Psychological conflict lies at the core of Ichheiser’s philosophy. He believed that it provides a unique window into the processes of everyday social cognition. He did not believe that psychological frustrations or conflicts were inherently pathological in the sense of statistically abnormal (as he actually believed them to be very common) nor in the sense of being normatively “bad.” What is more, because of the discomfort they cause, they are often ignored, denied, or otherwise hidden, some- thing that can make their “normalcy” and value difficult to fully appreciate.
In the next section, we briefly review Ichheiser’s thoughts on psychological con- flict as they appear in his Polish texts. In many ways, they are similar to the illusions and misunderstandings mentioned earlier. We then examine them in a social context of increasing importance in Ichheiser’s time and in our own day—that of large cit- ies. By way of contrast, we then examine his thoughts on life in the countryside.
Finally, we examine his writings on accidents in the workplace and his understand- ing of them as symptoms of “pathological” processes that might be studied in order to gain a better understanding of what we would generically call “healthy” work environments and “healthy” workers.
The Normalcy and Utility of Psychological Conflict
Ichheiser (e.g., 1935/6b) not only appreciated the pathological as an element of our normal psychological functioning but also because it provides a unique window onto the basis of our social psychological constitution. In this way, his understanding of psychological conflict and frustration was similar to Muzafer Sherif’s appreciation
of intergroup conflict as an expression of normal intergroup psychology, albeit an extreme and undesirable one (Mazur, Nair, & Vollhardt, 2015). A similar sentiment is captured in the writings of some scholars of mass violence, who see such horrific behaviors as extreme expressions of otherwise normal social psychological processes (e.g., Bar-Tal, 2012). In all of these cases, the assertion of “normalcy” is not a stamp of moral approval, but rather a conviction that such things are not entirely random and therefore speak to deeper elements of our social cognition.
What is more, this “normalcy” allows us to hope that we might one day better understand them and be better able to constructively address them.
As humans, we possess various drives (popędy), instincts (instynkty), and incli- nations (skłonności), and the various overlapping attempts to achieve these ends (dążności) is what leads to frustration and conflict (Ichheiser, 1935/6b). By way of contrast, rocks do not have such frustrations and conflicts, a point that may seem obvious, but Ichheiser believed the full ramifications of such differences to be often overlooked and underappreciated, as we will soon see.
Ichheiser (1935/6b) describes psychological conflicts as being either conscious, semiconscious, or unconscious (świadome, półświadome, lub nieświadome) (1935/6b, p. 86), but he primarily stresses the importance of unconscious drives.
While by our nature we are created to seek fulfillment of basic drives, we often do not know which ones are actually driving us. It is as if these drives are, at times, so close to home that we simply do not appreciate them (similar to our more general tendency to overlook the importance of that with which we are most familiar). This is particularly true when things go smoothly and we are able to fulfill those drives.
However, on the road to fulfilling those drives, we are met with a world that can either help us along that path or block our way. Such frustration is more common than we think, as we are constantly fighting against the loss of balance caused by unfulfilled needs. Ichheiser (1935/6b) argues that “[c]onflicts are therefore not, as one might think, but ‘one’ of many phenomena or elements of our psychological life, but they are its dynamic center” (“Konflikty nie są więc, jakby można myśleć,
‘jednym’ spośród licznych zjawisk czy składników życia psychicznego, lecz są wręcz ich dynamicznym ośrodkiem”) (p. 87).
Although part of the normal fabric of life, psychological conflicts generally seem unique when we are experiencing them. This is often the result of our attempts to hide them from ourselves and others. Since others do the same, we think of such experiences as being unique. According to Ichheiser (1935/6b), this is part of the reason why the arts (e.g., poetry and theater) can sometimes strike such a personal cord. While the frustrations expressed in art are familiar to us all, when actually experiencing such art, each of us may feel as though our own personal sufferings are finally being understood.
As social beings, we want to “resonate” with others, to be understood. Due to this, we are not only beholden to external pressures, but we also want the outside world to respond to us. In other words, the meaning we obtain in life comes largely from being understood by others, and this helps us to ward off the loneliness that would otherwise set in. Illusions and misunderstandings can disrupt this process, particularly when their illusory nature becomes apparent. For this reason, Ichheiser
(1935/6b) asserts that trying to understand others is not simple sentimentality, but that it is of fundamental importance for our psychosocial well-being.
