The Psychology of Neoliberalism and the Neoliberalism of Psychology

Abstract

In this article, we approach the relationship between neoliberalism and psychological science from the theoretical perspective of cultural psychology. In the first section, we trace how engagement with neoliberal systems results in characteristic tendencies-including a radical abstraction of self from social and material context, an entrepreneurial understanding of self as an ongoing development project, an imperative for personal growth and fulfillment, and an emphasis on affect management for self-regulation-that increasingly constitute the knowledge base of mainstream psychological science. However, as we consider in the second section, psychological science is not just an observer of neoliberalism and its impact on psychological experience. Instead, by studying psychological processes independent of cultural-ecological or historical context and by championing individual growth and affective regulation as the key to optimal well-being, psychological scientists reproduce and reinforce the influence and authority of neoliberal systems. Rather than a disinterested bystander, hegemonic forms of psychological science are thoroughly implicated in the neoliberal project.

The Invisible Hand is an Ideology: Toward a Social Psychology of Neoliberalism

“…Adams, Estrada‐Villalta, Sullivan, and Markus () further argue that engagement with neoliberal academic establishments has produced social psychological knowledge imbued with neoliberal biases. Such biases are reflected in “a radical abstraction of self from social and material context, an entrepreneurial understanding of self as an ongoing development project, an imperative for personal growth and fulfillment, and an emphasis on affect management for self‐regulation.” Furthermore, the practice of a social psychology infected with neoliberal biases can reproduce and reinforce the influence and authority of neoliberal systems.…”

Desde el imperativo del optimismo hacia una espiritualidad bonachona: indiferencia, autocentramiento y estoicismo

“…No se trata de pelear contra lo negativo, sino más bien de cultivar más emociones positivas, y decimos más, porque ya presupone un cierto grado de felicidad (De la Fabian y Stecher, 2017). El individuo tiene que reconocer que ya dispone de un cierto capital de felicidad para invertir, que está disponible para ser aumentado (Adams et al, 2019). Desde este punto de vista, la vida personal adquiere un tinte empresarial en el cual las cualidades personales son meros recursos a ser aprovechados (o no ser desperdiciados) en un ambiente lleno de oportunidades (Binkley, 2011).…”

“…El capitalismo reorganizó las culturas emocionales e hizo que el homo oeconomicus se volviera emocional, y que las emociones (y sus técnicas de administración) se consideraran fundamentales en la acción instrumental (Cabanas e Illouz, 2019). Regular las emociones se ha transformado en condición sine qua non para ser exitoso en la vida (Adams et al, 2019), y se erige toda una cultura terapéutica al respecto, que considera indicador de salud emocional actuar en pos del bien propio, que categoriza las relaciones humanas y fomenta la inteligencia emocional (Illouz, 2017;.…”

Neoliberalism and Its Discontents: Commentary on Social Psychology of Neoliberalism

“…Neoliberalism is a version of the individualist model of the person as autonomous and abstract. As Adams, Estrada‐Vallalta, Sullivan, and Markus () astutely observed, neoliberalism combines radical abstraction with a conception of the person as an autonomous being that is entrepreneurially driven toward the external world, but also self‐regulating the interiority of personal emotional experience, and even expansively self‐constructing the future self. As a model of the person, it guides psychologists’ attention to the substantive research questions about those psychological processes that neoliberalism says people ought to engage in—entrepreneurship, emotion regulation, and self‐growth.…”

“…Clearly, neoliberalism's reach did not stop at the policy making and implementation, however. It may have started in the elite discourse among intellectuals like the Colloque Lippmann and later Mont Pèlerin Society, but its core ideas—a model of the person and the society—began to be elaborated, extended, and further contextualized within the post‐Keynesian politicoeconomic circumstances of the Western capitalist democracies (Beattie, ), and thus spread into the political discourse and transformed into a nebulous collection of ideas, something that may be somewhat pejoratively called a “folk” model of the person and society or what Moscovici () called social representations, which structure and organize public opinions, effecting “selfway” in everyday life (Adams et al., ). Bay‐Cheng, Fitz, Alizaga, and Zucker's () Neoliberal Beliefs Inventory identified four components: Inequality (e.g., I think people imagine more barriers, such as discrimination, than actually exist), Competition (e.g., Competition is a good way to discover and motivate the best people), Personal wherewithal (e.g., A person's success in life is determined more by his or her personal efforts than by society), and Government interference (e.g., A problem with government social programs is that they get in the way of personal freedom).…”