Blog #179--Subtle Influences on Human Behavior

The book “The Hidden Persuaders” by Vance Packard was an eye-opener for me. First published in 1957, it discussed some of the many ways advertisers, marketers, politicians and others have learned to trick the general public into buying what they are selling. I had long noticed how television commercials that stimulate or deceive the ego sold more products and were more popular than those with straightforward, honest advertising campaigns. Packard provided explanations for this situation.

It’s been many years since I read the book, but I remember it mentioned how people in a grocery story go into a mild trance state with a reduced blink rate, making them more susceptible to certain color combinations and images on packages and boxes of food. This was just one of many factors that influence what items are purchased in the largest quantities. It became obvious from Packard’s research that businesses have a decided advantage over their customers by understanding these subtleties.

Over the years, massive amounts of research have gone into learning how to manipulate the human mind, and most of us have become extremely vulnerable to the practical application of this research. Psychologist John B. Watson founded the study of Behaviorism. Along with his graduate student Rosalie Rayner, Watson pioneered work in the early 20th century on how fear can be used to control others. He knew fear was an instinct, and he assumed humans were no different than other mammals.

He took advantage of this knowledge by experimenting on an infant child. This was highly unethical research, but he gained access to a 9-month old male baby and used experiments similar to those Ivan Pavlov performed on dogs. Watson burned all his notes on these experiments, so we don’t know who the baby really was. But it is understood the child was selected because he was extremely calm and even-tempered, unaffected by a number of both positive and negative images.

Watson taught the baby to associate a loud clanging noise with images of rabbits and white rats. The baby was conditioned negatively to the point it would cry whenever he would see either of these animals. This was even true 11 months later, showing how such conditioning can last long into the future. The infant was even taught to fear Santa Claus.

Fired from his professorship at Johns Hopkins University, not because of his research but because the married Watson was caught having an affair with Rayner, Watson went into advertising. According to Paula Young Lee, who published an article on alternet.org 3/28/2015 entitled, “Making Babies Scared of Bunnies: The Roots of Fear in Advertising,” Watson quickly rose to become vice-president of the advertising firm J. Walter Thompson. His concept of prediction and control of human behavior fit well into the financial model of the company.

Watson had long concluded that humans were basically irrational, and that most people couldn’t tell one product from another. Selling the image was the practical application of his research, and the best way to do that was to induce fear. Historian Peggy J. Kreshel shared his directive to his underlings:

“Watson told advertisers to stir up the consumer’s emotions: ‘tell him something that will tie him up with fear, something that will stir up a mild rage, that will call out an affectionate or love response, or strike at a deep psychological or habit need.”

Interestingly enough, Watson also researched ways of helping people overcome fears through desensitization. Fearful people are exposed a little at a time to the source of their fear while given pleasurable rewards. They eventually can begin to relax in the presence of the offending image. Many allergies are also treated by slowly exposing a body to increasing amounts of the offending antigens.

Lee writes, “One day, it’s white rats and rabbits. The next, it’s terrorists and Ebola. These are scary things, to be sure, yet if fear is an understandable response to vague and unfamiliar threats, to be ruled by that fear is to remain at the level of an animal. For Watson, those fearful/angry/lustful instincts were the reason Behaviorism worked in the first place.” In other words, fear, rage and love are all strong instincts within us and can be manipulated by others to serve their own purposes.

In the nearly 100 years since Watson began his work, psychological manipulation techniques have expanded far beyond even Watson’s imagination. Technical achievements and many research experiments, some of which remain highly secretive, have made the general public extremely susceptible to manipulation. Some humans are so wracked with fear, they panic frequently. And since panic causes us to behave opposite our best interests, that makes us all extremely vulnerable, not only to advertising but to newscasts, military and industrial propaganda, intelligence assessments, religious propaganda, bigotry, and deceit of all kinds.

Lee concludes the following regarding these advancements:

“The applications have merely become more overt, with the designs of casinos and supermarkets carefully calibrated to create compulsions for items we don’t need. It’s become a popular truism that American culture treats consumers like lab rats on a wheel, dangling sex, food, revenge and rewards just out of reach, to be forever chased. Turns out that feeling of running for your life while being stuck in one place is more accurate than anyone knew.”

Citizens of Earth are more bombarded by fear-inducing lies of all kinds than ever before in written history. A few people may see through the games and remain unaffected, but most of us are completely unaware how we are being manipulated to serve others' selfish interests. The question is which will come first, humans waking up to what is really happening, or the manipulators hoarding all the resources required for life to continue? Based on what has occurred up to now, the answer may be the latter.

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