Hey what’s up Thinkers! Kathy Gibbens here…
Let’s start off by doing a quick review of a compliance tactic we covered earlier this season, The Ingratiation Technique. The Ingratiation Technique is when someone tries to present themselves as more friendly and likable to a person or a group of people in order to influence, persuade or get them to do something specific.
Question to ask yourself: “Is there an ulterior motive behind their niceness?” Or, if you think you might be guilty of Ingratiation, you can ask yourself, “Do I have an ulterior motive behind my niceness?”
If you want to review or hear more about this tactic, go back & check out Episode 135.
Before we get into today’s topic, I want to share with you a really cool resource that our family found recently. My daughter is a Junior in high school and so of course she’s in the mode of thinking about what she wants to do after she graduates. Now, we’re not a family who pushes college ‘just because’. We feel like there are lots of amazing options out there, whether it be learning a trade, attending a gap year program, etc. Well, my friend, Beth from Well Spent Solutions, is an advisor for high school students who are trying to figure out what they want to do and she invited us to have our daughter take the YouScience Assessment. Y’all, this Assessment was so cool. It assessed the way her mind works and how she thinks to help highlight her gifts & talents, and then it matched that up with different career fields that use those particular gifts & talents. Beth took the time to go over her Assessment with us and can I just say that it was so validating for her to hear from an outside source all the amazing ways her brain works and to see such a wide array of options that would be a good fit for how her brain works. Guys, I highly recommend this assessment. And what’s super cool is that for listeners of Filter It Through A Brain Cell, Well Spent Solutions is offering an exclusive discount! Visit www.wellspentsolutions.com today and use the promo code FILTERIT20 to get 20% off of their program Discover Your Talents. That's www.wellspentsolutions.com with promo code FILTERIT20. The link will be in the show notes.
Alright, let’s dive into today’s Propaganda Tactics: Labels, Slogans & Virtue Words. I decided to lump these three together because they’re all tactics that use words to give you a mental association with something or to create a positive or negative emotion. Plus, all of them are simple and you’ll recognize them very easily, so I didn’t feel like they each needed their own episodes.
So, let’s start with Labeling. Labeling happens when someone pigeon-holes a person or group into a simple category and assigns names to that category. And, we all do this sort of thing…if someone cuts us off in traffic, we label them a bad driver. People who are more introverted tend to get labeled as being shy. We even put labels on people to try to categorize them, like nerds, jocks, mean girls, etc. Some of this is just our brain trying to categorize the world around us, something it does naturally. However, labeling can also become propaganda when someone gives a person or a group a bad label by using an easy to remember negative name in order to make others reject and condemn the person or idea without examining what the label really means. Some examples of this would be calling someone who is concerned about the environment a "Tree-Hugger", and these days, calling anyone who disagrees with you a "Nazi".
Ok, next up, let’s talk about Slogans. A Slogan is a brief, striking phrase that people will remember, and it typically creates some kind of emotional reaction in people when they hear it. Slogans are used a lot in advertising. Here are a few slogans that you recognize: “KFC: Finger-lickin’ good”, or “Bounty, the quicker picker upper”, or how about “Subway, Eat Fresh” or “Kellogg’s Rice Krispies, Snap Crackle Pop” and of course Nike’s “Just do it”. You’ve heard these slogans, you recognize them and associate them with a particular product. This is a very common thing that companies & advertisers will do to help you remember their brand. However, it can be propaganda when slogans are used to demonize a person or a people group, often for the benefit or the gain of the person using the slogan. Propaganda slogans are very commonly used in politics and during war time. The Marine slogan ‘We want you” was very successful in getting more people to join, and every presidential election has a slogan, like Biden’s ‘build back better’, Hillary Clinton’s ‘I’m with her’ and Donald Trump’s ‘make america great again’. These are all examples of political slogans. Speaking of Donald Trump, one of his slogans during his campaign was “Lock her up”, where he’s referring to putting Hillary Clinton into jail. This slogan worked to demonize his political opponent and gave voice to the frustration & anger that his supporters felt about her. When he did get into office, this slogan seemed to be forgotten and she was never locked up.
Alright, then lastly we have Virtue Words. Virtue Words are words that are attractive to the value system of the target audience. These words are specifically chosen because they produce positive emotions when attached to a person or issue. These words are used to fool us into accepting and approving of things without examining the evidence carefully. Examples of virtue words are: "Natural", "Democratic", "Organic", "Scientific", "Ecological", "Sustainable" or “tolerant & inclusive”. And when someone uses these types of words, they’re said to be “Virtue Signaling”, in other words, they’re using these words to try to signal to others that they hold these virtues, whether they actually do or not.
The problem behind these tactics is that essentially they’re using words to create an emotional response. It’s basically emotional manipulation. The goal is to try to get you to think, feel, believe or behave a certain way without stopping to think about why they’re trying to get you to do that, or if what they’re saying is even true. This is why it’s so important to be able to stop and think and ask yourself some good questions instead of just mindlessly allowing yourself to be manipulated emotionally.
Question to ask yourself for any Labeling, Slogans & Virtue Words is this: “Are they really telling me anything meaningful or just trying to get me to feel a certain way?” *repeat*
Remember: When you learn HOW to think, you will no longer fall prey to those who are trying to tell you what THEY want you to think and it all starts with asking one simple question: “Is that really true?”
