periodical literature is a barbaric and inexcusable interference with
the process of æsthetic education. A page on which advertisements and
reading matter are mixed is a mess which irritates and hurts a mind of
fine æsthetic sensitiveness, but which in the uncultivated mind must
ruin any budding desire for subtler harmony. The noises of the street,
with all the whistles of the factories and the horns of the motor
cars, are bad enough, and the antinoise crusade is quite in order.
Yet the destructive influence of those chaotic sounds is far weaker
than the shrillness and restlessness of these modern specimens of
so-called literature. The mind is tossed up and down and is torn
hither and thither, following now a column of text while the
advertisements are pushing in from both sides, and then reading the
latest advertisement while the serious text is drawing the attention.
It is the quantity which counts. The popular magazines which circulate
in a million copies and reach two or three million minds are the
loudest preachers of this sermon of bewilderment and scramble. A
consciousness on which these tumultuous pages hammer day by day must
lose the subtler sense of proportionate harmony and must develop an
instinctive desire for harshness and crudeness and chaos. To overcome
this riot of the printing press is thus a truly cultural task, and yet
it is evident that the mere appeal to the cultural instinct will not
change anything as long as the publisher and, above all, the
advertiser, are convinced that they would have to sacrifice their
personal profit in the interest of æsthetic education. If an end is to
be hoped for, it can be expected only if it is discovered that the
calculation of profit is erroneous, too. But this is after all a
question of naked facts, and only the scientific examination can
decide.
The problem might be approached from various sides. It was only meant
as a first effort when I carried on the following experiment: I had a
portfolio with twenty-four large bristol-board cards of the size of
the _Saturday Evening Post_. On eight of those cards I had pasted four
different advertisements, each filling a fourth of a page. On some
pages every one of the four advertisements took one of four whole
columns; in other cases the page was divided into an upper and lower,
right and left part. All the advertisements were cut from magazines,
and in all the name of the firm and the object to be sold could be
easily recognized. On the sixteen other pages the arrangement was
different. There only two fourths of the page were filled by two
advertisements; the other two fourths contained funny pictures with a
few words below. These pictures were cut from comic papers. All the
pictures were of such a kind that they slightly attracted the
attention by their amusing content or by the cleverness of the
drawing, but never demanded any careful inspection or any delay by the
reading of the text. This, in most cases, consisted of a few title
words like "The Widow's Might," "Pause, father, is that whip
sterilized?" or similar easily grasped descriptions of the story in
the picture. Even where the text took two lines, it was more easy to
apperceive the picture and its description than the essentials of the
often rather chaotic advertisements. By this arrangement we evidently
had thirty-two advertisements on the eight pages which contained
nothing else, and thirty-two other advertisements on the sixteen pages
which contained half propaganda and half pictures with text. All this
material was used as a basis for the following test, in which
forty-seven adult persons participated. All were members of advanced
psychological courses, partly men, partly women. None of those engaged
in the experiment knew anything about the purpose beforehand. Thus
they had no theories, and I carefully avoided any suggestion which
might have drawn the attention in one or another direction.
Every one had to go through those twenty-four pages in twelve minutes,
devoting exactly thirty seconds to every page, and a signal marked the
time when he had to pass to the next. He was to give his attention to
the whole content of the page, and as both the pictures and the
advertisements were chosen with reference to their being easily
understood and quickly grasped, an average time of more than seven
seconds for each of the four offerings on the page was ample, even for
the slow reader. Of course the time would not have been sufficient to
read every detail in the advertisements, but no one had any interest
in doing so, as they were instructed beforehand to keep in mind
essentially the advertised article and the firm, and in the case of
the pictures a general impression of the idea.
As soon as the twenty-four pages had been seen, every one was asked to
write down the ideas of five of the funny pictures within three
minutes. The results of this were of no consequence, as the purpose
was only to fill the interval of the three minutes in order that all
the memory pictures of the advertisements might settle down in the
mind and that all might have an equal chance If we had turned
immediately to the writing down of firms and articles, the last ones
seen would have had an undue advantage. But when the three minutes had
been filled with an effort to remember some of the funny pictures and
to write down their salient points, all the mental after-images of the
pages had faded away, and a true memory picture was to be produced. In
the presentation care was taken to have the twenty-four pages follow
in irregular order, the pages of straight advertising mixed with those
of the double content. After the three minutes every one had to write
down as many names of firms with the articles as his memory could
reproduce. The time was now unlimited. Nothing else was to be added;
the reference to the particular advertisement was entirely confined
to the firm and the object. Where they knew the firm name without the
object, or the article without the advertiser, they had to make a dash
to indicate the omission. The aim was to discover whether the
thirty-two advertisements on the mixed pages had equal chances in the
mind with the thirty-two on the straight advertisement pages. In order
to have an exact basis of comparison, we counted every name 1, and
every article 1. Thus when firm and object were correctly given it was
counted 2.
