What_Is_an_American_

What is an American' It’s 1941 and Germany is on the verge of taking over England, America’s number one ally. America, however, has yet to declare war on Germany and provide aid to England. Some Americans were divided in the notion of joining the war; half the country wanted to join and help our allies and the other half declared that it wasn’t any of our business and we should stay out of it. “America was coming out of a devastating economic depression, not to mention less than 20 years ago 116,516 U.S troops had died in Europe, fighting World War 11” (The Free Library). However, Harold Ickes, who was President Roosevelt’s Secretary of the Interior, knew better than to just sit back and watch England be taken over by Germany. He knew, that if that were to happen, it would only be a matter of time until the Nazis conquered America as well. He felt it necessary to deliver a persuasive message to Americans everywhere to unite and help England prevent Germany from invading their country. Ickes did this by appealing to their ethos, pathos and logos while at the same time using scare tactics. Ethos, as we all know is appeal to credibility and ethicality and the audience must be convinced of the credibility of the speaker. Pathos is appeal to emotion, which means the speaker persuades them by stirring their emotions towards his intent. Logos is appeal to logic, which means the speaker will use logical reasoning to persuade the audience. We will be using the Theory of Reasoned Action, and its three general constructs; Behavioral Intention (BI), Attitude (A) and Subjective Norm (SN) in order to understand what moved Americans to unite and fight against Germany. “TRA posits that individual behavior is driven by behavioral intentions where behavioral intentions are a function of an individual's attitude toward the behavior and subjective norms surrounding the performance of the behavior” (BYU). We will use TRA to determine the effectiveness of the speech, which parts were successful, which parts were unsuccessful and what could have been changed or included in order to enhance the persuasiveness of his message. In May of 1941 in New York City, Harold Ickes delivered the speech, “What is an American'” with the intent to persuade Americans to come together and join World War II in order to help England, our Allies, and prevent losing our freedom and democracy. Germany had already invaded many European countries and was beginning to advance on England with full force. Harold Ickes’ speech urges Americans that if they don’t join and help stop the Nazis, then England would be invaded and America would be next. As I mentioned above, Americans were divided with the notion of war. Some held ideals of non-violence and peace. They believed that, even though two-thirds of the world would be invaded by Germany, America would still be able to live in separation and hold its own. This is where Harold Ickes had to step in and deliver this speech in order to remind Americans that we had a reputation to uphold for fighting for democracy and freedom and it would go against what we stand for as a country, if we didn’t step in. Not only that, but Ickes’ used a scare tactic as well in his persuasive speech telling Americans that if England should get invaded, America would be next and we would suffer living under German rule. He told Americans that their beliefs about America being able to effectively live in isolation were false and that they would soon be conquered by Hitler and his Nazi troops. “If we are to retain our own freedom, we must do everything within our power to aid Britain. We must also do everything to restore to the conquered peoples their freedom” (Ickes). This quote is taken directly from his speech and gives us an idea of how strong his power of oration was and how effectively his persuasive speech was delivered. Not only was the persuasive speech effective, but also the person giving the speech, Harold Hicks, had an excellent reputation with Americans as well and was nicknamed “Honest Harold”. “Although he was the Secretary of the Interior, he was better known to the public for his simultaneous work as the director of the Public Works Administration. Here he directed billions of dollars of projects designed to lure private investment and provide employment during the depths of the Great Depression” (Tutorgigpedia.com). His management of the PWA budget and his opposition to corruption is what gave him such a good reputation and people looked up to him and trusted him. Therefore, his ethos, which appeals to the credibility of the speaker, was already established beforehand. Now, we will begin to take a more in depth look at how TRA was used to make this speech an effective and thus successful one. One of the most important components of the Theory of Reasoned action is Attitude. We cannot determine the behavioral intent without first examining the attitude of the audience. “The theory states that attitude toward the behavior is based on beliefs about the outcome of performing the behavior and his evaluation of the outcome” (Gass/Seiter). The attitude of the Americans during 1941, when Ickes was giving this speech, was that of a mixed one. The negative outcome of joining the war would be losing so many American soldiers while the positive outcome was stopping Hitler and maintaining the liberty and freedom of them and their neighbors. Therefore, the mixed attitude of the audience puts more importance on the persuasiveness of the speech in order to be successful. Ickes’ speech was indeed successful because American soldiers were lining up fast once war had been declared. What made it successful was Ickes’ motivational tactics used in the speech, which appealed to his audiences’ logos, pathos and ethos. Because attitude can be swayed, especially if one belief can be weighted more important than another, Ickes’ was successful in persuading his fellow countrymen. “This tide of the future, the democratic future, is ours. It is ours if we show ourselves worthy of our culture and of our heritage… An American is one who loves justice and believes in the dignity of man, one who will fight for his freedom and that of his neighbor. An American is one who will sacrifice property, ease and security in order that he and his children may retain the rights of free men” (Ickes). He motivated Americans by stating that to be a true American was to place more importance on fighting for his freedom and that of his children, than sacrificing property and ease. Basically, he is asking the people to put the “fight for freedom” above anything else, and therefore join the war and help England gain back their freedom. He appeals to their logos (logic) by further claiming that if England was conquered it was only a matter of time before America did too. In order to predict the audience’s behavioral we need to specifically look at their attitudes towards the behavior in question. We mentioned in the beginning, of this evaluation, the reasons why Americans did not want to go to war; economic depression, hundreds and thousands of casualties in World War 1 etc.