Abstract
Abstract
Language can alter behavioral possibilities by changing the perception of how identities, values, authorities, consequences, norms, institutions, and possible actions are related and could work (function) together in a given context. The Prosocial Relational Integrated Scoring Method (PRISM) is a multilevel conceptual and methodological framework for a functional analysis of contextualized natural language in spoken, transcribed, or written form. It was designed to support the measurement and diagnosis of a discourse in the service of enhancing healthy and sustainable cooperation. PRISM does this by classifying relational, motivational, compositional, and governance-relevant facets of a discourse and examining how their configuration may support or constrain cooperation.
We examine three historically consequential artifacts selected to maximize contrast in domain, mode of persuasion, and the form and direction of collective change they sought to catalyze. We examine the framework across three historically consequential artifacts selected for contrast in domain, mode of persuasion, and intended collective change. The cases are Thomas Paine’s political pamphlet Common Sense (Paine, 1776), George Whitefield’s sermon The Nature and Necessity of Our New Birth in Christ Jesus (Whitefield, 1737), and Adolf Hitler’s February 1, 1933 governmental radio address to the German people. Their broad consequential functions are historically well established. The cases therefore provide demanding benchmarks for examining whether PRISM identifies functional architecture beyond subject matter, including how discourse structures sense-making, prompts responses, and produces higher-order functions across interdependent stretches of language.
PRISM differentiated the three cases at multiple levels of analysis. Paine’s discourse formed an extended 14-part relational-institutional architecture. Whitefield’s formed a five-part constraint-to-conversion architecture, and Hitler’s a six-part polarized mobilization architecture. Across cases, values, norms, motivational prompts, and calls to action were not sufficient on their own to indicate whether the discourse functioned to support or constrain cooperation. PRISM’s prosocial/non-prosocial composition and governance-relevant analysis further distinguished how the artifacts directed attention, structured sense-making and prompted action or commitment in ways that supported cooperation. Independent historical evidence corresponded with the resulting relational and governance architectures. This correspondence provides support for PRISM’s capacity as a multi-level functional framework ’s capacity to identify functional architecture in discourse.