Psychoanalytic Contributions to an Operational Research Study of Marketing

The findings and experiences reported here are not unique. Indeed, following presentation of this paper, a member of the audience apprised us of a somewhat similar study of a large American meatpacking firm by a psychiatrist and a team of economists. The psychiatrist and the economists separately studied the Board of Directors and attempted to predict the decisions which the Board would make on problems before it. The psychiatrist consistently predicted the Board's decision more often than the three economists, knowing only the personality structure of the individual members and their positions on each problem, but not knowing the economics or profitability of the alternative courses of action. These latter were the bases of the economists' predictions.In another case, MELVIN THORNER, M.D., Sc.D., also a psychiatrist, studied the interpersonal dynamics of a group of engineers in a metallurgical company. He was able to predict decisions of the research department also on the basis of his understanding of the personality of the individuals responsible for the decisions, and showed that the decisions often were independent of the technical merits of the problems, and which subsequent technical results verified.In a separate study reported last week at the meeting of The Institute of Management Sciences in Paris, we presented results which indicate that managerial decisions in general are "projective" in the psychological sense. The value of these findings is to help clarify the ways in which unconscious needs and attitudes manifest themselves in emotions and in the whole life process, including in the development of the individual's life style, whether in doing operational research, in managing, or in any other area of human endeavour. If the individual understands and reduces the distraction induced by these needs and processes, he becomes able to direct more of his energies, intelligence, and resources to more productive and profitable channels. Every life experience, including doing operational research, offers opportunity for gaining this increased understanding.Much work has been done recently on discovering the consumer's conscious and unconscious motivations for buying particular products. This information helps the seller to manipulate the buyer. Its orientation thus is the opposite of the orientation of the several studies reported here. These are rather concerned with helping the individual to understand himself in the full depth of his rich personality and to permit himself thereby not to be manipulated either intentionally or fortuitously, as by his seating arrangement, chair style, co-workers' attitudes, or his own obsolete needs and attitudes. Thus, these studies are directed toward results which help him to enrich the scope and content of his life experience to his full potential.