Freud and Psychoanalysis (part C)
by
Charles Lamson
Freud's Legacy: Changing Social Characters
Freudian theory alerts us to the importance of identity and difference in consumer behavior. Identity can be a difficult subject to grasp because it has a dual aspect. A simple way of understanding this is to recall how Freudian theory describes two powerful forces for conditioning the emergence of the self, namely society and biology. The concept of identity reflects this duality in that it contains two forces, one of which relates to the person, the other to society. From a personal point of view identity is everything which I call 'mine'. It is the sum total of the objects (including people) with which I identify and is what marks 'me' out as being different from other people. On the other hand, individuals and groups in society treat me as if I have a particular identity.
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Relating Psychogenesis to Sociogenesis
Central to Freudian theory is the idea of the interaction between biology and environment in the formation of the self. This has led a number of authors to speculate on the changing nature of social character through time. Authors in this tradition share in common the belief that the self is not immutable but rather that the structure of the psyche (psychogenesis), is formed in relation to the society in which it develops (sociogenesis). For example, in his epic study of the development of civilization in Europe from the period known as the Dark Ages at the end of the Roman Empire, Norbert Elias (1994) explores how psychogenetic processes (involving the structure of personality, including how the relations between id, ego, and superego are formed over time) changed within the context of a sociogenetic explanation (involving changes to the structure of society over time). Elias charts the very gradual process of development from the disorder and constant warfare of pre-modern Europe, where the expression of id desires found little resistance, to the orderly nation state where the societal expectation that individuals conduct themselves in a civilized manner is realized in self-control due to the strengthening of the superego, or what some might call the policeman inside the head.
From Traditional to Inner-Directed and Other-Directed Characters
David Riesman and his colleagues who published their research in The Lonely Crowd (1950) argued that the prevailing social character in European and American societies had changed through the years. They posited that this change in character had occurred as people moved from traditional communities to work in mass-production industries in large urban areas. They argued that a person who is born in and lives in a traditional community has little need of what we might call an identity. This is because they are immersed within the community, which provides them with security. Following the industrial and consumer revolutions of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, huge numbers of people were torn from the bonds of traditional rural communities and moved to urban centers in search of employment in the new factories, mills and shipyards. While they had been reared in a traditional setting they now had to live and work among strangers who came from different traditions and who shared different values. While they had been reared in a traditional setting they now had to live and work among strangers who came from different traditions and who shared different values. Riesman and his colleagues describe these migrants to the cities as 'inner-directed' characters. The inner-directed character was different from the person who lived in a traditional community because they were removed from its protective embrace. These people coped with the loss of community by developing a strong internal sense of who they were, which was based on their early upbringing within the traditional community. In Riesman's explanation inner-directed individuals developed a gyroscopic sense of control, through having a clear sense of what their goal in life was coupled to a belief in self-reliance. Fulfillment came largely by following a career in the sphere of work. Pleasure and consumption were of minor importance to them, except in-so-far as the display of goods might signify their prowess.
Riesman et al. (1961) argue that many years later there developed another character, which they called the other-directed character. This character first appeared in twentieth-century urban America and worked in a service industry rather than in traditional industries such as shipbuilding or milling. The authors cite travelers' accounts of the time which noted that the other-directed character seemed to be shallower, more profligate with his money, friendlier, more uncertain of himself and his values and more demanding of approval than the inner-directeds. The other-directed character seemed to arise within the new middle classes who worked in the emerging service industries. Riesman and his colleagues suggest a number of reasons for the emergence of this character.
First, a new generation had grown up that lacked the solid foundation provided by traditional community. They lacked the gyroscope that had so surely guided their forbears. Popularity and the need to fit in were seen to be important by parents. Consequently the role of the superego (see last post for explanation of id, ego and superego) changed as parents made their children feel guilty not so much about the violation of inner standards but about failure to be popular or to manage their relations with other children. In any event the peer group became more important and parental authority waned in the progressively permissive society that was developing. The other-directed character not only offered a more promising opportunity for marketers but was arguably partly the product of marketing activity. For years mass advertising had cultivated anxieties and insecurities among the population so as to offer solutions to these through the products of mass production. What better object for advertising than a character who felt constantly anxious and who craved social approval (Riesman et al. 1950)?
One can see parallels with Reisman's other-directed character in the marketing character described by the psychoanalyst Erich Fromm. In To Have or to Be? (1978), Fromm argued that modern society embodied a deep-seated change in values, from Being - literally, being centered on other people and social relations - to Having, which he associated with the lifeless world of machines and products, which he saw as being destructive. Fromm argues that the destructive 'having' mode is deeply etched into the customs, practices and language of Western society. One means of having is incorporation, which was a widespread practice in early societies, e.g. it was thought that by eating the heart of a brave warrior one could incorporate the symbol of this bravery. The modern consumer takes the idea of incorporation to new heights as he/she seeks to swallow the whole world. Fromm describes the modern consumer as 'the eternal suckling crying for the bottle. This is obvious in pathological phenomena such as alcoholism and drug addiction (Fromm, 1978).
Fromm saw this 'having' mode as exemplified by the emergence of a new personality, the 'marketing character'. To Fromm the emergence of this new character signaled a shift from the anal retentive 'hoarding' character to a new form:
The aim of the marketing character is complete adaption so as to be desirable under all conditions of the personality market. The marketing character personalities do not even have egos (as people in the nineteenth century did) to hold on to, that belong to them, that do not change. For they constantly change their egos according to the principal: 'I am as you desire me'.
(Fromm, 1978)
*SOURCE: FUNDAMENTALS OF MARKETING, 2007, MARILYN A. STONE AND JOHN DRESMOND, PGS. 78-80*
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