120-616: Erich Seligmann Fromm ( / f r ɒ m / ; German: [fʁɔm] ; March 23, 1900 – March 18, 1980) was a German-American social psychologist , psychoanalyst , sociologist , humanistic philosopher , and democratic socialist . He was a German Jew who fled the Nazi regime and settled in the United States. He was one of the founders of The William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology in New York City and
240-525: A Neo-Freudian school of psychoanalytical thought. Horney and Fromm each had a marked influence on the other's thought, with Horney illuminating some aspects of psychoanalysis for Fromm and the latter elucidating sociology for Horney. Their relationship ended in the late 1930s. After leaving Columbia, Fromm helped form the New York branch of the Washington School of Psychiatry in 1943, and in 1946 co-founded
360-686: A psychoanalyst through Frieda Reichmann 's psychoanalytic sanatorium in Heidelberg . They married in 1926, but separated shortly after and divorced in 1942. He began his own clinical practice in 1927. In 1930 he joined the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research and completed his psychoanalytical training. After the Nazi takeover of power in Germany, Fromm moved first to Geneva and then, in 1934, to Columbia University in New York. Together with Karen Horney and Harry Stack Sullivan , Fromm belongs to
480-456: A belief in a theistic understanding of God , a Supreme Being, the divine , the soul or the supernatural . Like theistic Friends, nontheist Friends are actively interested in realizing centered peace , simplicity, integrity, community, equality, love , happiness and social justice in the Society of Friends and beyond. Hinduism is characterised by extremely diverse beliefs and practices. In
600-429: A certain economic position which guaranteed a livelihood determined by tradition, just as it carried economic obligations to those higher in the social hierarchy. The culmination of Fromm's social and political philosophy was his book The Sane Society , published in 1955, which argued in favor of a humanistic and democratic socialism . Building primarily upon the early works of Karl Marx , Fromm sought to re-emphasise
720-675: A change in attitudes or behavior. Research on attitudes has examined the distinction between traditional, self-reported attitudes and implicit, unconscious attitudes . Experiments using the Implicit Association Test (IAT) , for instance, have found that people often demonstrate implicit bias against other races, even when their explicit responses profess impartiality. Likewise, one study found that in interracial interactions, explicit attitudes correlate with verbal behavior, while implicit attitudes correlate with nonverbal behavior. Attitudes are also involved in several other areas of
840-419: A common identity. They have a number of emergent qualities that distinguish them from coincidental, temporary gatherings, which are termed social aggregates: The shared social identity of individuals within a group influences intergroup behavior , which denotes the way in which groups behave towards and perceive each other. These perceptions and behaviors in turn define the social identity of individuals within
960-443: A consequence of its insistence that Brahman is "Without attributes, indivisible, subtle, inconceivable, and without blemish, Brahman is one and without a second. There is nothing other than He." This means that it lacks properties usually associated with God such as omniscience, perfect goodness, omnipotence, and additionally is identical with the whole of reality, rather than being a causal agent or ruler of it. Jain texts claim that
1080-461: A cultural context. It was also in this period where situationism , the theory that human behavior changes based on situational factors, emerged and challenged the relevance of self and personality in psychology. By the 1980s and 1990s, social psychology had developed a number of solutions to these issues with regard to theory and methodology . At present, ethical standards regulate research, and pluralistic and multicultural perspectives to
1200-540: A dissertation "On Jewish Law". Fromm at the time became strongly involved in Zionism , under the influence of the religious Zionist rabbi Nehemia Anton Nobel. He was very active in Jewish Studentenverbindungen and other Zionist organisations. But he soon turned away from Zionism, saying that it conflicted with his ideal of a "universalist Messianism and Humanism". During the mid-1920s, he trained to become
1320-401: A freedom that was thought to be an individual's true desire. Fromm's critique of the modern political order and capitalist system led him to seek insights from medieval feudalism . In Escape from Freedom , he found value in the lack of individual freedom, rigid structure, and obligations required on the members of medieval society: What characterizes medieval in contrast to modern society
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#17328731954131440-409: A great respect for Freud and his accomplishments. Fromm contended that Freud was one of the "architects of the modern age", alongside Albert Einstein and Karl Marx , but emphasized that he considered Marx both far more historically important than Freud and a finer thinker. Fromm's best known work, Escape from Freedom , focuses on the human urge to seek a source of authority and control upon reaching
1560-534: A great uncle on his mother's side was a noted Talmudic scholar. However, Fromm turned away from orthodox Judaism in 1926, towards secular interpretations of scriptural ideals. The cornerstone of Fromm's humanistic philosophy is his interpretation of the biblical story of Adam and Eve 's exile from the Garden of Eden . Drawing on his knowledge of the Talmud, Fromm pointed out that being able to distinguish between good and evil
1680-454: A kind of intermediary between the impersonal Tao and the world of active creation. There is no creator deity in traditional Taoism, and universe is held to be in constant creation and change. Philosophical models not falling within established religious structures, such as Confucianism , Epicureanism , Deism , and Pandeism , have also been considered to be nontheistic religions. The Church of Satan adheres to LaVeyan Satanism , which
1800-623: A monistic reading and others that bear a theistic reading. Generally, the book as a whole has been interpreted by some who see it as containing a primarily nontheistic message, and by others who stress its theistic message. These broadly either follow after either Sankara or Ramanuja An example of a nontheistic passage might be "The supreme Brahman is without any beginning. That is called neither being nor non-being," which Sankara interpreted to mean that Brahman can only be talked of in terms of negation of all attributes—'Neti neti'. The Advaita Vedanta of Gaudapada and Sankara rejects theism as
