Brand and Social Identity

It is suggested that the desire for a brand is a desire for identity – that a person (usually) chooses to consume a product to satisfy a functional need, but selects a brand based on a need to achieve or maintain a given social identity.   Internally, they wish to be the kind of person who uses that brand; externally, they wish to associate with the kind of people who use that brand – to maintain social affiliation with a group.

This is arguable, and it’s certainly not the sole reason for brand selection – but the point of the present meditation is not to argue that point, but to consider the importance of social acceptance.   Man is a creature that is capable of autonomy, but who often chooses a social existence – and this is not often explored.   It is taken for granted that a person wishes to belong to a group, but why is this so?

In all, it seems that very little attention has been given to the psychology of isolation, but it has been observed that prisoners who are kept in solitary become psychologically dysfunctional.   It is speculated that social interaction is “interesting” and a necessary part of our mental health – that people alone undergo completely different processes, and tend to focus on negative emotions and anxieties.

For a time, there was a fascination with sensory deprivation that lead to experiments in which subjects are deprived not only of social interaction, but all sensory stimuli – and it’s suggested that that they enter a kind of hallucinatory hypnotic state.  While prisoners in isolation are not completely deprived of sensory stimulation, their isolation causes their thoughts to turn inward and for their perspective to be dominated by “the hell hounds of the mind” and there is ample observational accounts of the severe mental changes that prisoners undergo.

In terms of manipulation, an isolated prisoner finds that the only social contact he has is with his captors, and he becomes dependent on them and willing to accept them as authority figures to whom the prisoner is inferior and upon whom he is dependent, and whom he must please in order to avoid further hardship or gain comfort.   Relegated to this position for an extended period of time, an individual is easily controlled and manipulated.

It’s suggested that the same effects can be seen to a lesser degree even for prisoners who live in the company of others, where discord is sown.  If the guards can cause prisoners to distrust one another prisoners will cut themselves off from one another out of suspicion and distrust, even without physically isolating them.  They then avoid forming social bonds with other prisoners and become connected to and dependent on the guards.  The same can be seen in civilians in society, which is the reason politicians are fond of divisive issues that fracture their people and prevent a sense of a united community – when everyone is an enemy, the politician is their only friend.

It’s also significant that this is a common tactic in interrogation – to break down a prisoner’s sense of belonging to his own army (or country) by suggesting that they are alone.   They do not have any friends among their fellow inmates, their commanders and even their country does not care about them, and the only people who will help them are the guards.   A person who feels deserted and alone, betrayed by his old friends, will embrace the offer of friendship from his captors and do what they ask of him.

In modern society is it observed that religious cults and extremist political groups often seek to recruit “misfits” because they are easily manipulated - being alone and feeling hated by others, their desperation to find a society that accepts and supports them makes them highly susceptible to recruitment and highly loyal once recruited.

While the studies focus on authority and domination in a controlled environment, the same can be observed in the wild.   When an advertiser seeks to establish an affiliation to the brand, his tactics are not much different to that of a prison guard or charismatic leader: to cause the individual to feel a sense of isolation and dissatisfaction with their social affiliation, to propose that allegiance to the brand is a means to re-establish social identity and connectedness, and to depend on their mindless acceptance of this proposition.

Perhaps this is a bit melodramatic or extreme, but I have the sense there is some truth to it.

The Desire for Autonomy

Any practical consideration of human behavior tends to lead to an ethical quagmire: when we attempt to influence a person to do something, we cannot be certain that what we are doing is truly in that person’s best interest.   Even when it can be objectively and mathematically demonstrated that the person is better off for taking the action that we have persuaded him to undertake, there is still the question of ethics because, outcome aside, we have interfered with his autonomy.

This comes from the implicit assumption that people wish to be autonomous – to exercise their free will and enjoy the benefits of so doing.  Even when the exercise of free will would have negative consequences, it is argued that suffering the consequences of liberty is also of value in the long term.   In this sense, any attempt to interfere with autonomy, even for beneficent reasons, is considered ethically shady.

But this rests upon the assumption that people wish to be autonomous – and while this is assumed to be universal, it certainly is not:  there are personality types and even entire cultures in which there is an obvious desire to be controlled – people who would rather be told what to do than to decide for themselves, and who will gladly surrender themselves to the dominion of others. Whence this urge to be conditioned, to conform, and to obey?

Essentially, it is an escape from having personal responsibility – of making difficult choices and accepting the blame for any unfortunate consequences.  Even people who are quite autonomous and strong-willed will eagerly seek out authorities to tell them what to do in specific instances – to see a doctor when they are sick is to yield to the doctor’s authority.  Those who are less intelligent and strong seek out authorities more often, for less significant things.   Anyone who undertakes to diet is essentially admitting they are not competent to choose the foods they eat, and has placed themselves in the hands of an authority, and is glad to be told what to do.   Life is so much easier when one is relieved of the burden of thinking and can simply obey orders – and even if the outcome is bad, there is someone else to blame.

The willingness to compromise is the basis of human society.    While living with others is beneficial in many regards, it is also detrimental in others – and man chooses to participate in society because the good outweighs the bad.   The same can be said of an individual who submits to any system of control: so long as he perceives that the benefits of obedience outweigh the costs, he will remain obedient.   In many instances, this is faith in institutions that, like religious fervor, is based on belief rather than any evidence that can be presented – life in a totalitarian regime may be miserable, but if it is perceived to be better than the past, or hoped that it will be better in future, people will accept and support the authoritarian state.

