“After the elections and after getting married, you rarely get what you wanted,” said American actor and journalist Will Rogers. It was at the beginning of the last century, but these words are still relevant today. So why do candidates fail to deliver on their promises, and what tricks do they use to get their coveted votes?
Bread and illusions
The French sociologist and psychologist Gustave Le Bon in 1895 in his work "Psychology of the Masses" explained the reasons for this in just two sentences: “The crowd never strove for the truth; she turns away from the obvious, which she does not like, and prefers to worship error, if only it seduces her. He who knows how to mislead the crowd easily becomes its master; whoever seeks to reason with her is always her victim."
Quite reasonable individually, most people are easily amenable to suggestion among the masses and, oddly enough, crave submission, but not to someone, but to a strong leader.
Strong in terms of the crowd. That is, someone who will set out simple and understandable slogans, appeal to the natural - instincts (for example, to aggression).
Reality is complex and does not imply the fulfillment of many of our desires. As a rule, the mind is quite accustomed to this "injustice". But not our feelings, which sit in the unconscious and do not want to know about any restrictions. It is to these passionate voices within each of us that the leader who leads the masses calls out.
How does he do it? The fact is that the individuality of each person dissolves in the crowd. And this is not just a comparison - this is our past. The same thing happened to us when we were an ordinary pack of animals. Unconsciously, each of us fears any force and obeys it. The crowd is a force, so we ourselves, not wanting to, will follow it and its ideals (even if it does not exist in reality, but looks at us from TV screens, from the windows of neighbors, or simply lives in our imaginations). The majority are instinctively afraid to stand out from the crowd, to distinguish themselves, and this is understandable: those who went “against everyone” in the past - and even today - faced severe reprisals.
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What is left for the leader in this situation? That's right: to give the crowd what it wants - illusions. The crowd wants to hear what it wants. If a leader begins to doubt his words (which will only say that he is not only honest, but also intelligent), say difficult things or proceed from a dull reality and its capabilities, they will not only not listen to him, but may even be beaten. There is no need to talk about becoming a crowd favorite. Why do most of the promises of the elected candidates never come true? Because they are not feasible in the first place, because the candidates were telling the crowd what they wanted to hear.
It is on this phenomenon - the craving of the "majority for the opinion of the majority" - that the well-known technique of "inconspicuous" election campaigning is based, when we are told from blue screens about the high ratings of one or another candidate. Where they come from is a question, but they fulfill their task perfectly: the majority follows the majority and votes for the candidate-leader.
A person prefers to follow the tastes of his group, which will definitely be taken advantage of by an experienced campaign marketing specialist.
Choice without choice
One of the most effective techniques used in election campaigns is suggestion. But not direct (in fact, representing a command that the psyche usually resists), but indirect - it is this type of suggestion that creates a feeling of free choice, although in reality there is none.
There are many types of indirect suggestion. For example, compound. “And now, when you sit on this chair and listen to my words, you assimilate what I am saying - deeply and for a long time”, - gives an example of such suggestion, professor of psychology and sociology of the Moscow State Power Engineering Institute, Doctor of Biological Sciences Yuri Shcherbatykh in his book “Psychology elections”. The essence of this statement is simple: a person agrees with the first part of the phrase (after all, he really sits on a chair), and already "by inertia" agrees with the second. The author gives a similar example of a candidate's speech: “Today, when there is only one month left before the elections, many of you do not know which candidate they should vote for, since you are already tired of empty promises. But I hope that, sitting in this hall and listening to me, you understand that I will do everything to change your life for the better."
Another type of indirect suggestion is presupposition, when the first part of the sentence describes what should happen, but in such a way that the listener gets the feeling that this will happen for sure: “And when you vote for me and I will enforce the bill to increase pensions, you will experience a sense of deep satisfaction that on October 15 you made the right choice."
The double ligament is another type of suggestion. It is often used for educational purposes by cunning parents, asking the child: "Are you going to clean toys or sweep the floor?" There seems to be a choice, but in fact - no. However, the child has some feeling that he himself made the decision, and not forced to. The same thing happens to a voter when he hears: "Some of you have already realized that my program is aimed at the interests of ordinary people, and someone will need time to understand this and vote for my program."
Metaphors, truisms (well-known truths, platitudes), allusions, paradoxical negative statements, etc. also belong to the methods of indirect suggestion. An example of the latter is given in his book by Yuri Shcherbatykh: “You can or may not vote for me in these elections, but I will still defend the rights of socially unprotected groups of the population”.
