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Psychology of Collection.

Psychology in the collection of accounts appears to be a very formidable word, but in plain terms it is simply the science of the operations of the human mind, the mental activities of the normal, average person under certain given conditions. Given the debtor of a certain type, given the cause of the indebtedness, given certain conditions, what is the resultant attitude of his mind when the bill is to be paid?

The successful credit and collection man is a student of the human race. He continuously endeavors to analyze the mental operations of the debtors with whom he has to deal, to penetrate the innermost workings of their minds, and to frame his personal interviews and his letters ac- cordingly, in order to play upon certain emotions to stimu- late the debtor to action, to payment of the bill. If the collection man can work upon the right emotions of the debtor, he (the debtor) is induced to make payment sub- consciously, so to speak. He has no idea that he has been tactfully led to pay his bill, but rather believes that he is acting on his own initiative, and may even feel quite self- complacent, and self-righteous because of it.

Within a certain length of time after an obligation has