The unwary purchaser: Consumer psychology and the regulation of commerce in America

Abstract

Starting in the 1870s, American jurists deciding cases of trademark infringement began advancing arguments that the ordinary purchaser was an unwary one, easily deceived by imitations. Embedded within their legal decisions was a vision of the typical consumers' habitual behavior and cognitive ability. In response to legal critics who argued that the presumed psychology of the consumer was unevenly deployed, applied psychologists developed laboratory-based experiments and scales for determining the likelihood that the "average" purchaser would be confused. Although these psychologists failed in their goal of securing regular legal patronage, this commercial context and the resulting experiments were constitutive of the delineation of "recognition" as a distinct mental process. Furthermore, this case study complicates the scholarly consensus about the role of standardization and personal responsibility in the liberal administration of mass society.

Screening the Psychological Laboratory: Hugo Münsterberg, Psychotechnics, and the Cinema, 1892–1916

“…Rogers, whose corporate clients included Coca-Cola, Pabst Brewing Company, and Quaker Oats, wrote to Münsterberg in early 1909 hoping to interest the Harvard professor in the practical problem of trademark infringement. From Münsterberg Rogers hoped some form of psychological test or scale might be developed in his laboratory that could be used to judge lawful similarity from unlawful imitation (Pettit 2007). Sufficiently intrigued, Münsterberg assigned the problem to several students in the hope that it would “lead to results which may, indeed, make such a psychotechnical use possible” (Münsterberg 1913a, 292).…”

People as Scientific Instruments

“…Hidden instrumentality coaxes free persons to follow the will of another, and allows human nature to express itself in artificial conditions. The products of this kind of social science include, on the one hand, new types of machinations, and, on the other hand, strategies for bringing them to light, resisting them or turning them to one's advantage (Coon 1992;Pettit 2007). B.F. Skinner's behavior analysis, for instance, came with a philosophy that did away with freedom altogether, and employed a fully mechanistic theory of human behavior in its interventions, such as the token economy.…”