Erich Fromm was a German sociologist and psychoanalyst who made important contributions to understanding human freedom and character. He believed that modern freedom led to feelings of powerlessness and anxiety. People respond either through "freedom from" these feelings by conforming or being authoritarian/destructive, or "freedom to" develop oneself through spontaneity and individuation. Fromm identified basic human needs and five orientations of character that are shaped by one's culture. He created a test to measure tendencies toward these orientations: receptive, exploitative, hoarding, marketing, and productive.

1. Erich Fromm

2. Background German Ph.D. in sociology from University of Heidelberg in 1922. 1920s, he was trained to become a psychoanalyst, own clinical practice in 1927. Moved to Geneva and then to Columbia University in New York in 1934. Taught as a professor in various universities into his 60s. Close associate of Horney Social and cultural over and against biological More influenced by sociology than Horney

3. Contributions Freedom Human needs Orientations of Character

4. FREEEEEEDDOOOMMM

5. FREEDOM According to Fromm, rise of modern democracy = freedom = problems of personal responsibilities. Freedom is frightening! We feel an “unbearable state of powerless and aloneness” Become aware of things out of our control and confront our insignificance. Fromm identifies to types of responses to this situation: “FREEDOM FROM” (negative freedom) or “FREEDOM TO” (positive freedom)

6. Freedom From -ve! Escape from anxieties caused by freedom! Three main strategies: Authoritarianism Destructiveness Automaton conformity

7. Authoritarianism Tendency to “fuse one’s self with somebody or something outside of oneself in order to acquire the strength which the individual self is lacking” Authoritarian characters both strives for submission AND domination (masochism and sadism). One hand, strong feelings of inferiority = fuse with more powerful group; other hand, motivated to dominate. Fromm believes these defenses of powerlessness are inadequate and neurotic.

8. Link to Adler and Freud Whereas Adler believed striving for superiority = +ve, Fromm saw such striving as neurotically motivated and harmful. Whereas Freud used sexual themes to describe the child’s identification with the parent, Fromm suggested it to be a masochistic response to identify with the stronger parent.

9. Destructiveness Attempts to overcome life’s threatening situations by destroying them. Believed destructiveness = unconsciously motivated so those engaged in it rationalise away the antisocial actions. Cited love, duty, and patriotism as common rationalisation for destructive acts.

10. Automaton Conformity Used by majority. By acting as everybody else, we can temporarily escape our own individuality and thereby escape from the threatening aspects of personal freedom. “the person who gives up his individual self and becomes an automaton, identical with millions of other automatons around him, need not feel alone and anxious any more. But the price he pays, however, is high; it is the loss of his self” Fromm argued that the thoughts, feelings and actions most of us believe to originate from within are oftentimes reflections of the external world and the restrictive role we have come to adopt.

11. FREEDOM TO +ve freedom! Those who do not escape from freedom may succeed in the process of individuation. Begins when children become aware of themselves as separate and unique beings. Key to individuation is spontaneity – allowing ourselves to express the emotional and intellectual aspects of ourselves that otherwise might be hidden in an escape strategy.

12. HUMAN NEEDS

13. Basic Needs According to Fromm, freedom gave rise to specific basic needs. These needs must be met in order to be fully developed. Unless we can structure our lives in such a way that our basic needs are fulfilled constructively, we either die or become insane. A person’s culture/society structures and limits the way in which the basic needs may be fulfilled.

14. SIX BASIC HUMAN NEEDS motivating behaviour

15. ORIENTATIONS OF CHARACTER

16. Orientations Fromm believed a person’s character is determined by culture and its objectives; therefore possible to consider social character types/qualities that are frequently shared by the people of a particular culture. Fromm identified five common character orientations in Western societies.

17. ORIENTATIONS OF CHARACTER

18. FROMM'S ORIENTATIONS TEST How well does each word apply to you? 5 (very well), 4, 3, 2, 1 (not at all).

19. SCORING Receptive score is the sum of column 1 Exploitative score is the sum of column 2 Hoarding score is the sum of column 3 Marketing score is the sum of column 4 Productive score is the sum of rows 1, 3, 5, 8, 10, and 12, divided by 2. Scores from 12 to 24 are low 25 to 36 low medium 37 to 48 high medium and 49 to 60 high. Please do not take your scores too seriously: the reliability and validity of this test are unknown! This is presented only to give you a better sense of Fromm's orientations.