… We also just analyzed the positive side of America joining the war; pride, honor, fight for liberty and freedom, help our Allies, etc.… Therefore, we know that due to Icke’ speech the attitude is slowly shifting to the more positive outcomes of the behavior. Now that we’ve analyzed the attitude towards the behavior, we will take a closer look on the second important part of the Theory of Reasoned Action called Subjective Norm. The prediction of the Behavioral Intent cannot be established on analyzing attitude alone. We must also examine the second component involved in the TRA formula in order to predict a more accurate behavior. The Subjective Norm is just as important as the attitude. “The subjective norm is a person’s perception of what others, especially relevant others, think about the behavior in question” (Gass/Seiter). Furthermore, the book, Persuasion: Social Influence and Compliance Gaining, goes on to state that, “According to the TRA, the subjective norm is, itself, based on two factors: a person’s normative belief and a person’s motivation to comply” (Gass/Seiter). When we look back at how Ickes was declaring that America has a reputation to uphold of always fighting for freedom, he was actually effectively telling Americans that other countries has a certain perception of us and it would be a disgrace to alter that perception. Therefore, we know that Americans held the normative belief that freedom should be put above everything else. Ickes’ was very successful in also giving Americans a motivation to comply with his persuasive intent. “The continued security of our country demands that we aid the enslaved millions of Europe - yes, even of Germany - to win back their liberty and independence. I am convinced that if we do not embark upon such a program we will lose our own freedom” (Ickes). By using a scare tactic, he is motivating Americans to fight in World War II because he knows that an American’s biggest fear is losing his liberty and freedom. Now, we have ultimately established that the Subjective Norm for Americans causes a much more positive outlook on the behavioral intention than attitude does. While the audiences own personal attitudes were that of fear of losing many soldiers, which resulted in a negative outlook towards the behavioral intent, the subjective norm reinforces them to think of the positive outcomes. We have effectively analyzed the Attitude and Subjective Norm of the audience being persuaded which means we can now go on to predict what the Behavioral Intent will be. Theory of Reasoned Action states that Behavioral Intent is based on attitude towards the behavior and the subjective norm towards the intended behavior. Due to the mixed attitudes of the Americans and the positive and negative causes of complying with their subjective norm, we can predict that most likely they were not persuaded to join the war, much to Harold Ickes’ intent. “Opinion polls showed that most Americans favored giving help to Britain--but did not want to send U.S. troops to fight. Yet some Americans volunteered… Roosevelt (America’s President at the time) told one of his trusted aides, Harry Hopkins, that most Americans wanted England to win--but not at the cost of even one American soldier's life” (The Free Library). We can see here that America is stalling while they decide on what action to take. America is actually trying come up with a plan that involves helping England but at the same time keeping their soldiers from fighting overseas. Therefore, our behavioral intent prediction was correct in stating that America did not get persuaded by Ickes’ speech completely, however they did get to work on putting a plan forth that involved aiding England without having to join the war. What is most interesting here, is that America did in fact join the war, however it was not because of the persuasive intents of Harold Ickes but because Japan, who was Germany’s ally, bombed Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor and caused the deaths of thousands of Americans. This resulted in enraged Americans all across the country and the one thing on their mind was revenge. The attacks on Pearl Harbor were the biggest motivation to comply for Americans and comply they did. “President Roosevelt called December 7 a date which will live in infamy. He asked Congress to declare war against Japan. With that, the U.S. joined Britain and other Allies in fighting the Axis powers, led by Germany, Italy, and Japan. It was the deadliest war in human history” (The Free Library). In conclusion, we have used the Theory of Reasoned Action, and its two constructs attitude and subjective norm, in order to effectively analyze the audience’s behavioral intent towards Harold Ickes’ persuasive speech. It is clear that if an attitude towards the behavior and the subjective norm towards the behavior are carefully examined, it is easy to predict the behavioral intent. Throughout this examination, I effectively learned how to apply the TRA and use it to predict behaviors of any type of audience listening or watching any type of persuasive artifact. As long as the necessary background research is done on the audience and what their attitudes and subjective norms are then a fairly accurate prediction can be made. I believe that Ickes could have improved his persuasive speech by including the possibility of Americans being attacked. Not everyone took Japan’s threats seriously, and many thought an attack on America was far likely from happening. It wasn’t until too late that Americans decided to join. Therefore, Ickes could have emphasized on the threats from Japan in his speech to also motivate America to act before it was too late. Overall, our analysis of the persuasive artifact using TRA was successfully effective in predicting the audience’s behavioral intent.