Walter Dill Scott: The Psychology of Advertising (1908)

One of the most important new developments in turn-of-the-century psychology was the beginning application of psychological theory and method to problems of everyday life. For the first time, issues in vocational guidance, mental health, child rearing, education, law, and business were subjected to systematic psychological analysis.

While not the first to apply the new scientific psychology to the study of business practices,⁵⁰⁹ Walter Dill Scott⁵¹⁰ was one of the most influential figures in this movement. His contributions, which spanned a period of more than 40 years, dealt with topics ranging from the psychology of advertising, sales, and public speaking, to personnel selection, classification, assessment, and management.⁵¹¹

Scott's earliest work was in the psychology of advertising. At the time, advertising executives were divided on the most effective approach to advertising design. The prevailing view was that consumers were rational. Given information about the product and reasons why it should be purchased, they would respond appropriately. The minority view held that consumer response to advertising was non-rational. To be effective, advertising had to make a strong impression, appealing less to readers' understanding than to their wishes and desires.⁵¹²

In a series of articles extending from 1901 to 1908, Scott brought current psychological theory and experiment to bear in support of the minority view, at the same time lobbying effectively for the importance of a scientific approach to questions of advertising effectiveness. In 1908, he gathered this material together in The Psychology of Advertising,⁵¹³ a book that gave birth to advertising psychology as a subdiscipline in its own right.⁵¹⁴ As Scott put it: 'advertising has as its one function the influencing of human minds...As it is the human mind that advertising is dealing with, its only scientific basis is psychology.'⁵¹⁵

At the time, the dominant theoretical concept in the analysis of social influence was that of 'suggestion,' the process whereby a 'conception, conclusion or action...follow(s) with less than the normal amount of deliberation' when 'called forth at the instigation of a second person or upon the presentation of an object'⁵¹⁶ in the absence of competing thoughts. Every normal person, Scott thought, was subject to the influence of suggestion; and suggestion, not reason, was the primary determinant of human action.⁵¹⁷

The implication for advertising was clear. Effective advertising must implant the thought of purchasing the product in the mind of the consumer without raising interfering thoughts. To help advertisers achieve this goal, Scott assessed the relevance of what was then known about basic psychological functions, including memory, feeling, sympathy, instinctive action, volition, habit, and attention, to the design of advertisements that would maximize the power of suggestion and minimize interference.

With regard to memory, Scott emphasized the importance of four principles believed to increase the memorability of an advertisement. These were repetition, intensity (e.g., use of vivid colors, placement in the initial or final position in the publication, request for action such as filling out a postcard), association value (especially with the reader's personal interests and motives), and ingenuity (e.g., choice of names reflective of the nature of the product).

Feeling was discussed in terms of pleasure and pain and their effects on suggestibility: 'In pleasure our minds expand. We become extremely suggestible, and are likely to see everything in a favorable light...In pain we ...refuse to receive suggestions, are not easily influenced, and are in a suspicious attitude toward everything which is proposed.'⁵¹⁸ To be successful, therefore, advertising must be designed to elicit pleasure in the reader; and, in this regard, Scott discussed 'the significance of such simple laws as that of proportion and symmetry in accomplishing the desired result.'⁵¹⁹

Sympathy, for Scott, was 'a mental attitude which is induced by the realization of the fact that someone else is going through that particular form of experience.'⁵²⁰ In general, the greater the perceived similarity between the reader and those seen pictured in an advertisement, the greater the degree of sympathy elicited by an advertisement; and the greater the sympathy, the higher the likelihood that the advertisement would influence the reader through the power of suggestion.

In analyzing the relevance of instinctive action to advertising, Scott introduced the issue of motivation. 'Every instinctive action is directed toward some object, but the effect of the action is to bring the object into a relation which will make it helpful toward the preservation or furtherance of the interests of the individual...'⁵²¹ Effective advertising, in other words, had to appeal to individual interests or motives. For Scott, these included interest in property, food, clothing, hoarding, hunting, constructing, parenting, and enhancement of the social, moral, intellectual, or aesthetic self.

