How to influence men : the use of psychology in business / by Edgar James Swift.

  • Swift, Edgar James, 1860-1932.
Date:
1927
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: How to influence men : the use of psychology in business / by Edgar James Swift. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    419/436 (page 395)
    With the second edition of this book under its new title, How to Influence Men, business friends have suggested that a few of the psychological facts underlying salesmanship be brought into brief review. Salesmanship is just recovering from an infection of pseudo- psychology. Quacks are always quick to see an opportunity, and when the importance of psychology for salesmanship and management was discovered these facile gentlemen imme- diately offered their services with ready pen and fluent tongue. Rules for reading character from the shape of the face and head, phrenology based on the long since discarded mental “facul- ties,” palmistry, and even astrology were quickly put on the market, and one or another of these curious, unscientific schemes for selecting salesmen was accepted by business men according to their peculiar mental slant. Books with grotesque memory systems also continue to rival the best-sellers throughout the country. Gold bricks usually find buyers and it is an interest- ing psychological observation that many managers and sales- men have been “sold” by the methods which they themselves employ. The extravagance of the pretensions of these vendors of long discredited lore should have made men suspicious of their claims, but the promise of large returns on investments is always allur- ing to those unacquainted with the enticing bait with which hooks may be concealed. Frequently, these dealers in counter- feit psychological wisdom invent an “Institute of Psychology,” electing themselves president, and they attach to their names a list of meaningless letters. Consequently, before purchasing those gold-coated clay bricks, business men would do well to ascertain whether the writer or lecturer is a member of the American Psychological Association. Psychology is not a mystical, occult science. It is no royal road to business success, but seekers of royal roads, like searchers for hidden treasure have usually spent their lives chasing the pot of gold at the rainbow’s end. Psychology—the science of human behavior—has much of value for salesmen as well as for those in other callings, but it is not a magic charm that opens the