Getting the Id to go shopping: Psychoanalysis, advertising, barbie dolls, and the invention of the consumer unconscious

Public Culture

Volumn 17, Issue 1, 2005, Pages 1-25

  Bennett, David ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 14844295523     PISSN: 08992363     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1215/08992363-17-1-1     Document Type: Review

References (89)

1. The company is Forest Laboratories Inc., whose antidepressants, Celexa and Lexapro, have been tested on shopaholics at the Stanford University Medical Center. Press reportage of the research includes Anne Marie Chaker, "Do You Need a Pill to Stop Shopping?-For Antidepressant Makers, Shopaholics Are a New Market," Wall Street Journal, January 2, 2003; and Richard Luscombe, "Anti-Depressant Drug on Offer to Shopaholics," Scotsman, July 18, 2003, www.news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=778492003.
2. The company is Forest Laboratories Inc., whose antidepressants, Celexa and Lexapro, have been tested on shopaholics at the Stanford University Medical Center. Press reportage of the research includes Anne Marie Chaker, "Do You Need a Pill to Stop Shopping?-For Antidepressant Makers, Shopaholics Are a New Market," Wall Street Journal, January 2, 2003; and Richard Luscombe, "Anti-Depressant Drug on Offer to Shopaholics," Scotsman, July 18, 2003, www.news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=778492003.
3. Jane M. Shattuc, The Talking Cure: TV Talk Shows and Women (New York: Routledge, 1997), 117.
4. See Georges Bataille, "De Sade's Sovereign Man," in Erotism: Death and Sensuality, trans. Mary Dalwood (San Francisco: City Lights, 1986), 171; and David Bennett, "Burghers, Burglars, and Masturbators: The Sovereign Spender in the Age of Consumerism," New Literary History 30, no. 2 (1999): 269-94.
5. See Georges Bataille, "De Sade's Sovereign Man," in Erotism: Death and Sensuality, trans. Mary Dalwood (San Francisco: City Lights, 1986), 171; and David Bennett, "Burghers, Burglars, and Masturbators: The Sovereign Spender in the Age of Consumerism," New Literary History 30, no. 2 (1999): 269-94.
6. Ernest Dichter, Getting Motivated by Ernest Dichter: The Secret behind Individual Motivations by the Man Who Was Not Afraid to Ask "Why? " (New York: Pergamon, 1979), 139.
7. Emil Kraepelin, Psychiatrie: Ein Lehrbuch Für Studierende und Ärzte (Leipzig: Barth, 1915), 1911.
8. Ernest Dichter, The Strategy of Desire (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1960), 59.
9. Rachel Bowlby, Shopping with Freud (London: Routledge, 1993), 114.
10. Peter Gay, Freud: A Life for Our Time (London: Papermac, 1989), 593-94.
11. For a 1930s Freudian analysis of the psychology of the Great Depression by a Viennese psychoanalyst, see Paul Federn, "Factors in the World Depression," Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 79, no. 1 (1934): 43-58.
12. Gay, Freud, 595.
13. Peter F. Drucker, Adventures of a Bystander (London: Heinemann, 1979), 83-99.
14. Ernest Jones, Sigmund Freud: Life and Work, vol. 3, The Last Phase, 1919-1939 (London: Hogarth, 1957), 50n.
15. Gay, Freud, 568, 570.
16. See Jacques Lacan, Écrits: A Selection, trans. Alan Sheridan (London: Tavistock, 1982), 38; and David Bennett, "Guilt as Capital: Psychoanalysis and the New Russians," Journal for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society 6, no. 1 (2001): 123-38.
17. See Jacques Lacan, Écrits: A Selection, trans. Alan Sheridan (London: Tavistock, 1982), 38; and David Bennett, "Guilt as Capital: Psychoanalysis and the New Russians," Journal for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society 6, no. 1 (2001): 123-38.
18. Sigmund Freud, "The Unconscious" (1915), in On Metapsychology: The Theory of Psychoanalysis, ed. Angela Richards (Harmondsworth, U.K.: Penguin, 1984), 184.
19. See Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, vol. 5 of The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works, ed. James Strachey (London: Hogarth, 1953), 561; Case Histories 1: Dora and Little Hans, ed. James Strachey (Harmondsworth, U.K.: Penguin, 1977), 125; and The Case of Schreber; Papers on Technique and Other Works, vol. 12 of The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, trans. James Strachey (London: Hogarth, 1958), 123-33.
20. See Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, vol. 5 of The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works, ed. James Strachey (London: Hogarth, 1953), 561; Case Histories 1: Dora and Little Hans, ed. James Strachey (Harmondsworth, U.K.: Penguin, 1977), 125; and The Case of Schreber; Papers on Technique and Other Works, vol. 12 of The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, trans. James Strachey (London: Hogarth, 1958), 123-33.
21. See Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, vol. 5 of The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works, ed. James Strachey (London: Hogarth, 1953), 561; Case Histories 1: Dora and Little Hans, ed. James Strachey (Harmondsworth, U.K.: Penguin, 1977), 125; and The Case of Schreber; Papers on Technique and Other Works, vol. 12 of The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, trans. James Strachey (London: Hogarth, 1958), 123-33.