Examining the nature of volition in terms of clarity and valuation of ends, accessibility and valuation of means, and choice of means and ends, Scott argued that advertisers wishing to ensure that decision making favored purchase of their product should bring the product 'before the public in such a manner that the idea of it will be clear and distinct in the minds of potential purchasers.'⁵²² They should inform the public of exactly what is necessary to secure the product; and they should present the product 'in such a manner that its value seems great'⁵²³ and its purchase desirable.

Borrowing his analysis of habit directly from William James,⁵²⁴ Scott also emphasized the importance for the advertiser of inducing 'the public to get the habit of using his particular line of goods. When the habit is once formed it acts as a great drive-wheel and makes further action easy in the same direction.'⁵²⁵ To establish a habit, advertising must be extensive; to maintain the habit, it must be continued.

In discussing attention, Scott argued that 'the power of any object to compel attention depends upon the absence of counter attraction.'⁵²⁶ In support of this view, he reported an empirical study of the attention value of large versus small advertisements, concluding that, all other things being equal, attention value varies with the size of the advertisement (e.g., a full page advertisement elicited more attention than two half-page advertisements).

Finally, in addition to discussing basic mental functions in relation to advertising effectiveness, Scott also addressed issues specific to the advertising of foods, the impact of street railway advertising, the use of the questionnaire method, and the applicability of laws of progressive thinking to advertisers. Taken together with the main thrust of the book, these topics covered virtually everything that was then known about the application of psychology to advertising. It is hardly any wonder that Scott's work was influential. Indeed, within only a few years, the non-rational approach to advertising, which had been a minority view when Scott entered the field, had become the mainstream perspective.

⁵⁰⁹ As early as 1896, a psychologist at the University of Minnesota, Harlow Gale, had begun to carry out laboratory experiments designed to assess the relative attention value of various characteristics of advertisements. Self published as: Gale, H. (1900). On the psychology of advertising. In H. Gale (Ed.). Psychological Studies. Minneapolis: Author, his research received little attention and had no impact on advertising practice.

⁵¹⁰ 1869–1955. For biographical information on Scott, see Jacobson, J.Z. (1951). Scott of Northwestern. Chicago: Louis Mariano; see also Ferguson, L.W. (1962). The Heritage of Industrial Psychology (Vol. 1: Walter Dill Scott, first industrial psychologist). Hartford, CT: Finlay Press, pp. 1–10; for Scott’s obituary, see Strong, E.K., Jr. (1954–5). Walter Dill Scott: 1869–1955. American Journal of Psychology, 67–8, 682–3.

⁵¹¹ For a bibliography of Scott’s publications, see Jacobson, op. cit.

⁵¹² For a discussion of this split, see Curti, M. (1967). The changing concept of human nature in the literature of American advertising. Business History Review, 41(4), 335–57.

⁵¹³ Scott, W.D. (1908). The Psychology of Advertising. A Simple Exposition of The Principles of Psychology in Their Relation to Successful Advertising. Boston: Small, Maynard.

⁵¹⁴ This was not Scott’s first book on the topic, however. In 1903, he had published the material from his early articles as Scott, W.D. (1903). The Theory of Advertising. A Simple Exposition of the Principles of Psychology in their Relation to Successful Advertising. Boston: Small, Maynard. Although of significance as the first book on the topic, the 1903 work was not written with a view to systematic presentation of the subject, while the 1908 book was.

⁵¹⁵ Scott (1908), op. cit., p. 2.

⁵¹⁶ Ibid., p. 81.

⁵¹⁷ Scott was strongly influenced in his view of suggestion by the work of Bernheim, especially by Bernheim, H. (1889). Suggestive Therapeutics. A Treatise on the Nature and Uses of Hypnotism. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons; for a discussion of the content and significance of this work, see the essay on Bernheim in this volume.

⁵¹⁸ Ibid., p. 24.

⁵¹⁹ Ibid., p. 37.

⁵²⁰ Ibid., p. 38.

⁵²¹ Ibid., pp. 52–5.

⁵²² Ibid., p. 95.

⁵²³ Ibid.

⁵²⁴ James, W. (1890). The Principles of Psychology. New York: Henry Holt; for a discussion of the Principles, see the essay on James in this volume.

⁵²⁵ Scott (1908), op. cit., p. 132.

⁵²⁶ Ibid., p. 157.

Extracted from Classics in Psychology, 1855–1914: Historical Essays
ISBN 1 85506 703 X
© Robert H. Wozniak, 1999