Of course there were very great individual differences. It is evident
that a person who would have remembered all the sixty-four
advertisements on this basis of calculation would have made 128
points. The maximum which was actually made was in the case of two
women, each of whom reached 50 points. One man reached 49. The lowest
limit was touched in the exceptional case of one woman who made only
11 points. The average was 28.4. These figures seem small, considering
that less than a fourth were kept in mind, and even by the best memory
less than a half, but it must be considered that in the modern style
of advertisement the memory is burdened with many side features of the
announcement, and that the result is therefore smaller than if name
and article had been memorized in an isolated form. But these figures
have no relation to our real problem. We wanted to compare the memory
fate of the advertisements on the one kind of pages with that of the
parallel advertisements on the other kind. As soon as we separate the
two kinds of reproduced material we find as total result that the
forty-seven persons summed up 570 points for the advertisements on
pages with comic pictures, but 771 for the advertisements on pages
which contained nothing else. The average individual thus remembered
about six whole advertisements out of the thirty-two on the combined
pages, and about eight and a fifth of the thirty-two on the straight
pages. Among the forty-seven persons, there were thirty-six who
remembered the straight-page notices distinctly better than the
mixed-page advertisements, and only eleven of the forty-seven showed a
slight advantage in favour of the mixed pages. In the case of the men
this difference is distinctly greater than in the case of the women.
Only two of the fifteen men who participated showed better reproducing
power for the mixed material, while nine of the thirty-two women
favoured it. As the advertiser is not interested in the chance
variations and exceptional cases among the reading public, but
naturally must rely on the averages, the results show clearly that the
propaganda made on pages which do not contain anything but
advertisements has more than a third greater chances, as the relation
was that of 6 to 8.2.
The result is hardly surprising. We recognized that the conditions for
the apprehension of the special advertisements are in themselves
equally favourable for both groups. As the pictures were very easily
grasped, it may even be said that there was more time left for the
study of the advertisements on the mixed pages, and yet the experiment
showed that they had a distinct disadvantage. The self-observation of
the experimenters leaves hardly any doubt that the cause for this lies
in the different attitude which the mixed pages demand from the
reader. The mental setting with which those pictures or the written
matter is observed, is fundamentally different from that which those
propaganda notices demand. If the mind is adjusted to the pleasure of
reading for its information and enjoyment, it is not prepared for the
fullest apprehension of an advertisement as such. The attention for
the notice on the same page remains shallow as long as the entirely
different kind of text reaches the side parts of the eye. On those
pages, on the other hand, which contain announcements only, a uniform
setting of the mind prepared the way for their fullest effectiveness.
The average reader who glances over the pages of the magazines is not
clearly aware of these psychological conditions, and yet that feeling
of irritation which results from the mixing of reading matter and
propaganda on the same page is a clear symptom of this mental
reaction. The mere fact that both the advertisements and stories or
anecdotes or pictures are seen in black and white by the retina of the
eye, and are in the same way producing the ideas of words and forms in
the mind, does not involve the real psychological effect being the
same. The identical words read as a matter of information in an
instructive text, and read as an argument to the customer in a piece
of propaganda, set entirely different mental mechanisms in motion. The
picture of a girl seen with the understanding that it is the actress
of the latest success, or seen with the understanding that it is an
advertisement for a toilet preparation, starts in the whole
psychophysical system different kinds of activities, which mutually
inhibit each other. If we anticipate the one form of inner reaction,
we make ourselves unfit for the opposite.
An interesting light falls on the situation from experiments which
have recently been carried on by a Swedish psychologist. He showed
that in every learning process the intention with which we absorb the
memory material is decisive for the firmness with which it sticks to
our mind. If a boy learns one group of names or figures or verses with
the intention to keep them in mind forever, and learns another group
of the same kind of material with the same effort and by the same
method, but with the intention to have them present for a certain test
the next day, the mental effect is very different. Immediately after
the learning, or on the morning of the next day, he has both groups
equally firmly in his mind, but three days later most of what was
learned to be kept is still present. On the other hand, those verses
and dates which were learned with the consciousness that they had to
serve the next day have essentially faded away when the time of the
test has passed, even if the test itself was not given. Every lawyer
knows from his experience how easily he forgets the details of the
case which has once been settled by the court, as he has absorbed the
material only for the purpose of having it present up to the end of
the procedure. These Swedish experiments have given a cue to further
investigations, and everything seems to confirm this view. It brings
out in a very significant way that the impressions which are made on
our mind from without are in their effectiveness on the mind entirely
dependent upon the subjective attitude, and the idea that the same
visual stimuli stir up the same mental reactions is entirely
misleading. The attitude of reading and the attitude of looking at
advertisements are so fundamentally different that the whole mental
mechanism is in a different setting.