1920-475: A more dynamic theoretical and empirical approach. In reference to Fromm's leftist political activism as a public intellectual, Noam Chomsky said "I liked Fromm's attitudes but thought his work was pretty superficial". Social psychologist Social psychology is the scientific study of how thoughts , feelings , and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as
2040-410: A person may generally value the environment but may not recycle a plastic bottle because of specific factors on a given day. One of the most influential 20th century attitude theories was Cognitive dissonance theory . According to this theory, attitudes must be logically consistent with each other. Noticing incongruence among one’s attitudes leads to an uncomfortable state of tension, which may motivate
2160-497: A population. This type of research is usually descriptive or correlational because there is no experimental control over variables. Some psychologists have raised concerns for social psychological research relying too heavily on studies conducted on university undergraduates in academic settings, or participants from crowdsourcing labor markets such as Amazon Mechanical Turk . In a 1986 study by David O. Sears , over 70% of experiments used North American undergraduates as subjects,
2280-440: A restaurant, doing laundry) are known as scripts . Self-concept is the whole sum of beliefs that people have about themselves. The self-concept is made up of cognitive aspects called self-schemas —beliefs that people have about themselves and that guide the processing of self-referential information. For example, an athlete at a university would have multiple selves that would process different information pertinent to each self:
2400-402: A result of the relationship between mental states and social situations, studying the social conditions under which thoughts, feelings, and behaviors occur, and how these variables influence social interactions . In the 19th century, social psychology began to emerge from the larger field of psychology . At the time, many psychologists were concerned with developing concrete explanations for
2520-605: A set of idealist ethics, which only embrace the status quo . Fromm's response, in both The Sane Society and in The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness , argues that Freud indeed deserves substantial credit for recognizing the central importance of the unconscious, but also that he tended to reify his own concepts that depicted the self as the passive outcome of instinct and social control, with minimal volition or variability. Fromm argues that later scholars such as Marcuse accepted these concepts as dogma, whereas social psychology requires
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#17328731954132640-546: A simple condemnation of authoritarian value systems, Fromm used the story of Adam and Eve as an allegorical explanation for human biological evolution and existential angst, asserting that when Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge, they became aware of themselves as being separate from nature while still being part of it. This is why they felt "naked" and "ashamed": they had evolved into human beings , conscious of themselves, their own mortality, and their powerlessness before
2760-447: A simulated exercise involving students playing at being prison guards and inmates, attempted to show how far people would go in role playing. In just a few days, the guards became brutal and cruel, and the prisoners became miserable and compliant. This was initially argued to be an important demonstration of the power of the immediate social situation and its capacity to overwhelm normal personality traits. Subsequent research has contested
2880-516: A state can be termed gods ( Tirthankara ). Besides scriptural authority, Jains also employ syllogism and deductive reasoning to refute creationist theories. Various views on divinity and the universe held by the Vedics , Sāmkhyas , Mimamsas , Buddhists, and other school of thoughts were criticized by Jain Ācāryas, such as Jinasena in Mahāpurāna . Chinese Taoism or Daoism originally emphasizes
3000-497: A state of consummate love. According to social exchange theory , relationships are based on rational choice and cost-benefit analysis. A person may leave a relationship if their partner's "costs" begin to outweigh their benefits, especially if there are good alternatives available. This theory is similar to the minimax principle proposed by mathematicians and economists. With time, long-term relationships tend to become communal rather than simply based on exchange. Social psychology
3120-439: A subset of the population that is unrepresentative of the population as a whole. Regardless of which method has been chosen, social psychologists statistically review the significance of their results before accepting them in evaluating an underlying hypothesis. Statistics and probability testing define what constitutes a significant finding, which can be as low as 5% or less, and is unlikely due to chance. Replication testing
3240-499: A third that is pluralistic and non-absolute. The latter two traditions can be seen as nontheistic. Although the Vedas are broadly concerned with the completion of ritual, there are some elements that can be interpreted as either nontheistic or precursors to the later developments of the nontheistic tradition. The oldest Hindu scripture, the Rig Veda mentions that 'There is only one god though
3360-593: A young man under Rabbi J. Horowitz and later under Rabbi Salman Baruch Rabinkow, a Chabad Hasid . While working towards his doctorate in sociology at the University of Heidelberg , Fromm studied the Tanya by the founder of Chabad, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi . Fromm also studied under Nehemia Nobel and Ludwig Krause while studying in Frankfurt. Fromm's grandfather and two great-grandfathers on his father's side were rabbis , and
3480-510: Is obedience ; this is a change in behavior that is the result of a direct order or command from another person. Obedience as a form of compliance was dramatically highlighted by the Milgram study , wherein people were ready to administer shocks to a person in distress on a researcher's command. An unusual kind of social influence is the self-fulfilling prophecy . This is a prediction that, by being made, causes itself to become true. For example, in
3600-607: Is a false memory of having predicted events, or an exaggeration of actual predictions, after becoming aware of the outcome. The confirmation bias is a type of bias leading to the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions. Schemas are generalized mental representations that organize knowledge and guide information processing. They organize social information and experiences. Schemas often operate automatically and unconsciously. This leads to biases in perception and memory. Schemas may induce expectations that lead us to see something that
3720-450: Is a compliance method in which the persuader requests a small favor and then follows up with a larger favor (e.g., asking for the time and then asking for ten dollars). A related trick is the bait and switch , which is a disingenuous sales strategy that involves enticing potential customers with advertisements of low-priced items which turn out to be unavailable in order to sell a more expensive item. The third major form of social influence
