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From Vienna to New York

American businesses suddenly needed to understand and channel the desires of consumers. And Dichter—well, he “made their heads explode”, says Mr Samuel.
A 31-year-old Jewish psychologist fleeing Hitler’s rise in Europe, Dichter came to New York with his wife Hedy and $100 in his pocket. The city was suddenly full of fellow Austrian Jewish PhDs with the help of Paul Lazarsfeld, his former statistics teacher, Dichter quickly got a job at a market-research firm in Manhattan. Dichter is credited with popularising motivational research, yet it was Lazarsfeld who first discovered the value of qualitative research based on lengthy interviews. He understood the psychological roots of consumer decisions, but he remained wedded to finding statistical proof for his theories, and went on to found Columbia University’s Bureau of Applied Social Research.
Dichter saw this as “naive empiricism” and decided to venture off on his own. A gifted self-promoter, he saw the city as a welcoming place for a young man with big ideas about subliminal desires, sex and sales.
In 1939 he wrote to six big American companies, introducing himself as “a young psychologist from Vienna” with “some interesting new ideas which can help you be more successful, effective, sell more and communicate better.” Mindful of Freud’s nascent appeal on Madison Avenue, he emphasised that in Vienna they had lived on the same street. (Dichter had studied psychoanalysis in Austria, but with Alfred Adler and Wilhelm Stekel, not Freud himself.) With help from Lazarsfeld, he heard back from four companies. Having secured these contracts, Dichter came up with the concepts that would make him famous.

A. 어휘
channel 水路(수로)를 열다, 방향을 돌리다. flee ...에서 도망치다.
PhDs 박사학위 소지자. statistics 통계학.
is credited with 공로가 있는 것으로 인정받다. popularising 유행시키다.
motivational research (구매)동기조사.
qualitative research 질적 연구 (개인, 집단 조직 또는 지역사회에 대해 귀납적이고, 면밀한 비수량적인 조사를 하는 체계적 조사방법론).
wedded to 결부하다, 집착하다. went on to found 이어서 설립하다.
Bureau 事務局(사무국). Applied Social Research 응용사회조사.
naive 순진한. empiricism 경험주의. venture off 과감히 해보다.
gifted 재능 있는, 天賦的(천부적)인. subliminal 潛在意識(잠재의식)의.
nascent 發生期(발생기)의, 초기의.
Madison Avenue 매디슨街(가):광고회사와 방송국이 많음), 광고거리.
heard back 答信(답신)을 받다. contracts 계약. came up with 제안하다.