The fact is that our unconscious does not actually assimilate the “not” particle, therefore it seems to omit it. Thus, it turns out something like: "You can vote for me or vote." You can use the repetition of well-known truths: "Parents, like the homeland, must be loved, and I love them too, so my program is aimed at improving the lives of pensioners and the country as a whole." “Neither reason, nor conviction is able to fight against known words and known formulas. They are pronounced in awe in front of the crowd, and immediately the expression on the faces becomes respectful and the heads bow, "writes Gustave Le Bon in his book" Psychology of the Masses ".
Political taboos
The pre-election campaign, like the East, is a delicate matter. Even if the candidate has perfectly mastered the technique of political PR, he can burn out on … colorful leaflets and expensive full-color posters. Especially if they were thrown into the mailboxes of poor people - for example, pensioners. This can be annoying. One would think that flyers on top-notch paper are worth millions. Where did the candidate get the funds for them? It is a known thing - he stole. And here no advice from ingenious political marketers will save you. But cheap propaganda in expensive boutiques or car dealerships will irritate buyers from another social stratum. Therefore, if you notice that the same candidate has different brochures - as they say, for all occasions - you should know: this is no accident. It's the same with the image. If the candidate acts as a "fighter for truth" - the campaign should be modest, and if as a "strong business executive" - on the contrary, solid and high-quality.
The main thing for a candidate is - so that the voter does not get tired of it even before he has time to put a tick in the ballot paper and throw it into the ballot box.
And voters can get tired of political leaders. Literally. Have you ever wondered why the well-known "old leaders" of parties in the next elections suddenly gain an insignificant number of votes? The people are simply tired. This is especially true of those promises that they made and did not fulfill. For obvious reasons, beginners have no less difficulty. Therefore, PR people come up with various tricks to raise the candidate's rating. The best of them is a high-profile scandal. True, in Russia these methods are rarely used. Yuri Shcherbatykh: "… The Russian bureaucratic corps still has a poor idea of the activities of public communication mechanisms in a democratic society, understanding propaganda as" a primitive set of laudatory articles about oneself beloved, which no one except his subordinates and family members will ever read. " Into the minds of such officials,brought up in the era of a totalitarian regime, it is impossible to drive in the thesis that scandal or abuse in the media are more useful for their promotion than a series of laudatory essays and tedious enumerations of their successes in the field of serving the people. " However, for us, voters, such retrogradeness is probably even beneficial - there are fewer reasons for manipulation.
The importance of personal meetings
Before the elections, candidates have a hot time. They work almost round the clock, traveling around the country to meet with voters. Why such difficulties in the age of television and the Internet? And therein lies another marketing gimmick. Meetings with a candidate allow not only to satisfy simple human curiosity, but even to slightly raise the voter's self-esteem. After all, he came to a meeting with an important person and can just ask his questions like that. In "gratitude" for this, you can count on votes. In addition, such meetings allow you to get to know the candidate better, more clearly find out his position and direction in the upcoming work. “Therefore, you should first give people a reason for conversation, speculation and gossip, to maximize their interest in your candidate,and then, during a personal meeting, skillfully remove these doubts and strengthen the belief that it is this person who should be voted for,”writes Yuri Shcherbatykh.
The people want to see their candidate live.
It is also important to be able to balance between positions “above the people” and “in the midst of the people”. A bias in one direction or another is sometimes like political death. A too unattainable candidate, a kind of celestial person who does not meet with voters at all and broadcasts only from blue screens, will be perceived as too detached and look extremely arrogant. A roll in the opposite direction also has a negative effect - in this case, voters seem to stop seeing the border between themselves and the politician. But he should still be perceived as a leader - someone who stands above the people. Only in this case the masses will obey and listen to his calls.
In general, the Russian voter, according to the Shcherbatykhs, also has its own specific preferences: “People still need a leader, but they believe no less than that and wait for a“Savior”,“Messiah,”who, like Christ, will descend to them from political heaven and take their sins upon himself. People want from the authorities a human, spiritual attitude to themselves, they expect a sincere understanding of their problems. On the one hand, they have almost lost the belief that some of the current politicians will forget about their own interests for a second and start thinking about the people, but on the other hand, utopia still lives in the hearts of people, and those candidates who can playing this string, they get loud applause. " As a successful politician who managed to find the ideal balance between the images of the leader and the people's defender, the "Savior", the author cites the example of Vladimir Zhirinovsky,who chose as his slogan "We are for the poor, we are for the Russians!"
It is worth remembering, however, that any slogans, like the image of candidates, their style, words and promises, are artificially constructed, often precisely verified and created by a whole army of marketers. Therefore, it is very difficult to swim in the sea of political technologies and not fall for the hook of pre-election manipulations. On the one hand, such tricks are necessary to ensure the candidate has a vote, on the other, it is important to be able to hear the voice of reason in this confusion, coming not only from the candidate, but also from ourselves.
Author: Olga Ivanova