22. See Bennett, "Burghers, Burglars, and Masturbators."
23. See "To Ask Freud to Come Here," New York Times, December 21,1924, sec. 7, 3; and Ernest Jones, Sigmund Freud: Life and Work, vol. 2, Years of Maturity, 1901-1919 (London: Hogarth, 1967), 108-9.
24. See "To Ask Freud to Come Here," New York Times, December 21,1924, sec. 7, 3; and Ernest Jones, Sigmund Freud: Life and Work, vol. 2, Years of Maturity, 1901-1919 (London: Hogarth, 1967), 108-9.
25. Dichter, Getting Motivated, 142.
26. Dichter, Getting Motivated, 10, 43, 24. Dichter's sketchy accounts of his own analysis vary. He mentions working with Wilhelm Stekel at this time (Getting Motivated, 11) and also being analyzed by a member of Freud's original circle (quoted in Daniel Horowitz, "The Emigré as Celebrant of American Consumer Culture: George Katona and Ernest Dichter," in Getting and Spending: European and American Consumer Societies in the Twentieth Century, ed. Susan Strasser, Charles McGovern, and Mathias Judt [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998], 149-66), but neither Stekel nor, presumably, any of Freud's other close associates would have required German lessons from Dichter.
27. Dichter, Getting Motivated, 10, 43, 24. Dichter's sketchy accounts of his own analysis vary. He mentions working with Wilhelm Stekel at this time (Getting Motivated, 11) and also being analyzed by a member of Freud's original circle (quoted in Daniel Horowitz, "The Emigré as Celebrant of American Consumer Culture: George Katona and Ernest Dichter," in Getting and Spending: European and American Consumer Societies in the Twentieth Century, ed. Susan Strasser, Charles McGovern, and Mathias Judt [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998], 149-66), but neither Stekel nor, presumably, any of Freud's other close associates would have required German lessons from Dichter.
28. Dichter, Getting Motivated, 10, 43, 24. Dichter's sketchy accounts of his own analysis vary. He mentions working with Wilhelm Stekel at this time (Getting Motivated, 11) and also being analyzed by a member of Freud's original circle (quoted in Daniel Horowitz, "The Emigré as Celebrant of American Consumer Culture: George Katona and Ernest Dichter," in Getting and Spending: European and American Consumer Societies in the Twentieth Century, ed. Susan Strasser, Charles McGovern, and Mathias Judt [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998], 149-66), but neither Stekel nor, presumably, any of Freud's other close associates would have required German lessons from Dichter.
29. Dichter, Getting Motivated, 17.
30. Dichter, Getting Motivated, 23.
31. Rena Bartos, "Ernest Dichter: Motive Interpreter," Journal of Advertising Research 26, no. 1 (1986): 15.
32. Dichter quoted in Bartos, "Ernest Dichter," 16-17.
33. Dichter quoted in Bartos, "Ernest Dichter," 18; Dichter, Strategy of Desire.
34. Dichter quoted in Bartos, "Ernest Dichter," 18; Dichter, Strategy of Desire.
35. Dichter, Getting Motivated, 33-35.
36. Dichter, Getting Motivated, 33-35; Dichter, Strategy of Desire, 33.
37. Dichter, Getting Motivated, 33-35; Dichter, Strategy of Desire, 33.
38. Dichter quoted in Bartos, "Ernest Dichter," 17.
39. Dichter, Getting Motivated, 53.
40. Dichter, Strategy of Desire, 34.
41. Dichter, Getting Motivated, 38, 40-41; Horowitz, "Emigre as Celebrant," 159.
42. Dichter, Getting Motivated, 38, 40-41; Horowitz, "Emigre as Celebrant," 159.
43. Dichter, Getting Motivated, 94, 126; Dichter, Strategy of Desire, 86.
44. Dichter, Getting Motivated, 94, 126; Dichter, Strategy of Desire, 86.
45. Dichter, Getting Motivated, 42; cf. Ernest Dichter, The Psychology of Everyday Living (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1947), 88.
46. Dichter, Getting Motivated, 42; cf. Ernest Dichter, The Psychology of Everyday Living (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1947), 88.
47. See Ernest Dichter, Packaging, the Sixth Sense? A Guide to Identifying Consumer Motivation (Boston: Cahners, 1975), 100; Dichter, Strategy of Desire, 216-17, 157; Dichter, Getting Motivated, 93.
48. See Ernest Dichter, Packaging, the Sixth Sense? A Guide to Identifying Consumer Motivation (Boston: Cahners, 1975), 100; Dichter, Strategy of Desire, 216-17, 157; Dichter, Getting Motivated, 93.
49. See Ernest Dichter, Packaging, the Sixth Sense? A Guide to Identifying Consumer Motivation (Boston: Cahners, 1975), 100; Dichter, Strategy of Desire, 216-17, 157; Dichter, Getting Motivated, 93.
50. Louis Cheskin, Why People Buy: Motivation Research and Its Successful Application, 2nd ed., with introduction by Howard D. Hadley (London: Business Publications Ltd., 1960), 219.
51. Dichter, Getting Motivated, 53, 80, 93.
52. Cheskin, Why People Buy, 155.
53. M. G. Lord, Forever Barbie; The Unauthorized Biography of a Real Doll (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1994), 40.
