"As competition for restricted markets builds up, and buyers' markets become more frequent, the pressure mounts in the salesman's immediate domain. Psychologists bend their minds to improving the techniques of persuading people to commercial decisions. Before high-pressure salesmanship, emphasis was upon the salesmen's knowledge of the product, a sales knowledge grounded in apprenticeship; after it, the focus is upon hypnotizing the prospect, an art provided by psychology" (White Collar: The American Middle Classes, 1951, p. 165).