Über Kultur und Äquivalenz
(1971)
Über Kultur und Äquivalenz
(1971)
Psychoanalytical methodology and sociological theory are combined to produce a sociopsychoanalytic approach in the study of social character of groups. An overview of sociopsychoanalytical research is presented, based on E. FROMM's 2 major contributions to the discipline: the sociopolitical study of German workers in the Hitler era, and a later project concerned with social pathology in a small Mexican village. In the former study, efforts were made to determine the degree of authoritarianism in the character of those workers who were pro-Nazi, and of those who held socialistic and democratic values. In the latter study, focus was on the high incidence of violence and alcoholism among a specific group of Mexican peasants, and whether these were symptoms related to social conditions or were negative characteristics shared by a social group. Interpretive questionnaire's were employed in both studies. Sociopsychoanalysis has much to contribute to the traditional methods of studying man and society that are presently used by social anthropologists and sociologists.
Work and Human Development
(1980)
To fully develop a science of social character, three aspects of Fromm's social character theory need to be clarified. The first has to do with the difference between individual and social character. Fromm expanded on Freud's description of normal types: erotic (receptive), obsessive (hoarding) and narcissistic (exploitative). Besides the concept of social character, Fromm made three major contributions to the psychoanalytic theory of character: the concept of productiveness, sociopolitical modes of relationship, and the marketing character. Social character is an interac-tion between internalized culture (values) and individual character. This interaction results in variations in social character and helps explain the Secon issue, how so-cial character changes. The concept of social selection explains how narcissistic en-trepreneurs restructure social institutions to shape a new social character. The third issue concerns how social character develops throughout the life cycle. Fromm never offered a developmental theory. Erik Erikson's model of development fit the social character of America at the mid-century. A revision of this model provides a useful construct for understanding changes in the kind of problems being brought to psychoanalysis at the start of the 21st century and also changes in psychoanalytic practice.