Group Experiment and Other Writings: The Frankfurt School on Public Opinion in Postwar Germany

by Friedrich Pollock, Theodor W. Adorno, Jeffrey Olick (Editor)

During the occupation of West Germany after the Second World War, the American authorities commissioned polls to assess the values and opinions of ordinary Germans. They concluded that the fascist attitudes of the Nazi era had weakened to a large degree. Theodor W. Adorno and his Frankfurt School colleagues, who returned in 1949 from the United States, were skeptical. They held that standardized polling was an inadequate and superficial method for exploring such questions. In their view, public opinion is not simply an aggregate of individually held opinions, but is fundamentally a public concept, formed through interaction in conversations and with prevailing attitudes and ideas “in the air.” In Group Experiment , edited by Friedrich Pollock , they published their findings on their group discussion experiments that delved deeper into the process of opinion formation. Andrew J. Perrin and Jeffrey K. Olick make a case that these experiments are an important missing link in the ontology and methodology of current social-science survey research.

268 pages, Hardcover

First published February 15, 2011

Reviews

[Corey · Rating 3 out of 5]

From its beginnings, the Frankfurt school- Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Friedrich Pollock, Erich Fromm, Franz Leopold Neumann, Walter Benjamin, et. al- concerned themselves with politics, culture, media, and asethetics. At the heart of the institute’s scholarship, was a philosophical commitment to what Adorno cited as a “totally socialized society” (Gerhard Schweppenhauser 2009, 51-79). This notion destroys and defeats any potential of individual liberation and creative thought from the hidden work of the nation, culture and ideology.
Forced into exile- Pollock, Adorno, and colleagues- turned their attention to urgent German problems: the origins of fascism, anti-Semitism, and the failures of the working-class to induce social change. Gruppenexperiment, in a detour from the school’s daunting theoretical work, offers an empirical contribution to mundane (American) positivist sociology. Premised on group discussions around post-war German feelings of democracy, anti-Seimitism, Holocaust guilt, and communism, the research breaks away from their discursive work on culture. The break works to re-iterate the validity of a “totally socialized society”.
Comprised of separate and distinct groupings- farmers, old-people, university educated, young-people, and women- the discussion settings sought to reflect larger opinions of the German nation. In the use of Freud and Simmel, the authors illustrate the directive of the group and their responses are a product of group behavior and integration. The over-arching argument postulates by way of social control mechanisms, individuals consciously or otherwise, alters his or her behavior to fit the will of the group. This reinforces the power of social control where prevailing societal ideologies are imposed on individuals bodies to resist isolation. A ‘we’ is more enticing than an isolated and lonely ‘me’. These group ideologies are often appriopraited by a dominant ‘opinion leader’.
A couple of problems. First, survey research as conducted in this ‘group experiment’ does not allow a suficient opportunity for respondents to express their true feelings. Therefore, the group discussions paint an imcomplete picture of the respondents. This deficiency assumes all members of each particular demographic share more or less the same experiences. Moreover, the respondents respond within the context of their time. To place within the study’s boundaries, how are citizens of a recently oblierated nation-state supposed to think about, articulate and discuss individuals views on guilt and democracy to a complete stranger? Also, there is no discussion to how the 'group experiment' results would differ from polling. A couple of things to think about and ponder.