become susceptible to the habitforming
potentialities of alcoholic eu-
phoria.
Thus the psychologist has practical
obligations in his study of propaganda.
Though it is to the interest of better
understanding that he should not at
once declare all propaganda bad, and
that he should not glibly identify its
badness with the directness or the indirectness
of its appeal, he is not thereby
freed from all duty to give advice
regarding the state of public opinion
and the mechanisms that ought to be
used in its control. The psychologist
who observes fundamentally similar
psychological mechanisms in the psychotic
and the sane, still has a responsibility
to fight mental disease.
The psychologist, of course, even
though much of the obvious unintentional
propaganda has escaped him,
has done much more in the way of
furnishing disinterested descriptions
of the process of propaganda than he
has in stating the circumstances under
which a given type of propaganda
should or should not be used. Possibly
this timidity is due to his efforts
to avoid those popular but superficial
judgments about the basic viciousness
of propaganda which have been
pointed out.
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
There is, however, another force
that may have been important in preventing
the psychologist from taking
sides. Especially during the later
eighteenth and the nineteenth century,
much was made of the notion
that all expression should be free.
John Stuart Mill found it difficult to
imagine an opinion which was too absurd
to be permitted circulation. It
93
This content downloaded from
86.49.225.189 on Mon, 02 Oct 2023 09:58:44 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
was assumed that the truth would always
survive the rivalry of falsehood,
and that, since we can never be sure of
truth or falsehood when we first meet
them, it is better that society should
tolerate every possible idea. If falsehood
is certain ultimately to perish, a
check upon freedom of expression
merely runs the risk of stifling truth.
This doctrine, which was analogous
to, and possibly a part of, the economic
theory of laissez faire, has tended to
make men conservative in their effort
to control expression. The unscrupulous
advertiser and the pressure group
in politics have been greatly protected
in their activities by the fact that they
could raise the free-speech argument
against any who, in the public interest,
might seek to throttle them. Under
these circumstances the psychologist,
like the government official, has
tended to remain on the side line.
The laissez faire theory of economics
seems to be true as long as industry
and business are divided into small
enough units. At least the harm resulting
from the freedom of any single
small economic unit is not offensive to
many people. Similarly, small voices,
as long as they are independent, can
speak as they will, with little risk of
causing large public evils. But when
great corporations arise, which are
capable of modifying the rules of the
contest to suit themselves, and of
building up surpluses to support their
own inefficiency, the public begins to
be skeptical of the liberal doctrine of
noninterference. When it is seen that
a few large newspaper chains can turn
a peaceful people into rabid warriors,
or when a business man with enough
money is able to advance questionable
medical advice in a manner which
others are not financially able to
oppose, again the doctrine of freedom
comes into question. Nowadays,
psychological, like economic, competition
is typically one-sided. This is a
relatively new situation to psychologists
as well as to other men.
In the face of economic, political,
social, and spiritual cartels, the literal
doctrine of noninterference with
speech has plainly broken down. In
most countries it has been replaced by
the equally one-sided theory that the
attitudes and opinions of a people
should be under the complete control
of governmental officials-that psychological
freedom inevitably leads to
social disintegration. In Great Britain,
Scandinavia, and the United
States, the ideal of free expression has
not been entirely given up, though the
nineteenth-century ideal of complete
psychological laissez faire has undergone
drastic modification. In the
psychological as well as in the economic
realm it is seen that freedom is
tolerable only within limits. Few
would argue that the cinema interests
have the right to make any use of sex
appeal that will increase their paid
admissions. Few would argue that
the promoters of a business should be
free to make any claims they will to
prospective purchasers of their securi-
ties.
Whether one looks upon the psychological
problem of modern social life
as that of securing complete control
over the sources of psychological influence,
or whether one accepts the
conception that only limiting controls
should be exercised to define areas of
free expression, there is no longer any
possibility of escaping the problem on
the ground that when truth and falsehood
are turned loose against each
other, truth will necessarily triumph.
Too much of such "truth" is the dogma
of those who have the power to issue
decrees. In such a period of restraint,
somebody must continually puncture
the views that are forced to appear
true, and to propose relative and more
94
This content downloaded from
86.49.225.189 on Mon, 02 Oct 2023 09:58:44 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
PSYCHOLOGY AND PROPAGANDA
acceptable alternatives. Caught as
we are in this attempt to find new
values, we may expect psychologists,
as well as other men, increasingly to
look beyond the mere techniques of
commercial advertising and political
publicity, and to carry their analyses
forward into the social-psychological
consequences of alterations in public
beliefs and attitudes.
Leonard W. Doob, Ph.D., is instructor in psychology
at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.
He was formerly instructor in sociology at Dartmouth
College.
Edward S. Robinson, Ph.D., has been professor of
psychology in Yale University since 1927, and lecturer
in the Yale School of Law since 1932. He
served as assistant and associate professor at the
University of Chicago from 1920 to 1927. He is author
of "Practical Psychology," "Association Theory
Today," "Man, as Psychology Sees Him," and
(forthcoming) "Law and the Lawyers."
95
This content downloaded from
86.49.225.189 on Mon, 02 Oct 2023 09:58:44 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms