Derek Rideout

Journalism 201
Paper 2 final draft
12/9/2008

Don’t Think, Let Your Emotions Do The Work

Every three years or so Americans go through the cycle of countless debates, a

bombardment of advertisements, and dealing with fanatics in the course of choosing the

next president. This year was no different as people everywhere seemed to be acting

crazier than usual and for no real reason. This may lead one to wonder how much work

people put in to find facts and histories of the candidates or if they are simply emotionally

turned on by these presidential hopefuls. Everyone likes to believe that their emotions

take the back seat in decision making but is this the case? When deciding on a

presidential candidate, emotions play a larger role than does rationality in that people rely

on personal feelings more than rational fact finding in the decision process. Stimulating

emotional responses over a long period of time can increase support for a candidate by

causing the psychological idea that emotion overrides reason to take effect. Because this

happens at a deep cognitive level many people affected by it will believe they are acting

rationally when in reality it is just the opposite.

In order to understand how and why what will be explained later happens we need

to first understand how emotions affect our rationality. Emotions often function at levels

we are unaware of, or what could be called subconsciously (Brader, 2005). Because of

this it can be difficult to tell why you feel a certain way at the moment or even when your

emotions are being evoked. Our subconscious is the ultimate decider because this is

where our brain stores things considered to be absolute truths. If your conscious and
subconscious are in conflict the battle is often won by the subconscious. This explains

why when presented with immediate danger many freeze first before deciding to run.

Your fearful emotions petrify you even though your conscious is saying get away. The

same is true with positive emotions. We’ve all seen a team score important points and

then cheer like they won the game while the other team is just about to score right back.

Their excited emotions made them forget their conscious saying to keep a cool head

because there is still more game. Another way to know when your subconscious does not

agree is if consciously you feel there is nothing wrong with what you’re saying, reading,

or hearing and yet you still have that nervous feeling in your stomach. Not to be

stereotypical or what some might call sexist but you can also see this idea very well if

you push a person past their “boiling point,” which is more noticeable in females, and

watch the irrationality flow like a river. It is no wonder then that when asked to choose

between candidates many people chose the one that evoked the strongest emotional

response (www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/opinion/story.html?id=e1142869-a396-

4e82-896c-760180ecf342).

Now that we know a little about how emotions affect reason we can examine the

effect of the most commonly elicited emotion, fear. Fear is a very powerful control

emotion, especially in a world like ours where the average person is made to believe that

they themselves cannot think up solutions for themselves and in turn has to be told by

experts what the best solution is for complex issues. This can be used advantageously

because it has been found that increased fear can be associated with increased positive

attitudes towards the policies or behaviors presented as remedies to the fear inducing

threat (DeSteno et al., 2004). An example can be seen in the economic issue. Most
Americans are nervous about the economy and Obama’s plan to not raise taxes for those

making less than $250,000 sounds very nice even though it’s physically impossible

because he wants to increase spending and our national debt, now over $10 trillion,

continues to grow. John McCain used this when saying that Obama was not experienced

enough to lead. In the world we live in many people were probably affected by the

“maverick’s” message and would rather support someone who’s been in Congress for 20

some years compared to someone who has only served one term and came out of

nowhere. Some people voted for McCain simply because Barack Hussein Obama sounds

too much like a terrorist I guess. There was a good amount of Hillary supporters who

defected because of this reason. Fear is also used in almost every single ad we see on TV

for these people. The purpose of attack ads is to make you fearful of the victim while

making you believe the sponsor has the right or better policies. These emotions are used

to grab your attention throughout the whole ad which causes a person’s rationality to be

affected by the emotional reasons (www.buzzflash.com/articles/interview/075).

Fear is not the only emotion preyed on during campaigns. Positive emotions,

mainly enthusiasm, are elicited for the same reason as negative ones, to increase support

without much thought. Notice how every ad uses images, music, and even certain words

or phrases; why is this? This is because adding images and music increases emotions and

can unleash desired emotional responses when watching ads (Brader, 2005). Think about

it this way, would “I love you” be as happy or romantic in a movie if they were standing

in the middle of a field instead of with roses, candle lit dinner, and the sappy background

music? Each of the recognized candidates uses this as well. John McCain played the

heroic, victorious music in his ads and Barack has the all so powerful saying of “yes we
can.” It’s interesting to note that it is possible and I think likely that Obama is using what

is called Ericksonian hypnosis or conversational hypnosis. The reader will probably be

shocked and think of the Hollywood version of hypnosis, which is just that, Hollywood.

Hypnosis is simply getting your conscious mind so focused and concentrated on one

thing that it doesn’t notice anything else, even that which the subconscious sends and

receives. An example would be the video with a black team and white team, each has a

basketball and you are told to count the number of passes by each team. You are so

focused on your task that the first time you watch the video you don’t even notice the

gorilla take center stage, beat his chest, and then leave. The way Ericksonian hypnosis

works is that almost everything you say is unquestionably true. Since your subconscious

stores absolute truths all of this is allowed to pass into the subconscious. You also have to

use a technique called pacing which is basically rhythmic speaking to get you into a

concentrated flow. This is why Obama speaks so slowly, rhythmically, and long. Now

that your conscious is so focused on his pace and every word he says since it’s so slow

and you’ve been letting almost all of it into your subconscious you start to let things in

whether you agree or not

(www.pennypresslv.com/Obama’s_Use_of_Hidden_Hypnosis_techniques_in_His_Speec

hes.pdf). This can explain why so many people voted for Obama and most of them

probably can’t tell you clearly five things he stood for that they liked other than he’s

inspirational, which is an enthusiastic emotion, and because of “change.” Also, many

people tend to vote based on singular issues instead of looking at the whole picture

(www.wakemag.org/voices/are-you-experienced/). It’s kind of like Christmas for a kid,

you only look for the big presents.

 Emotions play a part in everyone’s decision process but by how much is not the

same for all people. This is because every decision has an underlying emotion associated

to the situation whether you know or not. The more rational a person is, the more able

they are to control or override their emotions (news.softpedia.com/news/Why-Do-

Emotions-Make-Us-Irrational-31983.shtml). Watching the “news” or being a poli sci

professor does not make a person more rational in decision making than someone who

never watches TV and works at McDonalds. In fact, the more sophisticated someone is

politically the more able they are to develop complex rationalizations for dismissing data

or information they don’t want to believe

(www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/opinion/story.html?id=e1142869-a396-4e82-

896c-760180ecf342). Some people even voted because of race or sex. According to a poll

of people who were voting for McCain just as many were voting that way because they

liked Sarah Palin as because they thought McCain had honesty and good character

(www.wakemag.org/voices/are-you-experienced/). I’ve also talked to friends of mine

who are black and asked them why they were voting Obama. They couldn’t really say, so

when I said it’s because he’s black like you they get angry and change the subject

because it’s true.

In summary, emotions affect everyone’s rationality but to different extents. Over

the course of an election campaign the emotions evoked can cause them to have a greater

pull in the decision than your rationality. One way to use as much rationale as possible is

to realize the important role of emotions and that candidates love to evoke your emotions

and spend a lot of money doing so. They are no more than salesmen trying to sell you

their platform and like anything you buy it is wise to be cautious when considering all
facts. The founding fathers hated democracy because they knew people were easily led in

certain directions and now that the study of psychology and of emotions has progressed

so much since their time it is even easier to guide the people on these grounds. So next

time when you see a political ad and the music comes on they start using vague words to

elicit emotions what they’re really saying to you is, “don’t think, let your emotions do the

work.”
 References

1. DeSteno, D., Petty, R.E., Rucker, D.D., Wegener, D.T., Braverman, J. (2004). Discrete
Emotions and Persuasion: The Role of Emotion-Induced Expectancies. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 86, 43-56.

2. Brader, T. (2005). Striking a Responsive Chord: How Political Ads Motivate and
Persuade Voters by Appealing to Emotions. American Journal of Political Science, 49,
388-405.

3. http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/interview/075

4. Sci/Tech News Staff. (2006). Why Do Emotions Make Us Irrational? Retrieved

November 2, 2008 from http://news.softpedia.com/news/Why-Do-Emotions-Make-Us-
Irrational-31983.shtml

5. Hanson, L. (2008). Are You Experienced? Retrieved November 2, 2008 from

http://www.wakemag.org/voices/are-you-experienced/

6. Zussman, D. (2008). The minds of voters. Retrieved November 2, 2008 from

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/opinion/story.html?id=e1142869-a39b-4e82-
896c-760180ecf342

7.
http://www.pennypresslv.com/Obama’s_Use_of_Hidden_Hypnosis_techniques_in_His_
Speeches.pdf