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3840-487: Is a tendency to work harder and faster in the presence of others. Another important concept in this area is deindividuation , a reduced state of self-awareness that can be caused by feelings of anonymity. Deindividuation is associated with uninhibited and sometimes dangerous behavior. It is common in crowds and mobs, but it can also be caused by a disguise, a uniform, alcohol, dark environments, or online anonymity. A major area of study of people's relations to each other
3960-399: Is also important in ensuring that the results are valid and not due to chance. False positive conclusions, often resulting from the pressure to publish or the author's own confirmation bias , are a hazard in the field. The Asch conformity experiments used a line-length estimation task to demonstrate the power of people's impulses to conform with other members in a small group. The task
4080-544: Is an empirical science that attempts to answer questions about human behavior by testing hypotheses. Careful attention to research design, sampling, and statistical analysis is important in social psychology. Whenever possible, social psychologists rely on controlled experimentation , which requires the manipulation of one or more independent variables in order to examine the effect on a dependent variable . Experiments are useful in social psychology because they are high in internal validity , meaning that they are free from
4200-436: Is an acquiring and assimilating materials/valuables character trait. The marketing orientation arises in response to the human situation in the modern era. The current needs of the market determine value. It is a relativistic ethic. In contrast, the productive orientation is an objective ethic. Despite the existential struggles of humanity, each human has the potential for love, reason and productive work in life. Fromm writes, "It
4320-607: Is an extension of the theory, positing that tendency exists to make dispositional attributions for other people's behavior and situational attributions for one's own. The self-serving bias is the tendency to attribute dispositional causes for successes, and situational causes for failure, particularly when self-esteem is threatened. This leads to assuming one's successes are from innate traits, and one's failures are due to situations. Heuristics are cognitive shortcuts which are used to make decisions in lieu of conscious reasoning. The availability heuristic occurs when people estimate
4440-517: Is an overarching term that denotes the persuasive effects people have on each other. It is seen as a fundamental concept in social psychology. The study of it overlaps considerably with research on attitudes and persuasion. The three main areas of social influence include conformity , compliance , and obedience . Social influence is also closely related to the study of group dynamics, as most effects of influence are strongest when they take place in social groups. The first major area of social influence
4560-455: Is being itself beyond essence and existence. Therefore to argue that God exists is to deny him." This Tillich quotation summarizes his conception of God . He does not think of God as a being that exists in time and space, because that constrains God, and makes God finite. But all beings are finite, and if God is the Creator of all beings, God cannot logically be finite since a finite being cannot be
4680-837: Is conducted by an ethics committee or institutional review board , which examines the proposed research to make sure that no harm is likely to come to the participants, and that the study's benefits outweigh any possible risks or discomforts to people participating. Nontheistic religion Nontheistic religions (not to be confused with atheism ) are traditions of thought within a religious context—some otherwise aligned with theism , others not—in which nontheism informs religious beliefs or practices. Nontheism has been applied and plays significant roles in Hinduism , Buddhism , and Jainism . While many approaches to religion exclude nontheism by definition, some inclusive definitions of religion show how religious practice and belief do not depend on
4800-543: Is conformity. Conformity is defined as the tendency to act or think like other members of a group. The identity of members within a group (i.e., status), similarity, expertise, as well as cohesion, prior commitment, and accountability to the group help to determine the level of conformity of an individual. Conformity is often driven by two types of social influences: informational social influence, which involves conforming to gain accurate information, and normative social influence, which involves conforming to be accepted or liked by
4920-415: Is due to a request or suggestion from another person. Two common compliance strategies are 'foot-in-the-door,' which involves getting a person to agree to a small request to increase the likelihood of agreeing to a larger one, and 'door-in-the-face,' which involves making a large request that is likely to be refused to make a subsequent smaller request more likely to be accepted. The foot-in-the-door technique
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5040-473: Is expressed in the notion of Brahman , the key idea of the Upanishads, and much later philosophizing has been taken up with deciding whether Brahman is personal or impersonal. The understanding of the nature of Brahman as impersonal is based in the definition of it as 'ekam eva advitiyam' (Chandogya Upanishad 6.2.1) – it is one without a second and to which no substantive predicates can be attached. Further, both
5160-456: Is generally considered to be a virtue, but that biblical scholars generally consider Adam and Eve to have sinned by disobeying God and eating from the Tree of Knowledge . However, departing from traditional religious orthodoxy on this, Fromm extolled the virtues of humans taking independent action and using reason to establish moral values rather than adhering to authoritarian moral values. Beyond
5280-452: Is interpersonal attraction, which refers to all factors that lead people to like each other, establish relationships, and in some cases fall in love. Several general principles of attraction have been discovered by social psychologists. One of the most important factors in interpersonal attraction is how similar two particular people are. The more similar two people are in general attitudes, backgrounds, environments, worldviews, and other traits,
5400-410: Is its lack of individual freedom…But altogether a person was not free in the modern sense, neither was he alone and isolated. In having a distinct, unchangeable, and unquestionable place in the social world from the moment of birth, man was rooted in a structuralized whole, and thus life had a meaning which left no place, and no need for doubt…There was comparatively little competition. One was born into
