Very often the public relations counsel utilizes the self-display-elation motive and draws public attention to particular people in groups, in order to give them a greater interest in the work they are espousing. It is often found to be true that when a man’s adherence or allegiance to a movement is lukewarm and he is publicly praised for his adherence to it, he will become a forceful factor in it. That is why the intelligent hospital boards name rooms or beds after their donors. It is one of the reasons for the elaborate letterheads so many of our philanthropic organizations have.
Self-abasement and subjection, its attendant emotion, are seldom called upon. On the other hand, parental love and tenderness are continually employed, viz., the effort of the baby-kissing candidate for public office or the attempt to popularize a brand of silk by having a child present a silk flag to a war veteran at a public ceremony. The whole flood of post-war charity-drives was keyed to this pitch. The starving Belgian orphan personified in every picture, the starving Armenian, and then the hungry Austrian and German orphans appeared, and the campaigns all succeeded on this issue. Even issues where the child was not the predominant factor used this appeal.
Four other instincts are listed in this classification—gregariousness, individualism, acquisition and construction. We have already dealt with the first at length.
The gregarious instinct in man gives the public relations counsel the opportunity for his most potent work. The group and herd show everywhere the leader, who because of certain qualifications, certain points that are judged by the herd to be important to its life, stands out and is followed more or less implicitly by it.
A group leader gains such power with his group or herd that even on matters which have had nothing to do with the establishment or gaining of that leadership he is considered a leader and is followed by his group.