Page 103 - The Social Animal

Mass Communication, Propaganda, and Persuasion 85

put rat poison in your drinking water.” The referendum to fluoridate
the water supply was soundly defeated. Of course, this incident does-
n’t prove conclusively that emotional appeals are superior, mainly be-
cause the incident was not a scientifically controlled study. We have
no idea how the people would have voted on fluoridation if no pub-
licity were circulated, nor do we know whether the antifluoridation
circular reached more people, whether it was easier to read than the
proponents’ literature, and so forth. Although the actual research in
this area is far from conclusive, there is some evidence favoring an
appeal that is primarily emotional. In one early study, for example,
37
George Hartmann tried to measure the extent to which he could
induce people to vote for a particular political candidate as a func-
tion of what kind of appeal he used. He demonstrated that individ-
uals who received a primarily emotional message voted for the
candidate endorsed by the message more often than did people who
received a primarily logical message.
The word primarily is italicized for good reason; it defines the
major problem with research in this area—namely, there are no fool-
proof, mutually exclusive definitions of emotional and rational. In the
fluoridation illustration, for example, most people would probably
agree the antifluoridation pamphlet was designed to arouse fear; yet,
it is not entirely illogical because it is indeed true that the fluoride
used in minute concentrations to prevent tooth decay is also used in
massive concentrations as a rat poison. On the other side, to present
the views of professional people is not entirely free from emotional
appeal; it may be comforting (on an emotional level) to know that
physicians and dentists endorse the use of fluorides.
Because, in practice, operational distinctions between logical and
emotional are difficult to draw, some researchers have turned to an
equally interesting and far more researchable problem: the problem of
the effect of various levels of a specific emotion on opinion change.
Suppose you wish to arouse fear in the hearts of your audience as a
way of inducing opinion change. Would it be more effective to arouse
just a little fear, or should you try to scare the hell out of them? For
example, if your goal is to convince people to drive more carefully,
would you be more effective if you showed them gory films of the bro-
ken and bloody bodies of the victims of highway accidents, or would
you be more effective if you soft-pedaled your communication—
showing crumpled fenders, discussing increased insurance rates due