Early market research funded social-psychological studies in Red Vienna

Evidence

In 1927 Lazarsfeld founded the Economic and Psychological Research Group (Wirtschaftspsychologische Forschungsstelle) as part of the Psychological Institute. To fund its work, it carried out research contracts, which involved, among other things, the first Austrian market research studies, and a large-scale questionnaire on listeners’ preferences for the Austrian broadcasting company. Lazarsfeld was fascinated by methodology, and all these projects seemed to him to be instructive. While engaged in a statistical analysis of consumer choices, for example, he hoped to learn something which would be useful in analysing people’s career choices statistically. The research group thus worked not only for the capitalist economy but also for Social Democratic institutions and on its own research tasks. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 676

Categorization

• XREF: Links to how the Frankfurt School’s empirical arm (embodied later by Lazarsfeld in America) was rooted in commercial contract research. — connects to: German industrial management commissioned social research to uncover workers’ underlying opinion formation — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2059

Broader Connections

• German industrial management commissioned social research to uncover workers’ underlying opinion formation #corroborates (0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2059