The result is that whenever we are in the reading attitude, we cannot
take the real advertising effect out of the pictures and notices which
are to draw us to the consumption of special articles. The editor who
forces his wisdom into the propaganda page is hurting the advertiser,
who, after all, pays for nothing else but the opportunity to make a
certain psychological impression on the reader. He gets a third more
of this effect for which he has to pay so highly if he can have his
advertisement on a clean sheet which brings the whole mind into that
willing attitude to receive suggestions for buying only. It is most
probable that the particular form of the experiment here reported
makes this difference between advertising pages with and without
reading matter much smaller than it is in the actual perusal of
magazines, as we forced the attention of the individual on every page
for an equal time. In the leisurely method of going through the
magazine the interfering effect of the editorial part would be still
greater. Compared with this antagonism of mental setting, it means
rather little that these scattered pieces of text induce the reader to
open the advertisement. If we were really of that austere intellect
which consistently sticks to that which is editorially backed, we
should ignore the advertisements, even if they were crowded into the
same page. They might reach our eye, but they would not touch our
mind. Yet there is hardly any fear that the average American reader
will indulge in such severity of taste. He is quite willing to yield
to the temptation of the advertising gossip with its minimum
requirement of intellectual energy for its consumption. He will
therefore just as readily turn from the articles to the advertisements
if they are separated into two distinct parts. Frequent observations
in the Pullman cars suggested to me rather early the belief that these
advertisement parts in the front and the rear of the magazine were the
preferred regions between the two covers.
Just as the great public habitually prefers the light comedy and
operetta to the theatre performances of high æsthetic intent, it moves
instinctively to those printed pages on which a slight appeal to the
imagination is made without any claim on serious thought. It is indeed
a pleasant tickling of the imagination, this leisurely enjoyment of
looking over all those picturesque announcements; it is like passing
along the street with its shopwindows in all their lustre and glamour.
But this soft and inane pleasure has been crushed by the arrangement
after to-day's fashion. Those pages on which advertising and articles
are mixed helterskelter do not allow the undisturbed mood. It is as if
we constantly had to alternate between lazy strolling and energetic
running. Thus the chances are that the old attractiveness of the
traditional advertising part has disappeared. While those broken ends
of the articles may lead the reader unwillingly to the advertisement
pages, he will no longer feel tempted by his own instincts to seek
those regions of restlessness; and if he is of more subtle
sensitiveness, the irritation may take the stronger form, and he may
throw away the whole magazine, advertisement and text together. The
final outcome, then, must be disadvantageous to publisher and
advertiser alike. The publisher and the editor have certainly never
yielded to this craving of the advertiser for a place on the reading
page without a feeling of revolt. Commercialism has forced them to
submit and to make their orderly issues places of disorder and chaos.
The advertisers have rushed into this scheme without a suspicion that
it is a trap. The experiments have proved that they are simply
injuring themselves. As soon as this is widely recognized, a
countermovement ought to start. We ought again to have the treasures
of our magazines divided into a straight editorial and a clean
advertisement part. The advertisers will profit from it in dollars and
cents through the much greater psychological effectiveness of their
announcements, the editors will be the gainers by being able to
present a harmonious, sympathetic, restful magazine, and the great
public will be blessed by the removal of one of the most malicious
nerve irritants and persistent destroyers of mental unity.
VIII
THE MIND OF THE INVESTOR
The psychologist who tries to disentangle the interplay of human
motives finds hardly a problem for his art to solve when he approaches
the conscientious investor. His work has brought him savings, and his
savings are to work for him. Hence they must not lie idle, and in the
complicated market, with its chaotic offerings, he knows what he has
to do. He seeks the advice of the expert, and under this guidance, he
buys that which combines great safety with a fair income. The
intellectual and emotional processes which here take control of the
will and of the decision are perfectly clear and simple, and the
mental analysis offers not the least difficulty. The fundamental
instincts of man on the background of modern economic conditions must
lead to such rational and recommendable behaviour. A psychological
problem appears only when such a course of wisdom is abandoned, and
either the savings are hidden away instead of being made productive,
or are thrown away in wildcat schemes. Yet of the two extremes the
first again is easily understood. A hysteric fear of possible loss, an
unreasonable distrust of banks and bankers, keeps the overcautious
away from the market. But while such a state of mind is said to be
frequent in countries in which the economic life is disorderly,
enterprising Americans seldom suffer from this ailment, and even the
theoretical doctrine that it is sinful to have capital working seems
not to have affected practically those who have the capital at their
disposal. The specific American case is the opposite one, and with
regard to those reckless investors it seems less clear what
psychological conditions lie at the bottom of their rashness.