5520-508: Is lived as if it both takes in and spiritually transcends socially-grounded ontologies of time, space, embodiment and knowing. The Buddha said that devas (translated as "gods") do exist, but they were regarded as still being trapped in samsara , and are not necessarily wiser than humans. In fact, the Buddha is often portrayed as a teacher of the gods, and superior to them. Except gods who are considered as manifestations of Buddhas such as
5640-407: Is not there. One experiment found that people are more likely to misperceive a weapon in the hands of a black man than a white man. This type of schema is a stereotype , a generalized set of beliefs about a particular group of people (when incorrect, an ultimate attribution error ). Stereotypes are often related to negative or preferential attitudes and behavior. Schemas for behaviors (e.g., going to
5760-490: Is the paradox of human existence that man must simultaneously seek for closeness and for independence; for oneness with others and at the same time for the preservation of his uniqueness and particularity. ...the answer to this paradox – and to the moral problems of man – is productiveness." Fromm's four non-productive orientations were subject to validation through a psychometric test, The Person Relatedness Test by Elias H. Porter, PhD in collaboration with Carl Rogers , PhD at
5880-454: Is viewed as one of the founding works of political psychology . His second important work, Man for Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics , first published in 1947, continued and enriched the ideas of Escape from Freedom . Taken together, these books outlined Fromm's theory of human character, which was a natural outgrowth of Fromm's theory of human nature. Fromm's most popular book
6000-534: The Chandogya and Brihadaranyaka Upanishads assert that the individual atman and the impersonal Brahman are one. The mahāvākya statement Tat Tvam Asi , found in the Chandogya Upanishad, can be taken to indicate this unity. The latter Upanishad uses the negative term Neti neti to 'describe' the divine. Classical Samkhya , Mimamsa , early Vaisheshika and early Nyaya schools of Hinduism do not accept
6120-604: The William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis, and Psychology. He was on the faculty of Bennington College from 1941 to 1949, and taught courses at the New School for Social Research in New York from 1941 to 1959. When Fromm moved to Mexico City in 1949, he became a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and established a psychoanalytic section at
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#17328731954136240-548: The elaboration likelihood model ) maintain that persuasion is mediated by two separate routes: central and peripheral. The central route of persuasion is influenced by facts and results in longer-lasting change, but requires motivation to process. The peripheral route is influenced by superficial factors (e.g. smiling, clothing) and results in shorter-lasting change, but does not require as much motivation to process. Social cognition studies how people perceive, recognize, and remember information about others. Much research rests on
6360-455: The probability of an outcome based on how easy that outcome is to imagine. As such, vivid or highly memorable possibilities will be perceived as more likely than those that are harder to picture or difficult to understand. The representativeness heuristic is a shortcut people use to categorize something based on how similar it is to a prototype they know of. Several other biases have been found by social cognition researchers. The hindsight bias
6480-539: The 1960s, there was growing interest in topics such as cognitive dissonance , bystander intervention , and aggression . These developments were part of a trend of increasingly sophisticated laboratory experiments using college students as participants and analysis of variance designs. In the 1970s, a number of conceptual challenges to social psychology emerged over issues such as ethical concerns about laboratory experimentation, whether attitudes could accurately predict behavior, and to what extent science could be done in
6600-732: The American political scene, although he did write a paper in 1974 entitled Remarks on the Policy of Détente for a hearing held by the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations . Fromm was awarded the Nelly Sachs Prize in 1979. In Eros and Civilization , Herbert Marcuse is critical of Fromm: In the beginning, he was a radical theorist, but later he turned to conformity. Marcuse also noted that Fromm, as well as his close colleagues Sullivan and Karen Horney, removed Freud's libido theory and other radical concepts, which thus reduced psychoanalysis to
6720-464: The Jain concept of divinity, any soul who destroys its karmas and desires, achieves liberation/Nirvana. A soul who destroys all its passions and desires has no desire to interfere in the working of the universe. If godliness is defined as the state of having freed one's soul from karmas and the attainment of enlightenment/Nirvana and a god as one who exists in such a state, then those who have achieved such
6840-634: The Lab School of Washington and the Baltimore Lab School. Fromm examined the life and work of Sigmund Freud at length. He identified a discrepancy between early and later Freudian theory: namely that, prior to World War I, Freud had described human drives as a tension between desire and repression, but after the end of the war, began framing human drives as a struggle between biologically universal Life and Death ( Eros and Thanatos ) instincts. Fromm charged Freud and his followers with never acknowledging
6960-404: The U.S. military (see also psychological warfare ). Following the war, researchers became interested in a variety of social problems, including issues of gender and racial prejudice . Social stigma , which refers to the disapproval or discrimination against individuals based on perceived differences, became increasingly prevalent as societies sought to redefine norms and group boundaries after
7080-583: The University of Chicago's Counseling Center between 1953 and 1955. Fromm's four non-productive orientations also served as basis for the LIFO test, first published in 1967 by Stuart Atkins, Alan Katcher, PhD, and Elias Porter , PhD and the Strength Deployment Inventory , first published in 1971 by Elias H. Porter, PhD. Fromm also influenced his student Sally L. Smith who went on to become the founder of
7200-557: The Upanishadic tradition were bands of wandering ascetics called Vadins whose largely nontheistic notions rejected the notion that religious knowledge was the property of the Brahmins. Many of these were shramanas , who represented a non-Vedic tradition rooted in India's pre-Aryan history. The emphasis of the Upanishads turned to knowledge, specifically the ultimate identity of all phenomena. This