It is not accurate to state that such people have been conditioned – they are voluntary participants and coercion and deception are unnecessary.   Those who need conditioning are the ones who do not perceive that the benefits of obedience outweigh the costs – and if the state cannot change the balance by its actions (providing greater benefits at lesser costs), then it may attempt to change the perception of such individuals: to convince them that the benefits are greater than they are, or the cost is less than it is.

To the autonomous individual, the greatest cost of subordination is his own dignity and humanity, hence the most common technique for gaining is compliance is to abolish both: one he has been dehumanized and stripped of his dignity, he has nothing to lose by cooperating with those who wish to control him.   If freedom is not an option, he can only choose which master to whom he will enslave himself.   If thinking for himself is not possible, he can only choose who will do his thinking for him.  And this is the basis of all forms of conditioning – to adjust an individual’s perception of cost and benefit – and its ultimate end is to produce the malleable man, whose perception of authority is positive regardless of cost or benefit.

And at this point, it seems I’ve strayed a bit too far from my intended subject (advertising)  - and should come to a close.

The Conditioning of Man

Most of the “skills” we possess are merely patterns of behavior to which we have intentionally conditioned ourselves.   We learn that a given behavior is connected to a given outcome, and this becomes part of our mental programming.  It is not always intentional: connections are formed based on experiences, whether or not we mean to make associations, they are made.

There was an experiment (Razran) in which a group of students was treated to a series of luncheons.  For the test group, the same music was played each time.   Later, the students were asked to evaluate a number of pieces of music and indicate what the music made them think of – naturally, the group associated the music that had been played at the luncheons with food or eating.  It is because the two coincided that the connection was made, even though there was no intent or overt awareness.

However, it’s noted that conditioned reflexes are a temporary adjustment that requires reinforcement.   Once Pavlov’s dog had been conditioned to associate a bell and food, it would salivate at the sound of the bell even if no food was presented.  But over time if the bell was sounded and no food was presented, the association would in time be broken.   It is not a matter of a coincidence always/never occurring, but an assessment of the probability of a coincidence.   While it is highly unlikely that dogs can consciously calculate probabilities, they may be unconsciously estimated according to the  recentness, frequency, and intensity of the association and related stimuli.

In more complex behavior patterns, a person develops skill at a task my learning a pattern of activities and behaviors that lead to success.   He continues to follow the same pattern in the past, expecting the same outcome in the future.   If he fails to receive that outcome, he tries the same activity again, assuming he did something wrong.   It takes a few attempts for it to dawn on him that the procedure that worked in the past is no longer working (under new conditions) and to consider a different approach to achieving his goals.  The more complex the pattern or the more protracted the process, the more difficult it is for the individual will recognize the connection, hence it is harder to train and harder to break training for complex tasks.

And so, conditioned behavior is part of human life, and is often used in obvious and beneficial ways.   We develop good habits and learn skills by conditioning ourselves – and when we raise a child, teach a student, or train an employee we are leveraging the exact same mechanisms to condition them.   It is even being leveraged when we attempt to learn something by trial and error: the natural consequences of action being the reward or punishment that reinforces or discourages behavioral patterns.

On an ethical note, there is some argument to be made whether this conditioning should be considered education or brainwashing – but the difference is entirely political: it depends on whether we agree to the end to which these techniques are used.  Parents and teachers “trick” children into developing good habits and the “treatment” given by therapists can be intentionally done without informing the patient of their intentions. 

Happiness and Materialism

Anyone who truly believes that money cannot buy happiness has led a charmed life, or is conveniently forgetting a time in which they suffered for the lack of something that money could easily obtain.   

Most people can recall a time when they went hungry for a few days for lack of money to buy food, or nights when they worried about being evicted or having the utilities shut off for their inability to pay.  Many can recall a time when money would have made a significant and lasting difference in their quality of life – by enabling them to obtain a better education, or to relocate for a job opportunity that would have been a turning point in their lives.   For some, the lack of money is a constant distress.

In that sense, money does not buy happiness so much as it keeps anguish at bay: happiness is correlated to wealth up to about $75,000 per year – before that amount each increase in income has a corresponding increase in happiness, after that amount the slope flattens out considerably.   People in that income range have the money they need to satisfy their basic needs and to obtain some level of convenience and comfort – anything more buys luxury that does not increase happiness.   And this, perhaps, is the level at which more money cannot buy more happiness, at least in a general sense.

And then there is the matter of the hedonic treadmill, a theory that suggests people become accustomed to a certain level of stimulation.  When they experience a new sensation, their pleasure is intense – but as that sensation perpetuates, they become inured to it and need more stimulation in order to experience pleasure again.   So what is needed is not a stable level of income, but an ever-increasing one, such that there is a constant increase in the stimulation they sense.

However, that does not ring true given the slope of the material happiness curve: the amount of pleasure gained from a certain amount of money would not flatline after a certain point – there would still be a marginal increase in happiness per unit of income, and that is not evident.

There is also evidence that money is not a sufficient cause for happiness.  Historically, wealth has increased significantly over time and people today are nearly three times as wealthy as they were fifty years ago – this is across all social classes, even the poor are richer than they have ever been in history.   Meanwhile, studies of happiness show little improvement.  

What is needed to prove or disprove the correlation is a study in the change of wealth – to correlate happiness with wealth is a good start, but three people at a given level of income may have different histories.  The person who has been at that level of income for several years may be moderately happy, one who has recently risen to that level may be ecstatic, and one who has experienced a misfortune that reduced their income to that level may be miserable.  The average score would average the three together, washing out the effects of the change.

So to correlate material wealth to happiness would also require a study of the changes in wealth – while it is entirely reasonable to assume that there is a correlation between change in wealth and change in happiness, to my knowledge this has never been quantified.