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Chapter 8    Fromm: Humanistic Psychoanalysis263
“likes” and“followers.” Fromm believed thatanillusion ofindividuality ispromoted 
insuchasociety. Wedifferentiate ourselves from eachother bywhat wepossess (the
biggest house, themost exotic vacation, thetightest abs,eventhebestboyfriend or
girlfriend) rather thanbywhoweare.
InAustralia, tworesearchers, Shaun Saunders andDonMunro, sought totest
whether Fromm’s marketing character wasindeed amore nonproductive orientation 
totheworld, andwhether itwasmore prevalent incultures thatemphasize individual -
ism,asFromm theorized. First, theydeveloped andvalidated ameasure ofthemar-
keting character called theSaunders Consumer Orientation Index (SCOI; Saunders 
&Munro, 2000). This35-item scale includes suchstatements as“Itdoesn’t matter 
what something costs aslongasitlooks good,” “Ifmoney wasnotaproblem, Iwould 
prefer anexpensive car,”and“Itrytokeepupwiththelatest fashions.” Scores onthe
SCOI werepositively correlated withconformity, authoritarianism, andanger, sup-
porting Fromm’s (1955) theorizing about thischaracter orientation. Furthermore, 
scores ontheSCOI andmaterialism werepositively correlated withdepression and
negatively correlated, asFromm would havepredicted, withbiophilia andenviron -
mentalism. In2007, surveying fivelarge samples from across Australia, Saunders 
confirmed thenegative relationship between materialism andbiophilia aswellasenvi-
ronmentalism, andalsofound thathigher materialism wasrelated togreater depres -
sion, anxiety, andanger expression among participants.
Inasecond study, Saunders andMunro (2001) tested whether themarketing 
character wasmore associated withcultural individualism. People incultures thatare
individualistic aremotivated toserve theirowninterests andseekpersonal success. 
Other cultures aremore collectivistic, andinthese cultures, people aremore con-
cerned withservice toothers (Hofstede, 1984). Within individualist andcollectivist 
cultures, there isalsovariation inwhether theculture ismore “horizontal” or“verti -
cal”innature (Triandis, 1995). Thevertical dimension describes cultures inwhich 
rankandinequality prevail. Thehorizontal dimension ischaracterized byvaluing the
essential similarity ofpeople andadislike for“standing out.” Sothere canbeHori-
zontal Collectivism (e.g., anIsraeli kibbutz oramonastic order), Horizontal Individu -
alism (e.g., Scandinavian countries), Vertical Collectivism (e.g., India), andVertical 
Individualism (e.g., United States). Saunders andMunro (2001) administered the
SCOI aswellasameasure ofvertical andhorizontal collectivism andindividualism 
(Singelis, Triandis, Bhawuk, &Gelfand, 1995) to167psychology students. Interest -
ingly, theyfound thatscores ontheSCOI weremore strongly correlated withthever-
ticalthanthehorizontal dimension ofindividualism, butfound onlypartial support 
fortheirprediction thatSCOI scores would bepositively correlated withindividual -
ismperse.Thatis,higher marketing character orientation appears tobeassociated 
withanemphasis onhierarchy, butnotnecessarily onindividualism. Theauthors dis-
cussChina asahighly collectivist culture, alsocharacterized byhierarchy andrespect 
forrank, asanexample ofaremarkable andrapid embracing ofmarketing values as
theyexperience economic growth. Thisstudy suggests thatFromm’s marketing char-
acter maynotbeassociated somuch withindividualist values perse,butrather with
whether hierarchy andincome inequality prevail inaconsumerist society. 
Fromm argued thatthemarketing-oriented personality isfocused ontheaccumu -
lation ofmaterial goods, andthismaterialism leads toakindofalienation fromthereal
self.AsFromm wrote inEscape from Freedom (1941), withtheemergence ofcapitalism, Final PDF to printer