240 Part II Psychodynamic Theories
go of anything. They keep money, feelings, and thoughts to themselves. In a love
relationship, they try to possess the loved one and to preserve the relationship
rather than allowing it to change and grow. They tend to live in the past and are
repelled by anything new. They are similar to Freud’s anal characters in that they
are excessively orderly, stubborn, and miserly. Fromm (1964), however, believed
that hoarding characters’ anal traits are not the result of sexual drives but rather
are part of their general interest in all that is not alive, including the feces.
Negative traits of the hoarding personality include rigidity, sterility, obsti-
nacy, compulsivity, and lack of creativity; positive characteristics are orderliness,
cleanliness, and punctuality.Marketing
The marketing character is an outgrowth of modern commerce in which trade is
no longer personal but carried out by large, faceless corporations. Consistent with
the demands of modern commerce, marketing characters see themselves as com-
modities, with their personal value dependent on their exchange value, that is, their
ability to sell themselves.
Marketing, or exchanging, personalities must see themselves as being in con-
stant demand; they must make others believe that they are skillful and salable.
Their personal security rests on shaky ground because they must adjust their per-
sonality to that which is currently in fashion. They play many roles and are guided
by the motto “ ‘I am as you desire me’ ” (Fromm, 1947, p. 73).
Marketing people are without a past or a future and have no permanent prin-
ciples or values. They have fewer positive traits than the other orientations becauseHoarding is saving what one has already obtained and is an inability to discard things because
everything has equal value. © Roger Bamber/Alamy Stock Photo