Foreign visitors have indeed often noticed with surprise that the
American public, in spite of its cleverness and its practical trend
and its commercial instinct, is more ready to throw its money into
speculative abysses than the people of other lands. What is the
reason? Those observers from abroad are usually satisfied with the
natural answer that the Americans are gamblers, or that they have an
indomitable desire for capturing money without working. But the
students of comparative sociology cannot forget the fact that many
national institutions and customs of other lands suggest that the
blame might with much more justice be directed against the other
party. America prohibits lotteries, while lotteries are flourishing on
the European continent. The Austrians, Italians, and Spaniards are
slaves to lotteries, and even in sober Germany the state carries on a
big lottery enterprise. President Eliot once said in a speech about
the moral progress of mankind that a hundred years ago a public
lottery was allowed in Boston for the purpose of getting the funds for
erecting a new Harvard dormitory, and he added that such a procedure
would be unthinkable in New England in our more enlightened days. Yet
in the most civilized European countries, whenever a cathedral is to
be built, or an exhibition to be supported, the state gladly sanctions
big lottery schemes to secure the financial means. The European
governments argue that a certain amount of gambling instinct is
ingrained in human character, and that it is wiser to create a kind of
official outlet by which it is held within narrow limits, and by which
the results yielded are used for the public good.
This may be a right or a wrong policy, but in any case, it shows that
the desire for gambling is no less marked on the other side of the
ocean. In the same way, while private bookmakers are not allowed at
most European races, the official "totalisators" offer to the
gamblers the same outlets. Every tourist remembers from the European
casinos in the summer resorts the famous game with the little horses,
a miniature Monaco scheme. And in the privacy of the too often not
very private clubs extremely neat card games are in order which depend
still more upon chance than the American poker. Moreover, the
Europeans have not even the right to say that American life indicates
a desire for harvest without ploughing. Every observer of European
life knows to what a high degree the young Frenchman or Austrian,
Italian, German, or Russian approaches married life with an eye on the
dowry. Hundreds of thousands consider it as their chief chance to come
to ease and comfort. The whole temper of the nations is adjusted to
this idea, which is essentially lacking in American society. It is
evident that no method of getting rich quick is more direct, and from
a higher point of view more immoral, if taken as a motive for the
choice of a mate, than this plan which Europe welcomes. The same
difference shows itself in smaller traits. Europe invented the tipping
system, which also means that money is expected without an equivalent
in labour. Tipping is essentially strange to the American character,
however rapid its progress has been on the Atlantic seaboard.
Of course it would be absurd to ignore the existence and even the
prevalence of similar attitudes in America. If the dowry does not
exist, not every man marries without a thought of the rich
father-in-law. Forbidden gambling houses are abundant, private betting
connected with sport is flourishing everywhere; above all, the
economic organization admits through a back-door what is banished from
the main entrance, by allowing stocks to be issued for very small
amounts. In Germany the state does not permit stocks smaller than one
thousand marks, equal to two hundred and fifty dollars, with the very
purpose of making speculative stock buying impossible for the man of
small means. The waiter and the barber who here may buy very small
blocks of ten-dollar stocks have no such chance there. Stock buying is
thus confined to those circles from which a certain wider outlook may
be expected. The external framework of the stock market is here far
more likely to tempt the man of small savings into the game, and the
mere fact that this form has been demanded by public consciousness
suggests that the spirit which craves lotteries is surely not absent
in the new world, even though the lottery lists in the European
newspapers are blackened over before they are laid out in the American
public libraries. A certain desire for gambling and quick returns
evidently exists the world over. But if the Americans are really
speculating more than all the other nations, a number of other mental
features must contribute to the outcome.
One tendency stands quite near to gambling, and yet is
characteristically different, the delight in running risks, the joy in
playing with dangers. Some races, in which the gambling instinct is
strong, are yet afraid of high risks, and the pleasure in seeking
dangerous situations may prevail without any longing for the rewards
of the gambler. It seems doubtful whether this adventurous longing for
unusual risks belongs to the Anglo-Saxon mind. At least those
vocations which most often involve such a mental trend are much more
favoured by the Irish. It is claimed that they, for instance, are
prominent among the railroad men, and that the excessive number of
accidents in the railroad service results from just this reckless
disposition of the Irishmen. It tempts them to escape injury and death
only by a hair. Where this desire to feel the nearness of danger, yet
in the hope of escaping it, meets the craving for the excitement of
possible gain, a hazardous investment of one's savings must be
expected.