Abstract
This final section is aimed at drawing conclusions about the role of uniqueness motivation in our society. The present chapter examines how people may lose their sense of uniqueness in our “mass” societal contexts, which tend to deindividuate people. In this vein, it is important to note that existential philosophers, psychologists, political scientists, and sociologists alike have often portrayed the loss of uniqueness and individualism as one of the central problems in American society. As expressed by Gross and Osterman (1971):
Much of the contemporary American social and political thought can be seen as a continuing debate over problems and prospects of individualism in our national life… so basic is the concept of individualism to American society that every major issue which faces us as a nation invariably poses itself in these terms. (p. xi)
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Snyder, C.R., Fromkin, H.L. (1980). Deindividuation: Loss of Uniqueness. In: Uniqueness. Perspectives in Social Psychology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-3659-4_10
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