7320-535: The Way. I teach only those things necessary to realize the Way . Things which are not helpful or necessary, I do not teach. A few liberal Christian theologians define a "nontheistic God" as "the ground of all being" rather than as a personal divine being . Many of them owe much of their theology to the work of Christian existentialist philosopher Paul Tillich , including the phrase "the ground of all being". Another quotation from Tillich is, "God does not exist. He
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#17328731954137440-722: The Western and Eastern cooperation between Marxist humanists, Fromm published a series of articles entitled Socialist Humanism: An International Symposium . In 1966, the American Humanist Association named him Humanist of the Year. For a period, Fromm was also active in U.S. politics. He joined the Socialist Party of America in the mid-1950s, and did his best to help them provide an alternative viewpoint to McCarthyist trends in some US political thought. This alternative viewpoint
7560-432: The assertion that people think about other people differently than they do non-social, or non-human, targets. This assertion is supported by the social-cognitive deficits exhibited by people with Williams syndrome and autism . A major research topic in social cognition is attribution . Attributions are explanations of behavior, either one's own behavior or the behavior of others. One element of attribution ascribes
7680-405: The autonomy of their fellow human beings, much less the objective knowledge of what other people truly wanted and needed. Fromm believed that freedom was an aspect of human nature that we either embrace or escape. He observed that embracing our freedom of will was healthy, whereas escaping freedom through the use of escape mechanisms was the root of psychological conflicts. Fromm outlined three of
7800-445: The behavior will be repeated or changed under similar circumstances). Individuals also attribute causes of behavior to controllable and uncontrollable factors (i.e., how much control one has over the situation at hand). Numerous biases in the attribution process have been discovered. For instance, the fundamental attribution error is the bias towards making dispositional attributions for other people's behavior. The actor-observer bias
7920-436: The cause of behavior to internal and external factors. An internal, or dispositional, attribution reasons that a behavior is caused by inner traits such as personality, disposition, character, and ability. An external, or situational, attribution reasons that a behavior is caused by situational elements such as the weather. A second element of attribution ascribes the cause of behavior to stable and unstable factors (i.e., whether
8040-408: The contradictions between the two theories. Fromm also criticized Freud's dualistic thinking. According to Fromm, Freudian descriptions of human consciousness as struggles between two poles were narrow and limiting. Fromm also condemned Freud as a misogynist unable to think outside the patriarchal milieu of early 20th century Vienna. However, in spite of these criticisms, Fromm nonetheless expressed
8160-424: The criticism by Marcuse below ). Fromm considered love an interpersonal creative capacity rather than an emotion , and he distinguished this creative capacity from what he considered to be various forms of narcissistic neuroses and sado-masochistic tendencies that are commonly held out as proof of "true love". Indeed, Fromm viewed the experience of "falling in love" as evidence of one's failure to understand
8280-406: The different aspects of human nature . They attempted to discover concrete cause-and-effect relationships that explained social interactions. In order to do so, they applied the scientific method to human behavior. One of the first published studies in the field was Norman Triplett 's 1898 experiment on the phenomenon of social facilitation . These psychological experiments later went on to form
8400-521: The discipline, such as conformity , interpersonal attraction , social perception, and prejudice . Persuasion is an active method of influencing that attempts to guide people toward the adoption of an attitude, idea, or behavior by rational or emotive means. Persuasion relies on appeals rather than strong pressure or coercion . The process of persuasion has been found to be influenced by numerous variables that generally fall into one of five major categories: Dual-process theories of persuasion (such as
8520-400: The doctor do anything before certain questions can be answered. The wounded man demands to know who shot the arrow, what his caste and job is, and why he shot him. He wants to know what kind of bow the man used and how he acquired the ingredients used in preparing the poison. Malunkyaputta, such a man will die before getting the answers to his questions. It is no different for one who follows
8640-533: The early writings of Marx and his humanist messages to the US and Western European public. He engaged with a Christian-Marxist intellectual dialogue group organized by Milan Machovec and others in 1960s Communist Czechoslovakia . In the early 1960s, Fromm published two books dealing with Marxist thought ( Marx's Concept of Man and Beyond the Chains of Illusion: My Encounter with Marx and Freud ). In 1965, working to stimulate
8760-438: The financial field, if it is widely believed that a crash is imminent, investors may lose confidence, sell most of their stock, and thus cause a crash. Similarly, people may expect hostility in others and induce this hostility by their own behavior. Psychologists have spent decades studying the power of social influence, and the way in which it manipulates people's opinions and behavior. Specifically, social influence refers to
8880-523: The five Jambhalas and the devas who reside in Pure Abodes and other deities such as Tara based on some Buddhist traditions. Since the time of the Buddha, the denial of the existence of a creator deity has been seen as a key point in distinguishing Buddhist from non-Buddhist views. The question of an independent creator deity was answered by the Buddha in the Brahmajala Sutta . The Buddha denounced
9000-489: The following basic needs: Fromm's thesis of the "escape from freedom" is epitomized in the following passage. The "individualized man" referenced by Fromm is man bereft of the "primary ties" of belonging (such as nature, family, etc.), also expressed as "freedom from": There is only one possible, productive solution for the relationship of individualized man with the world: his active solidarity with all men and his spontaneous activity, love and work, which unite him again with
9120-500: The forces of nature and society, and no longer united with the universe as they were in their instinctive , pre-human existence as animals. According to Fromm, the awareness of a disunited human existence is a source of guilt and shame , and the solution to this existential dichotomy is found in the development of one's uniquely human powers of love and reason. However, Fromm distinguished his concept of love from unreflective popular notions as well as Freudian paradoxical love (see
