From the Consumer's ViewpointConsumption in Our Society. by Elizabeth Ellis Hoyt; Consumers and the Market. by MargaretG. ReidReview by: Francis S. WilderSocial Forces, Vol. 17, No. 4 (May, 1939), pp. 571-572Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2570715 .

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LIBRARY AND WORKSHOP

FROM THE CONSUMER'S VIEWPOINT

FRANCIS S. WILDER

University of North Carolina

CONSUMPTION IN OUR SOCIETY. By Elizabeth Ellis Hoyt. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1938. 42-0 pp. $4.00-

CONSUMERS AND THE MARKET. By Margaret G. Reid. New York: F. S. Crofts and Company, 1938. 584 pp- $3.75.

Although books dealing with the eco- nomics of consumption have been un- usually numerous in recent years, none of them has conceived the field so broadly, or set forth so cogently its basic principles, as has Professor Hoyt of Iowa State Col- lege in Consumption in Our Society. This little volume of 400 pages is most admir- ably suited to serve as a text for a course in the economics of consumption for students who have had an elementary course in social science or economics.

The book is divided into four parts, the first of which deals with the relation of consumer choices to the fundamental characteristics of a culture-group or na- tion. It states a theory that cultures can be classified into four types (aesthetic, empathetic, intellectual, and technolog- ical) and classifies the great world cultures accordingly, showing their relation to the dominant "consumption-habits" of each. The reviewer feels unqualified to judge the accuracy and value of this clas- sification.

The second part deals with our market- ing and distribution in Western civi- lization in relation to the theory that consumers guide production. The prob- lems arising from advertising and aggres- sive salesmanship and consumer ignorance are treated briefly but competently. No doubt the author feels that others have thoroughly covered this phase of the subject. (Cf. Wyand, The Economics of

Consumption, Macmillan, I937; also Reid, Consumers and the Market, Crofts, I938.)

This part includes short, but excellent chapters on consumer cooperatives, the changes in consumption due to business cycles, the effects of inequality of income and of taxation policies on expenditure patterns and real income, as well as the importance of public services in enhancing real income.

The third part describes the American standard of living and some regional and class variation in it. It distinguishes between standards and scales of living, the former being what Kirkpatrick would call the standard of life (cf. his The Standard of Life in a Typicail Section of Diversified Farming, Cornell Agr. Expt. Sta. Bull. 4Z 3,

I99z3), and the latter being the actual goods consumed relative to their market prices. Chapter XXVII discusses the three possible meanings of the term elasticity of demand and their implica- tions for the influence of consumers on production.

Part IV explains what is involved in maximizing real income and then outlines some fields of research the exploration of which should throw further light on the principles of consumption and the means of improving it. The book as a whole is unique in its appreciation of the relation of consumption principles to cultural change. In a sense it does for the econom- ics of consumption what Alfred Marshall did for the economics of production.

Most texts on marketing have been written from the standpoint of persons interested in commercial work as a voca- tion, whereas Consumers and the Market deals with the problems of marketing from

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57? SOCIAL FORCES

the viewpoint of the consumer. Dr. Reid states in the preface that the book was an outgrowth of a course which she gave at Iowa State College, but it is so written as to be of value to almost any intelligent person who wants to make a systematic study of how to get the most for one's money, as well as for the student special- izing in marketing problems.

The book begins with a brief survey of the current buying habits of consumers and the reasons for their remarkably low level of efficiency. This is followed by a well-balanced analysis of the economics of market organization and of the present organization of the American market. Recent changes and current policies in retailing receive special attention. Prob- lems of social policy regarding the chain- store, price-maintenance by the manu- facturers of branded goods, the regulation of advertising, and the protection of the consumer from harmful goods and false representation are analyzed. The last part of the book offers suggestions for improving the mnarket system, for educat- ing the consumer in efficient purchasing, and for making available through public agencies of information concerning the prices and quality of consumer goods. There are frequent references to the find- ings of the more valuable recent studies in this field, with the result that one gains a remarkably clear picture of the organiza- tion of and practices in American markets as of I937.

EXPERIMENTAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY. Revised Edition. By Gardiner Murphy, Lois Barclay Murphy and Theodore M. Newcomb. Harper and Brothers, I937. I I2I PP- $4.00.

Going beyond the first edition (I93I),

which was a handbook of research find- ings, the present edition is an interpreta- tion of research, brought up to date. It is more than this. In a real sense it is an

attempt to present a systematic social psychology in so far as research reveals it, prefaced and interlarded with solid theory gleaned from such disciplines as have contributed to knowledge of human behavior.

The authors marshal, in almost dizzying profusion, the evidences, as they call them, "from every type of careful research known to us, regarding the relations of individual human beings to one another in our own culture," and set them in order under appropriate headings touching most phases of human relations. This pro- cedure has permitted a mobilization of tested theory growing out of a winnowed series of research findings as to just what may be taken as discovered and found sound.

The volume moves through a logical presentation: a chapter on Field and Meth- ods, three chapters on the Interpretation of the Process of Socialization, seven on the Genetic Study of Social Behavior, these thus far from the hands of the Murphys, and two chapters on the Quan- titative Studies of Individual Differences in adult Social Behavior, written by Newcomb. Within these thirteen long, almost encyclopedic, chapters of more than a thousand tightly printed pages lies a mine of precious knowledge, the ore smelted before our eyes in the furnace of scientific method and criticism. It is impossible to review content here and one can only suggest that students of human behavior, whether they be psychol- ogists or sociologists, will need to reckon with the amazing array of materials and their interpretation which the industrious and adroit authors have brought together.

Sociologists will be interested in many things in this volume, among them method, and particularly because the latter is presented in the form of what might be called method in operation.

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