People want to believe good things about themselves. My job is to help them believe the best possible thing. A person who pays money month after month for life insurance gets nothing for all their payments. They must be dead for anything to happen! What kind of person buys something like that? I explain. Only a hero does that! A selfless person who truly LOVES others does that. It takes a great person with a great heart to reach out and help their loved ones even after they are dead. If you want to be remembered forever as that kind of hero by your wife and kids--I am there to help them. That is my job. Their job is to become that hero.”
Was he appealing to people's good heartedness or their narcissism ?
If their motivation for buying Life Insurance was make themselves appear as a hero in the eyes of others even after they're gone, it could be that narcissism was the motivating factor. Narcissists believe they are the center of the universe and are greatly motivated by what others think of them.
If the motivation to join a religion is because you've been convinced that not only do you get to think of your self as a do-gooder, but you'll get to live on and on forever, it could be that the narcissistic part of your personality is at play.
It seems to me most people claim they love god, love goodness and their fellow man but in reality, they are more concerned with appearing virtuous and righteous in the eyes of their peers, saving their own skins from some sort of punishment and possibly living forever. After all, it would be a shame for the world to loose someone as wonderful as me, how could the world go on forever and ever without me in it.?
I think religions and sales people know how to tap into the narcissistic part of all of us.