9240-506: The foundation of much of 20th century social psychological findings. According to Wolfgang Stroebe , modern social psychology began in 1924 with the publication of a classic textbook by Floyd Allport , which defined the field as the experimental study of social behavior. An early, influential research program in social psychology was established by Kurt Lewin and his students. During World War II , social psychologists were mostly concerned with studies of persuasion and propaganda for
9360-425: The group. Individual variations among group members play a key role in the dynamic of how willing people will be to conform. Conformity is usually viewed as a negative tendency in American culture, but a certain amount of conformity is adaptive in some situations, as is nonconformity in other situations. The second major area of social influence research is compliance , which refers to any change in behavior that
9480-506: The idea of an eternal creator deity concerned with humanity. On one occasion, when presented with a problem of metaphysics by the monk Malunkyaputta, the Buddha responded with the Parable of the Poisoned Arrow . When a man is shot with an arrow thickly smeared with poison, his family summons a doctor to have the poison removed, and the doctor gives an antidote: But the man refuses to let
9600-413: The ideal of freedom, missing from most Soviet Marxism and more frequently found in the writings of libertarian socialists and liberal theoreticians. Fromm's brand of socialism rejected both Western capitalism and Soviet communism , which he saw as dehumanizing, and which resulted in the virtually universal modern phenomenon of alienation . He became one of the founders of socialist humanism , promoting
9720-413: The individual began conforming or withdrew from the experiment. Also, participant conformity increased substantially as the number of "incorrect" individuals increased from one to three, and remained high as the incorrect majority grew. Participants with three other, incorrect participants made mistakes 31.8% of the time, while those with one or two incorrect participants made mistakes only 3.6% and 13.6% of
9840-414: The influence of confounding or extraneous variables, and so are more likely to accurately indicate a causal relationship. However, the small samples used in controlled experiments are typically low in external validity , or the degree to which the results can be generalized to the larger population. There is usually a trade-off between experimental control (internal validity) and being able to generalize to
9960-495: The initial conclusions of the study. For example, it has been pointed out that participant self-selection may have affected the participants' behavior, and that the participants' personalities influenced their reactions in a variety of ways, including how long they chose to remain in the study. The 2002 BBC prison study , designed to replicate the conditions in the Stanford study, produced conclusions that were drastically different from
10080-416: The initial findings. Albert Bandura 's Bobo doll experiment attempted to demonstrate how aggression is learned by imitation . In the experiment, 72 children, grouped based on similar levels of pre-tested aggressivity, either witnessed an aggressive or a non-aggressive actor interact with a "bobo doll." The children were then placed alone in the room with the doll and observed to see if they would imitate
10200-500: The interacting groups. The tendency to define oneself by membership in a group may lead to intergroup discrimination, which involves favorable perceptions and behaviors directed towards the in-group, but negative perceptions and behaviors directed towards the out-group. Groups often moderate and improve decision making , and are frequently relied upon for these benefits, such as in committees and juries. Groups also affect performance and productivity . Social facilitation, for example,
10320-525: The intuition that there must be a single principle behind all phenomena: 'That one' (tad ekam), self-sufficient, to which distinctions cannot be applied. It is with the Upanishads , reckoned to be written in the first millennia (coeval with the ritualistic Brahmanas ), that the Vedic emphasis on ritual was challenged. The Upanishads can be seen as the expression of new sources of power in India. Also, separate from
10440-555: The medical school there. Meanwhile, he taught as a professor of psychology at Michigan State University from 1957 to 1961 and as an adjunct professor of psychology at the graduate division of Arts and Sciences at New York University after 1962. He taught at UNAM until his retirement, in 1965, and at the Mexican Society of Psychoanalysis (SMP) until 1974. In 1974 he moved from Mexico City to Muralto , Switzerland, and died at his home in 1980, five days before his eightieth birthday. All
10560-559: The more likely they will be attracted to each other. Physical attractiveness is an important element of romantic relationships, particularly in the early stages characterized by high levels of passion . Later on, similarity and other compatibility factors become more important, and the type of love people experience shifts from passionate to companionate. In 1986, Robert Sternberg suggested that there are actually three components of love: intimacy, passion, and commitment. When two (or more) people experience all three, they are said to be in
10680-609: The most common escape mechanisms: The word biophilia was frequently used by Fromm as a description of a productive psychological orientation and " state of being ". For example, in an addendum to his book The Heart of Man: Its Genius For Good and Evil , Fromm wrote as part of his humanist credo : "I believe that the man choosing progress can find a new unity through the development of all his human forces, which are produced in three orientations. These can be presented separately or together: biophilia, love for humanity and nature, and independence and freedom." Erich Fromm postulated
10800-749: The notion of an omnipotent creator God at all. While the Sankhya and Mimamsa schools no longer have significant followings in India, they are both influential in the development of later schools of philosophy. The Yoga of Patanjali is the school that probably owes most to the Samkhya thought. This school is dualistic, in the sense that there is a division between 'spirit' (Sanskrit: purusha ) and 'nature' (Sanskrit: prakṛti ). It holds Samadhi or 'concentrative union' as its ultimate goal and it does not consider God's existence as either essential or necessary to achieving this. The Bhagavad Gita , contains passages that bear
10920-509: The otherness of the divine, the Tao , which is at the same time immanent and transcendent , but not anthropomorphic . Only in later Taoism does a pantheon of gods emerge, and even then they are considered deities inferior to the principle of Tao, often representing cosmic or heavenly concepts. The god Shangdi might have originally as a symbolic of the Pole Star in northern China, eventually becoming