Another reason why we want to commune and resonate with others is because, in doing so, we are often able to see how others perceive us and to recognize the masks that have gone up before our own face, often unbeknownst to us. Ichheiser (1935/6b) thought this to be of (self)therapeutic value, in as far as we are then able to reduce the distance between our social selves and the selves with which we self- identify. While many lament the apparent lack of direct naiveté this would suggest, Ichheiser thought that modern man had already long lost the ability to claim direct self-perception.
Not only did Ichheiser believe communion with others to fulfill our need for resonance with others and to be of cathartic value, but he also thought it to be important for influencing the nature of our basic drives. As may already be apparent to the reader, this bi-directionality is a perennially important element in Ichheiser’s writings (e.g., unconscious/conscious, individual/social, real person qualities/as-if personal qualities).
But why are situations of psychic conflict, frustration, and pressure (natężenia) so important for our study of the social and psychological world? Ichheiser argues that in such periods of frustration, a significant amount of our psychological resources are mobilized. With this higher level of resources having been mobilized, the inner workings of our social cognition are more clearly highlighted, thus making them more amenable to study. Ichheiser gives the example, among others, of stammering when nervous. Such moments are also of value in that they draw our attention to those processes and drives that generally go unnoticed when all is running smoothly.
Because of their central importance in our psychological and social lives, Ichheiser (1935/6b) viewed psychology as a field that owed much to psychopathology:
“Every deep-reaching psychology is therefore also at its core, psychopathology”
(“Każda głębiej sięgająca psychologia, jest dlatego też w gruncie rzeczy – psychopatologia”) (p. 88). A psychological understanding of humanity is, according to Ichheiser, focused on identifying basic drives and understanding how they interact with a world that either supports or hinders them. For Ichheiser, the social factors are the most important as, again, he believed that it made no sense to speak of the individual in true, unadulterated isolation. However, not all social elements are of equal importance for a psychological understanding of the individual. According to Ichheiser, the most important elements become clearer in moments of conflict or pressure.
According to Ichheiser (e.g., 1934c, 1935/6b), it is the duty of psychoanalysis, social psychology, and related fields to bring these issues out into the light. In doing so, Ichheiser thought that scholars should develop categories for these various kinds of conflict, such as those involving the family, those of an erotic nature, and those dealing with minority issues. He provides an example of how such classification systems might look within the realm of work conflicts (1934c). He calls functional conflicts (konflikty funkcjonalne) those that arise when we are required to do our job in a manner that clashes with how we would like to do it. Conflicts of conviction
(konflikty przekonaniowe) appear when we are required to declare values in work that are not truly our own. Conflicts of ambition (konflikty ambicji) arise when our aspirations do not match the goals and direction of the job, and psycho-social conflicts (konflikty socjo-psychiczne) may appear when, in our jobs, we are forced to interact with people whom we would rather avoid. There are also economic conflicts (konflikty gospodarcze) regarding work compensation. Ichheiser thought that such classifications could be powerful tools in allowing us to better study the individual in context. In analyzing them, we should take into consideration three types of phenomena: (1) professional inclinations (skłonności zawodowe), (2) the effects of the job on the structure of the entire person (jakie skutki wywiera działalność zawodowe na strukturę całej osobowości), and (3) the relationship between personality and the job (kwestja stosunku między osobowością a zawodem).
While Ichheiser (1935/6b) thought that such classifications could help us better understand the lived experience of people in different situations, he did not believe them to reflect actual, categorically different conflicts; rather, he believed that they were all expressions of a more basic state. Underscoring this point, Ichheiser believed that Adler’s concept of inferiority conflicts ought to be understood as but one example of the wider gamut of conflicts and frustrations accompanying all psychological life (Ichheiser, 1935/6b, p. 87). Not only are they a normal part of our lives, he argued, but, in the modern age, they are becoming even more common—a reflection of the growing tension individuals experience. Not only were laypeople becoming more interested in the topic because of its increasing familiarity, but academic interest in the subject was also growing in his day. Thus, Ichheiser saw in discussions of psychological conflicts a unique merger of “ivory-tower” academia and the interests of laypersons. He also suggested that the increasing presence of neuroses (nerwice) in his day (and our own) could be readily examined within the context of big cities.
