The psychology of the audience
- New York American Book Company 1935
- American psychology series .
""This volume owes its existence first of all to the members of a college debating club, who invited the author to give them a lecture on the psychology of the audience. In complying with this request a search was made for such matter-of-fact and experimentally verified data as the literature of social psychology and of public speaking might afford. The search was but poorly rewarded. Rules and principles were found in sufficient number, and advice was freely offered in manuals; but little but personal opinion was offered in support of the various admonitions. The appetite of the debating club was easily enough satisfied, but by that time an intrinsic interest in the topic had developed. Investigations were found the results of which seemed directly applicable to the psychology of the audience, however foreign this interest may have been to the original investigator. A few experimental studies dealing directly with audience situations were discovered. New ones were instituted by students and fellow workers. Gradually the results appeared to lend themselves to systematic presentation. They were meager and often inconclusive, but they led to further inquiries and made it possible to conduct a short seminar on the topic. The topic was then laid by for maturation. But it soon proved to be a subject of interest to those outside the laboratory and the classroom. Teachers of public speaking, clergymen, extension institutes, and clubs asked to have the topic considered. The original one lecture expanded into several. The Christian Advocates then asked to be permitted to publish the material as an article, and this was done. Organizations of speech specialists undertook on their own account several experimental studies in this field. Some of their members urged that, however incomplete the material, it be made available through publication as a survey of our present information. When a publisher, through one of his editors, desired to produce a book on the topic, the last defense broke down and the manuscript was released. The author's hope is that, as an account of our more or less experimentally verifiable knowledge up to date, flavored with a mild touch of general psychological analysis, the survey may lead to more extended and more rapid advances in the study of a group of problems that have at once a genuine psychological interest and a widespread practical importance""--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved) 2020"