Fromm Social Personality Theory Research

Fromm's social character theory is referred to as a system of character theory constructed by Fromm by basing on the concept of "social character". This article focuses on the social background, theoretical sources, the main elements of social character (including the meaning of the concept, its evolution and the types, etc.), the function, the impact and the assessment of social character. In the final part of the article, the author puts forward the problems encountered in the process of studying social character, and discusses about domestic and foreign scholars' criticism on Fromm's theory from two key points.Fromm's social character theory occupies a very important position in his whole ideological system, which is one of the great successes after Fromm's integrating Freudian theory with the Marxism. It is also a powerful weapon to criticize and evaluate the capitalist society. Upon this basis Fromm gives his own unique answer to the future of our society. The whole social character theory tends to answer this question, i.e. the relationship between people and society. This dissertation tries to summarize and systematize the idea of "social character theory" scattered in the Fromm's masterpieces and then to comment on it.