11040-423: The perception of our own behavior. Leon Festinger 's 1954 social comparison theory posits that people evaluate their own abilities and opinions by comparing themselves to others when they are uncertain of their own ability or opinions. Daryl Bem 's 1972 self-perception theory claims that when internal cues are difficult to interpret, people gain self-insight by observing their own behavior. Social influence
11160-406: The population (external validity). Because it is usually impossible to test everyone, research tends to be conducted on a sample of persons from the wider population . Social psychologists frequently use survey research when they are interested in results that are high in external validity. Surveys use various forms of random sampling to obtain a sample of respondents that is representative of
11280-405: The presence of a god or gods. For example, Paul James and Peter Mandaville distinguish between religion and spirituality , but provide a definition of the term that avoids the usual reduction to "religions of the book": Religion can be defined as a relatively-bounded system of beliefs, symbols and practices that addresses the nature of existence, and in which communion with others and Otherness
11400-505: The sages may give it various names' (1.164.46). Max Müller termed this henotheism , and it can be seen as indicating one, non-dual divine reality, with little emphasis on personality. The famous Nasadiya Sukta , the 129th Hymn of the tenth and final Mandala (or chapter) of the Rig Veda, considers creation and asks "The gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe. /Who then knows whence it has arisen?". This can be seen to contain
11520-417: The same behavior of the actor they had observed. As hypothesized, the children who had witnessed the aggressive actor, imitated the behavior and proceeded to act aggressively towards the doll. Both male and female children who witnessed the non-aggressive actor behaved less aggressively towards the doll. However, boys were more likely to exhibit aggression, especially after observing the behavior from an actor of
11640-435: The same gender. In addition, boys were found to imitate more physical aggression, while girls displayed more verbal aggression. The goal of social psychology is to understand cognition and behavior as they naturally occur in a social context, but the very act of observing people can influence and alter their behavior. For this reason, many social psychology experiments utilize deception to conceal or distort certain aspects of
11760-429: The same lie. The first group ($ 1) later reported liking the task better than the second group ($ 20). Festinger's explanation was that for people in the first group, being paid only $ 1 was not sufficient incentive. This led them to experience dissonance, or discomfort and internal conflict. They could only overcome that dissonance by justifying their lies. They did this by changing their previously unfavorable attitudes about
11880-457: The same results as deception studies, and this has cast doubt on their validity. In addition to deception, experimenters have at times put people in potentially uncomfortable or embarrassing situations (e.g., the Milgram experiment and Stanford prison experiment ), and this has also been criticized for ethical reasons. Virtually all social psychology research in the modern day must pass an ethical review. At most colleges and universities, this
12000-621: The social sciences have emerged. Most modern researchers in the 21st century are interested in phenomena such as attribution , social cognition , and self-concept . During the COVID-19 pandemic, social psychologists examined the effects of social isolation, fear, and misinformation on collective behavior. Research also focused on how pandemic-related stress affected mental health and social cohesion. Social psychologists are, in addition, concerned with applied psychology , contributing towards applications of social psychology in health, education, law, and
12120-424: The student would be oneself, who would process information pertinent to a student (taking notes in class, completing a homework assignment, etc.); the athlete would be the self who processes information about things related to being an athlete. These selves are part of one's identity and the self-referential information is that which relies on the appropriate self to process and react to it. There are many theories on
12240-500: The study. Deception may include false cover stories, false participants (known as confederates or stooges), false feedback given to the participants, and other techniques that help remove potential obstacles to participation. The practice of deception has been challenged by psychologists who maintain that deception under any circumstances is unethical and that other research strategies (e.g., role-playing ) should be used instead. Research has shown that role-playing studies do not produce
12360-474: The sustainer of an infinite variety of finite things. Thus God is considered beyond being, above finitude and limitation, the power or essence of being itself. From a nontheistic, naturalist , and rationalist perspective, the concept of divine grace appears to be the same concept as luck . A nontheist Friend or an atheist Quaker is someone who affiliates with, identifies with, engages in and/or affirms Quaker practices and processes, but who does not accept
12480-426: The task. Being paid $ 20 provided a reason for doing the boring task, which resulted in no dissonance. The Milgram experiment was designed to study how far people would go in obeying an authority figure. The experiment showed that normal American citizens would follow orders even when they believed they were causing an innocent person to suffer or even apparently die. Philip Zimbardo 's Stanford prison study ,
12600-444: The time, respectively. In Leon Festinger 's cognitive dissonance experiment, participants were divided into two groups and were asked to perform a boring task. Both groups were later asked to dishonestly give their opinion of the task, but were rewarded according to two different pay scales. At the end of the study, some participants were paid $ 1 to say that they enjoyed the task, while the group of participants were paid $ 20 to tell
12720-555: The true nature of love, which he believed always had the common elements of care , responsibility , respect , and knowledge . Drawing from his knowledge of the Torah , Fromm pointed to the story of Jonah , who did not wish to save the residents of Nineveh from the consequences of their sin, as demonstrative of his belief that the qualities of care and responsibility are generally absent from most human relationships . Fromm also asserted that few people in modern society had respect for
