Howard Wishnie The Impulsive Personality

Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead

False in Lone, tense in pace, vacant & self-heated and over sexed – Stephen Fox

Impulsivity, doing things or tending to do things suddenly and without careful thought (39), is a characteristic trait of the marketers which is hidden and difficult to expose. In his pioneering work, Howard Wishnie, author of the text, The Impulsive Personality: Understanding People with Distinctive Characteristic Disorders has discussed extensively about the salient characteristics of impulsive people as he saw them . Although Wishnie did not create a checklist, the subsequent authors who wrote on impulsivity have prepared a 20-point check list attempt to sketch a brief profile of a typical impulsive person (40). Let us apply

This almost looks like a narrative of the advertiser. According to Wishnie, the impulsive person prides himself on his ability prides to use and improve his skill of “conning”(42). Let us take an example of marketer improving his skills of “conning”. Snicker maker Mars’ is mining behavioral data to pinpoint children of their weakest moments for snacking; being happy, bored or even stressed. This is done to open a window of impulsivity, a place or time where children are more likely to buy their chocolate (43).

Distrustful: Marketers like the people with high impulsivity distrust their customers. They are under a constant feeling of insecurity that the customer will move on from them.

Self-Protection against Change: Marketers have a strong self-protection against the change as in the case of a person with high impulsive behaviour. That is precisely the reason that they fail to change inspite of evidence based research and public outcry against advertising to

They seldom reflect on their own selves because of anxiety and discomfort these induce(47). Wishnie observes that it is easier for them to account for their conduct by pointing to factors that seeming lie outside their control(48). Precisely the reason marketers fail to evaluate their own actions and its subsequent effect on the children.

Aggression towards friend/family/others: Marketing aggression is a premeditated attempt to play on the ‘unreasonable’ , ‘irrational’, or ’instinctive’, or ‘compulsive’ elements of human psychology (49). Marketers harass the customers, stalk them, bore them to purchase emotionally abuse them, intimidate them through fear and shock appeal, all definite forms of instrumental aggression.

Criticism not tolerated: Marketing practitioners will never admit that their business takes away choice, gives people false expectations, cause frustration, feelings of lack of self-worth, colonizes visual space, and is a repetitive, relentless intrusion of misinformation and attention saturation with useless clutter (50). Marketers argue exactly the opposite. For them marketing is a retail therapy, offers freedom of choice (51), and improves critical analysis (52) of children, among