Erich Fromm's Character Types

Personality is a whole of the characteristics that an individual brings from birth and the characteristics they acquire as a result of their experiences together with the relationships they establish with their parents, friends, and social environment from the moment they are born. Personality is the individual's unique, distinctive individual differences that distinguish them from others. The fact that everyone exhibits their own unique reactions and behaviors in the face of the same event is related to our personality. Character, on the other hand, is a part of personality. Character more closely represents the later acquired part of personality. According to Erich Fromm, the basis of character is formed by the individual's social environment and their relationships with them. Heredity also plays an important role in the formation of character, together with social culture and relationships.

According to Erich Fromm, the individual, as a good or bad whole, is a sum of the values of the society in which they live. The individual's character, together with temperament, is shaped according to the expectations and wishes of the social environment in which they live. Erich Fromm says that every individual develops their own unique social characters to adapt to society. He deals with these social characters under two headings as non-productive orientations and productive orientations and as five character types.

Non-Productive Orientations

Receptive Type

People with this character type live only to receive. They expect everything they have from the outside and from other people. They prefer to receive rather than give. They are dependent on the outside to get what they want. They constantly expect support and miracles from the outside. They do not believe that they can do something on their own, so they are very afraid of being alone. Since they are dependent on other people, they try to get support and approval from them. They receive support, but they do not give support. They do not do things to look after the benefit of other people. Even if they do, it is still related to something else they will receive from the outside. For these people, giving means losing. Even love for them is nothing more than being loved. Being loved, in turn, is other people doing or giving something for them.

Exploiting Type

This character type, like the receptive type, takes everything they have from the outside. While doing this, they do not want the approval or acceptance of other people. They take what they receive from the outside by trickery and force. They constantly want what others have. They do not want anyone else to have more than them. They are jealous of things they do not have. They do not want anyone to have more than them. They obtain the things they have by force, trickery and stealing. They are as if they are programmed to exploit the people around them.

Hoarding Type

Compared to other types, these people do not expect help or support from the outside, they even see the outside as an enemy and dangerous. They accumulate everything they have, material and spiritual. They never spend what they have. They feel safe as they accumulate. Otherwise, they feel themselves in danger. They hide the things they have and do not share them with anyone. This non-sharing situation is also valid for the people they love. They constantly envy the people they love and do not want to share them with anyone. They want to keep them under their control. They constantly accumulate and hide more things, but they can never reach satisfaction. Since they are insatiable, they constantly want to have more.

Marketing Type

People with this character type market themselves to the outside as an object or commodity. These individuals, who see people as objects, have no emotion in any of their relationships. All of them are superficial relationships that they establish in line with their own interests and desires. These people want to be the desired person. For this reason, they try to market themselves in the best way. If this means being more beautiful, more knowledgeable, more intelligent or more attractive, they market themselves in that way. They do whatever they need to do to be accepted. The packaging of people is important to them, they do not care about what is inside.

Productive Orientation

Productive Type

The productive type, unlike the others, are not people who exploit, constantly take, use people for their personal interests, do not share, and establish superficial relationships devoid of emotion. They prefer to give rather than take, they try to be useful to people and are not dependent on other people to meet their shortcomings. They can meet their needs with their own abilities and efforts. They do not take the things they get as they are, they reproduce and develop them. They create creative things and constantly learn and discover new things. They share their love and support with other people. The productive type is the healthy one among the other types.