12840-585: The universe consists of jiva (life force or souls) and ajiva (lifeless objects). According to Jain doctrine, the universe and its constituents – soul, matter, space, time, and principles of motion – have always existed. The universe and the matter and souls within it are eternal and uncreated, and there is no omnipotent creator god . Jainism offers an elaborate cosmology, including heavenly beings/ devas , but these heavenly beings are not viewed as creators-they are subject to suffering and change like all other living beings, and are portrayed as mortal. According to
12960-467: The view of a creator and sees that such notions are related to the false view of eternalism , and like the 61 other views, this belief causes suffering when one is attached to it and states these views may lead to desire, aversion and delusion. At the end of the Sutta the Buddha says he knows these 62 views and he also knows the truth that surpasses them. Later Buddhist philosophers also extensively criticized
13080-451: The war. During the years immediately following World War II , there were frequent collaborations between psychologists and sociologists . The two disciplines, however, have become increasingly specialized and isolated from each other in recent years, with sociologists generally focusing on high-level, large-scale examinations of society, and psychologists generally focusing on more small-scale studies of individual human behaviors. During
13200-455: The way in which individuals change their ideas and actions to meet the demands of a social group, received authority, social role, or a minority within a group wielding influence over the majority. Social psychologists study group-related phenomena such as the behavior of crowds . A group can be defined as two or more individuals who are connected to each other by social relationships . Groups tend to interact, influence each other, and share
13320-518: The while, Fromm maintained his own clinical practice and published a series of books. Fromm was reportedly an atheist but described his position as " nontheistic mysticism ". Beginning with his first seminal work of 1941, Escape from Freedom (known in Britain as The Fear of Freedom ), Fromm's writings were notable as much for their social and political commentary as for their philosophical and psychological underpinnings. Indeed, Escape from Freedom
13440-463: The words of R.C. Zaehner , "it is perfectly possible to be a good Hindu whether one's personal views incline toward monism , monotheism , polytheism , or even atheism ." He goes on to say that it is a religion that neither depends on the existence or non-existence of God or Gods. More broadly, Hinduism can be seen as having three more important strands: one featuring a personal Creator or Divine Being, second that emphasises an impersonal Absolute and
13560-488: The workplace . In social psychology, an attitude is a learned, global evaluation that influences thought and action. Attitudes are basic expressions of approval and disapproval or likes and dislikes. For example, enjoying chocolate ice cream or endorsing the values of a particular political party are examples of attitudes. Because people are influenced by multiple factors in any given situation, general attitudes are not always good predictors of specific behavior. For example,
13680-803: The world by: 1) acquiring and assimilating things—"Assimilation", and 2) reacting to people—"Socialization". Fromm asserted that these two ways of relating to the world were not instinctive, but an individual's response to the peculiar circumstances of his or her life; he also believed that people are never exclusively one type of orientation. These two ways of relating to life's circumstances lead to basic character-orientations. Fromm lists four types of nonproductive character orientation, which he called receptive, exploitative, hoarding, and marketing, and one positive character orientation, which he called productive. Receptive and exploitative orientations are basically how an individual may relate to other people and are socialization attributes of character. A hoarding orientation
13800-419: The world which promises relief from uncertainty, even if it deprives the individual of his freedom. In his book Man for Himself Fromm spoke of " orientation of character ". He differentiates his theory of character from that of Freud by focusing on two ways an individual relates to the world. Freud analyzed character in terms of libido organization, whereas Fromm says that in the process of living, we relate to
13920-557: The world, not by primary ties but as a free and independent individual.... However, if the economic, social and political conditions... do not offer a basis for the realization of individuality in the sense just mentioned, while at the same time people have lost those ties which gave them security, this lag makes freedom an unbearable burden. It then becomes identical with doubt, with a kind of life which lacks meaning and direction. Powerful tendencies arise to escape from this kind of freedom into submission or some kind of relationship to man and
14040-495: Was The Art of Loving , an international bestseller first published in 1956, which recapitulated and complemented the theoretical principles of human nature found in Escape from Freedom and Man for Himself —principles which were revisited in many of Fromm's other major works. Central to Fromm's world view was his interpretation of the Talmud and Hasidism . He began studying Talmud as
14160-700: Was associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory . Erich Fromm was born on March 23, 1900, at Frankfurt am Main , the only child of Orthodox Jewish parents, Rosa (Krause) and Naphtali Fromm. He started his academic studies in 1918 at the University of Frankfurt am Main with two semesters of jurisprudence . During the summer semester of 1919, Fromm studied at the University of Heidelberg , where he began studying sociology under Alfred Weber (brother of sociologist Max Weber ), psychiatrist-philosopher Karl Jaspers , and Heinrich Rickert . Fromm received his Ph.D. in sociology from Heidelberg in 1922 with
14280-602: Was best expressed in his 1961 paper May Man Prevail? An Inquiry into the Facts and Fictions of Foreign Policy . However, as a co-founder of SANE , Fromm's strongest political activism was in the international peace movement , fighting against the nuclear arms race and U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War . After supporting Senator Eugene McCarthy 's losing bid for the Democratic presidential nomination , Fromm more or less retreated from
14400-515: Was designed to be easy to assess but wrong answers were deliberately given by at least some, oftentimes most, of the other participants. In well over a third of the trials, participants conformed to the majority, even though the majority judgment was clearly wrong. Seventy-five percent of the participants conformed at least once during the experiment. Additional manipulations of the experiment showed that participant conformity decreased when at least one other individual failed to conform but increased when
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