The Neuroticism of Big Cities
Ichheiser wrote a considerable amount about big cities and the modern world, as he saw both as being particularly heavy-laden with such psychic illusions and conflict.
As mentioned earlier, Ichheiser opens his article “On human intercourse in the big city from the point of view of social psychology” (1936/7e) with humility, noting he was not attempting to cover the whole of life in big cities, but rather hoping to use the case of life in the big city to illustrate some of his broader claims regarding human psychology. Similarly, he was not claiming life in large cities to be categorically different from life in other places, but rather that the social processes of interest were amplified there, hence making life in such cities of particular scientific interest.
As countless others have argued, life in modern society, especially in big cities, is increasingly impersonal and isolated. Ichheiser (1936/7e) argues that in the past, the various elements of our personality and our various roles were more integrated.
We generally knew quite well the people with whom we worked. They were often even family members, extended family, or neighbors. By contrast, in the modern world of the big city, one’s private life is increasingly separate from one’s professional life. What is more, we tend to establish relationships with the majority of people whom we know and with whom we spend the most time through our jobs.
The roles we fulfill at work are clearly placed upon us from the outside and not built up individually, and because of this, they paint a distorted picture of the individual.
Thus, such relationships stand a lesser chance of fulfilling our inherent desire for deep, personal resonance with others. Even those interpersonal interactions that might otherwise develop into deeper, resonating relationships are generally thwarted by the artificiality of our work roles (as captured by the common expression “don’t fraternize with coworkers”).
The roles that we play within this corporate, urban environment are often designed to protect us from other roles that might take advantage of us. This is, in part, what gives meaning to our roles and encourages us to trust our own roles more and to trust each other less. In the past, people generally trusted “their own”
(“swoich”), but in the modern city, no one is “one of our own” (“nie ma swoich”).
Ichheiser (1936/7e) viewed this state of increasing isolation as not only character- istic of large cities but also of broader trends in cultural development, and he thought that European societies were increasingly marked by such interpersonal mistrust.
By way of contrast, we now turn to a location where people can and do—or at least did in Ichheiser’s day—generally trust “their own” (“swoich”)... the countryside.
The Integration Provided by Life in the Countryside
When urbanization was occurring during Ichheiser’s days, most of Poland’s popula- tion lived in rural areas, something that was also the case in most countries, includ- ing the United States of America and Austria (United Nations, 1969). If for no other reason than this, the countryside would constitute an important setting for social science research. However, Ichheiser thought the countryside to be more important than could be deduced from such numbers alone. Ichheiser does not paint a naïve, pastoral picture of life in the countryside; his critical examination of the city is not built on its juxtaposition against an idyllic countryside. The basic psychic conflicts that he describes within big cities are part of our nature and, therefore, also part of life in the countryside. The major difference for Ichheiser is that the complexities of our lives were more holistically integrated in the countryside than in the big cities.
This was primarily the result of people interacting with each other across various social contexts, while playing various, overlapping roles. Thus, this gave people the opportunity to see others—and to be seen—from a variety of angles. As a result, there were more opportunities to shape those images and self-images into ones that overlapped with each other. As a result, the sense of interpersonal isolation is the
countryside is generally less and the sense of interpersonal resonance greater than in the urban areas.
Again, to be clear, this was not an idealized picture of country living. Relying primarily on the research of others, Ichheiser (1936/7c) describes neighborly relations as being democratic but also superficial and lacking in intimacy. While there were generally no secrets, only the very wealthy could afford to flaunt social norms. People shared what they had, not out of sentimentality, but out of shared needs. Courts were rarely necessary for settling disputes, not because of a greater sense of justice, but because gossip played a central role in regulating relations, and people easily took sides, often even before knowing what had happened. Given that farmers were generally not well-off, decisions regarding marriage often took financial matters into consideration. Intermediaries were not infrequently used to determine a potential match, and mothers often had the most say in the matter (while fathers often had the “final” say, mainly as a potential “veto”). Beauty generally meant being strong and capable or possessing certain life wisdom and experience.
