Beyond Manipulation: Lillian Gilbreth's Industrial Psychology and the Governmentality of Women Consumers

Abstract

Critical social histories of consumption often attribute the rise of consumer culture largely to the success of advertising and marketing while leaving unexplored a wide range of consumer education practices that aimed not to minimize but to maximize thoughtful consumer conduct. In this article I move beyond the manipulation hypothesis that I find embedded in these critical histories in order to investigate how one woman's consumer education practices contributed toward a discourse and subjectivity for the modem, urban, middle-class woman consumer. Lillian Gilbreth (1 878-1972) developed her own psychology of work satisfaction as a scientific management consultant in the 1910s and applied this industrial psychology to women consumers in the late 1920s. Michel Foucault's image of "government" as "the conduct of conduct," along with newer lines of analysis developed by scholars interested in governmentality, provide useful tools for showing how Gilbreth attempted to make women into careful organizers of family consumption. Her story allows us to glimpse a whole dimension of governmental power that has been overshadowed by a preoccupation with manipulative power in many sociological and historical studies.A penny saved is a penny earned.

The Sustainability of “Sustainable Consumption”

“…Once we see consumer practices as social practices embedded in social relations we open up the complexity and possibility of moving towards consuming more sustainably. Even where consumption is seen as a purely selfish and individualistic pursuit, seemingly devoid of social considerations, we should recognize that such individualism is itself an outcome of historical and social processes (Elias 1991(Elias [1987; Graham 1997;Arvidsson 2000). My point is not to highlight complexity for the sake of it.…”

Viewing the work of Lillian M. Gilbreth through the lens of critical biography

“…Second, her influence on homemaking is best described in The Home Maker and Her Job (Gilbreth, 1927) in which Lillian applies the efficiency concepts from industrial applications to domestic and service functions. Finally, her vision of a perfectly rational consumer economy drove her efforts to educate women to be intelligent consumers and to serve as "gender mediator" to change the traditional image that women were predisposed to make irrational buying decisions (Graham, 1997). Gilbreth (1908Gilbreth ( , 1909Gilbreth ( , 1911 was an early and strong proponent of scientific management as championed by Frederick Taylor, but he soon developed and preferred motion studies as a better alternative to Frank's reliance on a stopwatch to find "the one best way".…”

“…Through Lillian's influence, the Gilbreth's developed training strategies to bring the interests of management and labor together using psychological techniques to encourage workers that they had a voice in their jobs would be rewarded for efficiencies gained (Graham, 1997). The application of these techniques became the tools of industrial psychology, and Lillian was recognized as a pioneer in this field.…”

“…Previously, her life has been examined in biographical form (Lancaster, 2004;Vasquez, 2007) and her individual contributions detailed (Des Jardins, 2010;Graham, 1997Graham, , 1998and Krenn, 2011). While there are many forms of biography that can enlighten history (Smith, 1994), this paper uses the critical biographical method which presents an opportunity to weave the complexity and events of the subject's life with her contributions, thus allowing for a deeper understanding of those contributions.…”

Developing Consumer Subjectivity in Ireland: 1900—80

“…Thus, changes in the symbolic and emotional meaning of the 'consumer' has to be considered as a social process, understandable in terms of the shifting social interdependencies bonding people together, either in cooperative, competitive, hostile or supportive ways. Pace Foucauldian studies explaining consumer subjectivity through the mobilization of psychological discursive practices (Graham, 1997;Miller and Rose, 1997;Reith, 2004;Rose, 1990), the apparent discontinuity in discourse and techniques neglects the social continuity in terms of contingent connections between various stages of development in figurations. Also, changes in consumption practices and subjectivity are not simply the result of obvious agencies of inscription (such as consumer education programmes or marketing research organizations); theses attempts at knowing and persuading consumers are themselves based on a figurational shift that produces feelings of individuality and uniqueness.…”