Social character and psychostructure.

# 4036

If we look at most organizations, we see that most of the people inside them have no direct contact with the outside world, but what they do has huge consequences. Erich Fromm created the concept of social character: the way a persons emotional responses to the world, developed over a lifetime, fit them for the requirement of a particularsociety. The person fit for a narrow technical task is emotionally differently organized from a person and retail sales who must be constantly trying to figure out other persons. A school teacher who must use body language to convey authority in the classroom faces different challenges from the captain of a ferry. You can think of many examples.

Fromm’s colleague, Michael Maccoby author of the book on the social character of technology executives,The Gamesman showed how executives are much more motivated by the game than by the money. The implication is that they are much more drawn to a better game than to more money. Our interest in executive participation in making a better world is better off drawing on the game quality of that quest rather than their money quest.

Maccoby went on to developed what he called psycho structure the way an Organization is structured in roles that require specific social character: people whose motives are organized in such a way that they can do their job well. Their social character fits the work and the work is rewarding for their personality.

A problem now of course is that people are so accommodated to individual isolation and competition that they are not easily available for a quality of life agenda.

I do not know where paying more attention to social character and social structure could take us, but I am convinced that if we do not pay attention to the social organization of society, we will not find the leverage points for a serious change.