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.