The study of personality and its many facets is one of several significant areas in the field of psychology, which is being studied in detail. Personality, as a construct, is not often well defined and less often well understood, since it is a composite of such varied factors as perception, motivation, learning, culture and so on. Because of this present lack of clarity it must and will be discussed, written about, and experimented with until a clear, operant definition, acceptable to psychology, has been devised.

Since becoming a student at brigham young university in September, 1965, the writer has been interested in the area of persuasion as it relates to public speaking, and especially as it relates to stake missionary activities. The purpose in this thesis is to determine selected characteristics of converts as listeners from Brigham Young University to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and compare them with characteristics determined by Audience Analysis by Wayne C. Minnick in his book "The Art of Persuasion".

The study was designed to be a critical assessment of the Snow-Machalek Conversion Typology. Data were collected from Mormon converts in the British Isles, and an attempt was made to apply the typology to these converts. It was assumed that if the typology could be effectively applied to Mormon converts, strong correlations would be found between its dimensions and quantitative measures of conversion. It was also assumed that social integration of converts would play an important part in the conversion process. The application of the typology proved to be very difficult; however, some dimensions seemed to be more useful than others. Social integration was very important for British converts to Mormonism. An alternative theoretical emphasis to the study of conversion is offered which stresses the importance of social integration in the development of a new global perspective.

Historians have determined that the visit to London by the early missionary-apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was the greatest disappointment of their proselyting careers. This thesis shows that, though the mission to London was not numerically successful considering the potential conversion, it appealed to the dynamic, energetic, "middling-class" religious seeker who was produced by the strong nonconformist movement indigenous to London. A specific nonconformist group is identified as responding to the preaching of the early apostles. This thesis demonstrates that those few converts kept the Church alive in London during difficult years. It also shows family-style conversion with over fifty-three percent of the London converts emigrating to America.This thesis introduces the two sides of Greater London as accepted by historians, and shows that this geographic influence was prominent in the choice of lifestyle on the western frontier by the London convert. Most chose to settle along the populated Wasatch front where they were able to pursue their London occupations and introduce London life and culture.

The evidence presented in this thesis supports a view of the first Mormon men as coming from the agrarian majority of early nineteenth-century American farmers and artisans who embraced a set of manly ideals that differed significantly, in many ways, from those embraced by their middle-class contemporaries. These men's life writings attest to boyhood experiences of working alongside their fathers as soon as they were physically able, and subsequently of acting as substitute farmers and breadwinners as well as being put out to work outside the direct supervision of their fathers. Such experiences enabled them to frequently follow in the occupational footsteps of their fathers and almost always to marry at ages significantly lower that those of their more upwardly-mobile urban counterparts. Thus, they were able to follow a path to manly independence that was difficult yet direct and relatively rapidEarly Mormonism attracted an unparalleled percentage of men, who, in turn, embraced and supported the development of a the more self-confident and self-assertive theology of man in early Mormon doctrine. Compared to the other denominations of the day, a disproportionate number of early Mormon converts were, or were led to Mormonism by, men. Although these men had received prior religious instruction in their earliest years, typically from their mothers, the content of that instruction was not of the feminized variety stressed by many historians, and a significant portion of these men had been unable to achieve evangelical conversion experiences. Since many of them had previously turned to more liberal religious beliefs regarding the nature of man and his relationship to God, these men undoubtedly supported Mormonism's development of similar doctrines. Their rejection of revivalist rites of passage, which stressed submission and self-abnegation, is also consistent with their enthusiastic participation in more traditional, physically assertive, unrestrained and combative passages to manhood and rites of male bonding. Such beliefs and behaviors were in marked contrast to the manly self-restraint increasingly enjoined by the Northeastern middle class which has provided the model for most previous studies of nineteenth-century American manhood.

Recent sociological studies propose a model for understanding early Mormonism in its cultural context. Such models, while experimental, suggest commonalities between Mormonism and contemporary millennial sects. Enthusiastic beginnings, early convert response to American millennialism, the containment of charisma through institutionalization, discomfiture of Mormon millenial expectation, and the process of apostasy within the church provide the parameters of this study.The life of Hiram Page, an early convert, is used as a foil to this end. Page is prototypal of the original band of followers who were attracted to Joseph Smith. Drawn to Joseph for spiritual comfort, Page and his associates supported the Prophet's work, testified of the extraordinary events of the Mormon Restoration, and as the first believers made the movement possible. Later, they became dissatisfied with the developmental church and withdrew from fellowship in an attempt to reestablish what they perceived as the original and pristine expressions of Mormonism.