54. Gail Caldwell, "Major Barbie: She's the Plastic Miniature of Everything Good, Bad and Ugly about American Culture," Boston Globe, November 27, 1994, A13.
55. Dichter quoted in Lord, Forever Barbie, 40.
56. Lord, Forever Barbie, 41.
57. As one interviewee in Lord's Forever Barbie (9) said, "She didn't teach us to nurture, like our clinging, dependent Betsy Wetsys and Chatty Cathys.... She taught us independence.... She could invent herself with a costume change."
58. It was only under pressure from consumers' demands for a boyfriend for Barbie that Mattel released its Ken doll in 1961, two years after Barbie's release.
59. As Dichter's fellow motivational researcher Louis Cheskin put it: "Motivation research deals with the unconscious mind, and as long as we have an economy of abundance in which brands are competing for the consumer's dollar, we need research into the unconscious motives of the consumers. You have to be sure that your product has favorable psychological connotations before it is put on the market, because the actual product may be about the same in performance as competing product." Cheskin, Why People Buy, 102.
60. The "unpacking" of Freud's metaphoric model of the psyche as an "economy" of libido has continued long after the official discrediting of MR. In 1975, a psychoanalytic study of the sex lives of Wall Street brokers and investors found a correlation between wealth and libido, showing that its subjects' frequency of orgasm was directly linked to the rise and fall of prices on the New York Stock Exchange. See Paul Frisch and Ann Frisch, "Male Potency and the Dow Jones Average," New York, October 20, 1975, 10-12.
61. Dichter, Psychology of Everyday Living, 67.
62. See Sigmund Freud, "The Dissection of the Psychical Personality," in New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, Pelican Freud Library 2 (London: Pelican, 1973), 88-112.
63. Dichter, Packaging, 125-26.
64. Barbara Mostyn, Motivational Research: Passing Fad or Permanent Feature? (Bradford, U.K.: MCB, 1977), 1.
65. Joseph W. Wulfeck and Edward M. Bennett, The Language of Dynamic Psychology as Related to Motivation Research (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1954), 7.
66. In his book Introduction to the New Science and Art of Motivation Research (Liverpool: D. Bell, n.d., c. 1958), J. George Federick, president of the Business Bourse in New York, attributed the discovery of motivational research to his own organization as far back as "circa 1914." In Why People Buy (102), Louis Cheskin, a specialist in the psychological effects of colors and packaging, claimed to have been, in the 1930s, a pioneer of "unconscious level testing."
67. Vance Packard, The Hidden Persuaders (New York: D. McKay Co., 1957), 3-5.
68. Packard, Hidden Persuaders, 5.
69. Vance Packard, The Hidden Persuaders, 2nd ed. (Harmondsworth, U.K.: Penguin, 1981), 234.
70. Richard Glen Boire, "Laced Media," Journal of Cognitive Liberties 1, no. 3 (2000): 73.
71. Boire, "Laced Media," 72-73.
72. Dichter, Getting Motivated, 105. Dichter initially called his company the Institute for Mass Motivation Research but dropped the "Mass" because of its unwanted associations with Communism.
73. Dichter, Getting Motivated, 82-83.
74. Dichter, Getting Motivated, 97-102, 148. Dichter was also consulted by Stanley Kubrick on the appropriateness of using humor in his anti-atomic war film Dr. Strangelove (1964) and was commissioned by an Italian publisher to write a book on the unification of Europe called "The Disease of Nationalism."
75. Betty Frieden, The Feminine Mystique (London: Gollancz, 1963), 208, 187-88, 261.
76. Dichter, Strategy of Desire, 231.
77. Dichter, Psychology of Everyday Living, 212.
78. Dichter, Strategy of Desire, 242.
79. Dichter, Getting Motivated, 185.
80. Dichter, Packaging, 75; Dichter, Getting Motivated, 185.
81. Dichter, Packaging, 75; Dichter, Getting Motivated, 185.
82. Dichter, Psychology of Everyday Living, 213.
83. Tom Peters, "The Brand Called You," Fast Company, August-September 1997, 83. For a discussion of Peters's marketing theory, see Thomas Frank, One Market under God: Extreme Capitalism, Market Populism, and the End of Economic Democracy (London: Vintage, 2002).
84. Tom Peters, "The Brand Called You," Fast Company, August-September 1997, 83. For a discussion of Peters's marketing theory, see Thomas Frank, One Market under God: Extreme Capitalism, Market Populism, and the End of Economic Democracy (London: Vintage, 2002).
85. Jean Baudrillard, The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures (London: Sage, 1998), 68-69.
86. Baudrillard, Consumer Society, 77-78.
87. Baudrillard, Consumer Society, 148.
88. David Riesman, The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Character (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1950), 172; quoted in Friedan, Feminine Mystique, 391.
89. David Riesman, The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Character (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1950), 172; quoted in Friedan, Feminine Mystique, 391.