Ichheiser writes that eroticism was less important in the rural areas than in the cities, as sex was generally thought of as being functional—more of an exchange than as an expression of the need for personal resonance.
Ichheiser (1936/7c) believed that belonging to the elite in the countryside was not just a matter of money. Doctors and teachers could be “with” the farmers.
However, bureaucrats were generally disliked, as they were thought to live on other people’s hard work. Priests and teachers were generally liked, but at a distance.
Teachers were said to have no real influence, while priests did have influence, not only through ministry but also by caring for the sick. Intergroup relations were generally good, although generally clear lines were seen between certain groups, lines that were hard to cross.
Sometimes, when this closed ecosystem was disturbed, more systematic con- flicts could arise. With increasing industrialization came an increase in the number of industrial workers (robotnicy) living among the farmers (rolnicy). According to Ichheiser (1936/7c), the farmers generally looked down on the industrial workers, as farming was held in high esteem. They also thought that industrial workers were lazy, working “only” 8 hours a day. On the other hand, the workers generally viewed the farmers as stupid for living the way that they did. The main point, here, is that these two groups represented two different normative worlds. Ichheiser wrote that as long as the number of workers did not exceed 20% of the local population, relations were generally smooth, with workers and farmers helping each other out and generally expressing good will toward each other. However, once that threshold is crossed, conflict is not far behind as these two normative worlds begin to collide.
At this point, it is important to mention that while Ichheiser spoke of these various roles in simplified, stereotyped, and categorical terms, he repeatedly stated that people can and do shift between these roles (e.g., 1936/7d), thereby remaining true to his assertions that while they have very real impacts on our lives, these roles are at their core simplifications of a much more complex reality.
In examining these various elements, it is clear that Ichheiser is not trying to contrast an inherently “good” countryside with a “bad” city. Rather, he argues that
the various facets of our lives tend to be more integrated within country living, while the constellations of our psyche are more fractured within large cities. The more disintegrated we are, the greater the role that illusions and misunderstandings can play in our lives and the greater the frequency of neuroses.
Workplace Accidents
While at the Institute of Public Affairs (Instytut Spraw Społecznych [ISS]) in Warsaw, Ichheiser worked under the mandate of improving the lot of average Poles.
As part of that undertaking, Ichheiser wrote extensively on how to improve worker safety. His book, Workplace Accidents from the Point of View of Psychology (Wypadki przy Pracy ze Stanowiska Psychologji) (1935b) is a general overview of the subject based on the literature of the times, combined with Ichheiser’s personal comments thereupon. Ichheiser makes a case for applying social psychology to the study of workplace accidences. Despite being firmly grounded in the work of other scholars and rather repetitive, this piece is written in Ichheiser’s own voice in that the issues initially raised by others are framed around his own thinking regarding the field. Not only did he think social psychology had much to offer in helping improve the safety of the workplace, but given that he understood workplace accidents to generally be symptoms of other psychosocial tensions, he believed that social psychology itself likewise had much to gain by the study of accidents.
In most publications of his time, workers were frequently blamed for work- related accidents. Speaking as a representative of the Institute of Public Affairs, Ichheiser (1935b) stated his opinion that not only explicit and direct psychological reasons exist for such accidents, but that indirect matters also played an important role, such as poor organization, a bad social atmosphere, poor training, and the pace of work. He also thought that factors external to the workplace itself were important (e.g., involving friends and family) and that psychological research usually emphasized the direct psychological states that lead to accidents (e.g., lack of attention, poor reaction times), which he thought was a mistake. In order to identify a level of analysis on which action could be taken to avoid accidents, he believed that we needed to go to the sources—such as why was the worker not paying attention (e.g., a matter of individual character or the situation). Ichheiser thought that direct psychological reasons are usually symptoms of something else, and that it was in the service of uncovering these deeper causes that social psychology could be put to work.
Workplace Accidents from the Point of View of Psychology was an attempt to examine the wider range of underlying causes for work-related accidents that was intended to both improve the safety of workers and increase our social psychological knowledge. As he so frequently did, Ichheiser explicitly states that it is but an overview of what we currently know and that richer answers to our core questions will only be possible on the basis of future research. He also notes that much of what is in the book will most likely change, given it is certainly based, in large part,