Do you ever look at someone and wonder what’s going on inside their head? Us too. 

In fact, we make it our business to try to understand how and why people behave the way they do.

PR can sometimes be  perceived as a shallow industry, (read our previous blog on how the job is often misconstrued here), but there’s a lot more depth to what we do than you might see at first glance. 

At its core, PR is about storytelling with empathy, and being able to put yourself in your audience’s shoes. But what is it about a story that resonates with people?  And why? To understand this, let’s take a tiny step back and look at where the art of public relations first originated.

The OG ‘influencer’

Anyone who knows anything about PR theory will no doubt be familiar with Edward Bernays, who is widely considered to be one of public relations’ founding figures, and is credited with transforming how we’ve come to view many things today, from ‘hearty’ breakfasts to cigarettes. Employing the techniques of his great-uncle Sigmund Freud (you may have heard of him), Bernays made a name for himself as one of the first PR practitioners to adopt a more psychoanalytical approach to influencing public opinion. Bernays understood that creating a narrative and building powerful associations between popular concepts and his client partners was the best way to deliver a successful campaign. He famously promoted Lucky Strike cigarettes by aligning the brand with women’s liberation, in one of the earliest documented examples of a publicity stunt. In 1929, Bernays invited a group of well-known debutantes to march in the NYC Easter Day parade and light up cigarettes to encourage women to find empowerment in smoking. Having informed the press that a group of suffragettes would be protesting, and providing the memorable headline ‘Torches of Freedom,’ he successfully planted a powerful association in the public conscience. We don’t endorse smoking of course, but this was a pretty cool campaign for its time!

Nothing but mammals

If we can learn anything from Bernays, it’s that the human brain tends to follow certain patterns, which manifest in behaviors that can be observed en masse. Here are some of our favourite psychological titbits and phenomena that can come in handy when planning a PR campaign…

• Confirmation Bias

People instinctively seek out information that confirms what they already believe – and dismiss information that challenges it. This isn’t stubbornness; it’s neuroscience.

For PR, this means your message doesn’t arrive in a vacuum. Kamala was right, you really didn’t fall out of a coconut tree. Messaging arrives inside a pre-existing narrative your audience holds about your brand, your sector or your issue. A financial services firm trying to rebuild trust after a scandal can’t simply issue a statement claiming it has changed. Audiences primed to distrust will filter that message out. The smarter approach is to meet people inside their existing beliefs – acknowledging the concern – before gently expanding the story. Work with the bias, not against it.

• The Availability Heuristic

When people assess how important or likely something is, they base it largely on how easily an example comes to mind. If they can recall it quickly, they assume it must be common or significant.

This is why (sometimes, depending on the context of your campaign goals), volume of coverage can matter just as much as tone. A brand that appears consistently across multiple outlets – even in neutral contexts – registers as more significant than one that appears rarely, even positively. For PR professionals, this means that sustained, broad media presence builds perceived importance over time. It also means that in a crisis, speed of response matters: if the negative story is the only available narrative in people’s minds, it becomes the truth.

• Social Proof

When people are uncertain, they look to others to decide what to think or do. Reviews, endorsements, follower counts, industry awards – these aren’t vanity metrics. They’re psychological anchors. (‘Herd mentality’ occurs when people follow social proof against their own rational judgement. We recommend against this.)

In PR terms, third-party validation carries far more cognitive weight than anything a brand says about itself. A glowing profile in a respected trade publication, a credible spokesperson endorsement or a cascade of positive customer stories all do the same thing: they tell the uncertain audience that other people have already decided this is trustworthy. That permission is enormously powerful.

• Framing 

The same facts presented differently produce different reactions. “99% fat free” vs “1% fat” is the classic example. PR is fundamentally the art of framing, and the effect of employing a good angle cannot be understated! Framing can take many forms, like the self-deprecating humour on Ryanair’s social media, or aligning oneself with a cause or social value that you wish to be associated with. It’s the underlying principle that connects everything in PR, from the days of Bernays to modern brand activations.

Theories and biases aside, human beings are complex creatures. While we’re not out here trying to manipulate the masses, it does make for very interesting reading to consider how our messages might be received on a psychological level. 

Want to deep dive into how we can reach your audience? ‘Freudian slip’ us a message…