Ownership as interpersonal dominance

Rudmin, Floyd W.

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Book

Document type:: Book

Collection:: POP - Possession, Ownership, Property

Title:: Ownership as interpersonal dominance : a history and three studies of the social psychology of property

Year of publication:: 1988

Language:: English

Topic:: C - Psychology

Shelfmark:: C/R916 O9

Access:: Free access

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.48671/pop.AC14489044

RA However, as has been mentioned concerning Veblen’s and Brown's work, a better case might be made for Spencer's (1879/1893) “Ceremonial Institutions” as the classic work. Goffman’s (1951) first publication was on “Symbols of Class Status”, and though he did cite Durkheim (1912), he footnoted Spencer (1879/1893) as his inspiration. Spencer (1879/1893) argues that... Efficiency of every kind is a source of self-satisfaction; and proofs of it are prized as bringing applause....Trophies of such kinds.... give to their owner some influence over those around him.... A vague kind of governing power accrues to him...Naturaily, by primitive men, whose lives are predatory and whose respective values largely depend on their powers as hunters, animal-trophies are still more prized....But as, among the uncivilized and semi-civilized, human enemies are more to be feared than beast-enemies, and conquests over men are therefore occasions of greater triumphs than conquests over animals, it results that proofs of such conquests are usually still more valued. (Spencer, 1879/1893, pp. 36-37) Thus, power and social status become symbolized by trophy possessions, and these trophies in turn become symbolized by mutilations, which become symbolized by presents, visits, and obeisances, which become symbolized by polite forms of address, titles, badges, and costumes. All such symbolization of status and social ascendency originate in predatory, militaristic social organization. And this idea that relative elevation is an essential accompaniment of superior rank, we shall presently see dictates several kinds of sumptuary regulations....Other derivative class-distinctions are sequent upon differences of wealth; which themselves originally follow differences of power. From the earliest stage in which master and slave are literally captor and captive, abundance of means has been the natural concomitant of mastery, and poverty the concomitant of slavery. (Spencer, 1879/1893, p. 194) The use of symbolic interpretations by social scientists was reinforced by psychoanalytic and semiotic theory. Freud (1900) and other pioneers in psychoanalysis used and popularized symbolic interpretations of everyday social interactions, including object relations. Freud apparently held neuropsychological explanations that symbolic cognitive representation resulted from neural energy potentiating memory-traces and associations between memory traces (Strachey, 1953). Freud (1900) also presented a full and scholarly review of the literature on symbols and their meanings in dreams. Apparently, quite independent of the social science and psychoanalytic interest in symbols, semiotics arose from the fields of logic and linguistics. Semiotics might be defined as the science of signs. Deeley (1978) argues that it began in the seventeenth century with Poinsot's (1632/1 930) Tractatus de Signis and Locke's (1690/1952) Essay Concerning Human Understanding. However, its modern origins more typically are located in the linguistic theories of Saussure and the inferential theories of Pierce (Fisch, 1978; Singer, 1978; Sless, 1986).

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