Character orientation

A character orientation is the direction of the libidinous or passionate strivings of a person which makes it possible to describe their character structure uniformly. Character traits (e.g. miserliness, pedantry and intolerance) get combined in an worldview and are part of the basic orientation of the character.

Erich Fromm was a theorist who came up with 4 different Character Orientations; Receptive Orientation, Exploitive Orientation, Hoarding Orientation, and Marketing Orientation. All of these Orientations are affected by society and they each embody a particular solution to the problem of adapting to the social demands that are placed on people.

Receptive Orientation: Receptive oriented people are not givers; they are takers. They receive satisfaction from outside factors. They passively wait for others to provide them with things that they need. For example, they want for someone to provide them with love and they wait for people to provide them with attention. They are not the ones to give these things away.

Exploitive Orientation: Exploitive oriented people are egocentric and conceited. This type of people do whatever they can to get what they want; even if it includes stealing, or snatching something away from somebody else just to get it. Exploitive people are often aggressive

Hoarding Orientation: Hoarding oriented people save all that they can, whatever it may be. It may be love, power, you someone's time. They just like to have things, even things that they don't necessarly need or use. Hoarding oriented people do not like to share their things, they have a hard time letting things go. Freud would say that they never fully completed the Anal Psycho Sexual Stage.

Marketing Orientation: Marketing oriented people do whatever they can to sell themselves. Some people sell themselves better than others.