Running head: BARNUM AND THE “BARNUM” EFFECT 1
Barnum and The “Barnum” Effect
Jamey Sweet
Trinity Western University
BARNUM AND THE “BARNUM” EFFECT 2
Barnum and The “Barnum” Effect
Intro
Peanut shells. Elephants. Colorful Tents. Acrobatics and death-defying acts. Have I got your attention yet? Bearded women. Mermaids. Tiny people and beautiful voices. Doesn’t this sound spectacular? It also sounds like the circus, a place of entertainment and showmanship.
While there have been many players that participated in the birth and the growth of the circus, there haven’t been many who became such a world-wide personality as Phineas Taylor Barnum.
Men such as Philip Astley birthed the circus with equestrian shows in the 18th century, but in the
19th century as Barnum began traveling under the colorful tent, the circus evolved with the addition of the Sideshow.
While PT Barnum is largely associated with the circus, a wider look on his life can reveal business talent, especially in the entertainment industry. Barnum had used advertising and marketing to his advantage like no one else before him, and yet still proclaimed to hold to some of the business ethics of previous century. His pride and glory, other than his family, was the
American Museum, which was an exhibition of oddities, curiosities, and sensations, some of them being human exhibits. This foundation provided a launchpad into the circus industry.
Who was Phineas Taylor Barnum? Why was he so “successful” in his field? What are his drives, motivations, and passions that got him up in the morning? Was he happy? What happened in Barnum’s failures in life and how did they affect him? As we explore the biggest personality of the 19th century, we may uncover that this self-proclaimed “Humbug” has a personality that is hard to pin down among all of his personas.
The “Barnum” Effect BARNUM AND THE “BARNUM” EFFECT 3
Before we get into how personality theory plays into PT Barnum’s life, let’s look how PT
Barnum plays into personality theory. In social media today, we can easily find a post or advertisement that looks something like this “What Star Wars character are you?” or “What character do you act like when you get mad?” While these tests don’t seem to have any validity to them, they are fueled by what is called in the realm of personality psychology, “The Barnum
Effect.”
This effect refers to how PT Barnum would use any methods to present appealing entertainment to the populace, whether what was presented was legitimate or not. Therefore,
Barnum called himself a “Humbug” as he defined “Management-Tact-To take an old truth and put it in an attractive form” (PT Barnum: Fiction VS FACT, 2018). Whether we are looking at
Barnum’s entertainment marketing methods, social media identity tests, or certain personality tests, this effect can be seen. When looking specifically at personality tests, we live in an age where we want to find out more about ourselves because we find it difficult to find out own identity. Personality tests, such as MBTI, gain interest and attraction because of the populace’s need for identity. Whether or not the tests are valid are a different matter, but the effect itself creates in these tests something that it simply is not. Personality tests do not define identity, since that is as unique as we can get.
The Film
The recent film “The Greatest Showman” portrayed the life of PT Barnum in a musical format. However, the movie itself is quite inaccurate. It tells the story of a man who lives with the inferiority of station for his life until opportunity strikes and he uses creativity and ingenuity to create a community of outsiders. The true story of PT Barnum is much more complex and his superiority complex plays much more of a role in his life as a driving force to make him work BARNUM AND THE “BARNUM” EFFECT 4 hard. However, the movie is accurate to the spirit of PT Barnum, “The King of Humbug.” The movie took the condensed history of Barnum’s life and changed them and presented them in a form that was attractive to the modern-day audience.
His Story
In looking at the life of PT Barnum, we will primarily be looking through the lens of Erik
Erikson’s Identity Theory. While I will be delving into Adler’s Superiority Complex, B.F.
Skinner’s Reinforcement Theory, Horney’s Neuroticism and Competitiveness, and Marvin
Zuckerman’s Sensation Seeking Theory, Erikson’s theory provides a base foundational structure from which to work with. In Erikson’s “Identity and the Life Cycle,” the theorist writes,
“I shall present human growth from the point of view of the conflicts, inner and outer,
which the healthy personality weathers, emerging and re-emerging with an increased
sense of inner unity, with an increase of good judgment, and an increase in the capacity to
do well, according to the standards of those who are significant to him” (Erikson, 1980).
As we move through the life of Phineas Taylor Barnum, we shall structurally move from one stage of conflict to the next, since the theory shows a person’s natural progression in life.
Oral Sensory – Birth to Age 1
Phineas Taylor Barnum was born in Bethel, Connecticut on July 5th, 1810. In my sources, there isn’t much data in this age range given the time that has passed since his birth. The only thing that is written is that Barnum’s mother made notice of the noise he made in his first hour and she had told him that “she has never been able to discover any cessation since” (Barnum,
2018).
While there is no data in this age range, we can make assumptions as to how Barnum resolved the Erikson conflict of “Trust vs. Mistrust” based on his behavior in later stages. In this BARNUM AND THE “BARNUM” EFFECT 5 conflict between choosing trust over mistrust, we don’t see a man who assumed a maladaptive way of coping in either direction. Instead we see a man balancing the extremes, especially in the realms of business. When starting out as a store clerk, he learned pretty quick that there were customers that you were straight with and customers that were trying to sell rat fur as beaver fur.
He also trusted people such as Joice Heth and the previous owner of the Feejee Mermaid as to the integrity of their claims. When it comes to this conflict, the strength that comes out of it when done right is Hope, and PT Barnum always had Hope of a brighter future.
Muscular-Anal – Ages 1-3
As before, there is little data for this age. But like before, we can assume how Barnum resolved this conflict by his behavior in later stages. This stage is marked by motion and autonomy and the strength that is gained when this conflict is resolved is will. On the reverse side of this conflict is doubt and shame. There are many things that we can say about Mr.
Barnum, but the least of which is that he suffered with doubt or shame. If anything, his autonomy and will got him into trouble because of his shamelessness. But it also made him a force to be reckoned with.
Locomotor-genital – Ages 3-5
PT Barnum, in his autobiography “The Life of P.T. Barnum,” gives three measly paragraphs for the first 5-7 years of his life. What he says about these years is “my grandfather crammed me with sugar and loaded me with pennies, to buy raisins and candies, which he always instructed me to solicit from the store-keeper at the ‘lowest-cash price’” (Barnum, 2018).
If we were to look here for the resolution for the Initiative vs. Guilt conflict, we can see that at a young age, Barnum is already being taught how to barter and it is rewarding since he can buy more candies for a lower price. Using B.F. Skinner’s Reinforcement Theory in these years with BARNUM AND THE “BARNUM” EFFECT 6 these specific instances, we can see that the businessman in Mr. Barnum could have been built into him at a young age. The reinforcement theory says that our personality is a make-up environmental conditioning. In Barnum’s case, the environmental conditional here would be his grandfather encouraging him to barter for the lowest price for candy which then gave him more candy.
Latency – Ages 6-11
This stage of conflict is marked by the strength Competence and the conflict is
Industriousness vs. Inferiority. While we can look in later years to see how he resolved the conflict, there are events within these years that can point to how he resolved this conflict. First, the young student was an excelling academic in school, yet he grew tired of hard labor, especially since his father (who was a tailor, a farmer, and a tavernkeeper at times) would keep him out of school to do work. But it also just didn’t suit him, and he became lazy. His father found him a job as a store clerk in a general store. He found himself liking the work with a pencil behind his ear and selling goods. He grew competent and resolved the conflict by becoming quite industrious. It would manifest in how he did business. It sometimes even got to the point of ruthless.
The second event that impacted Barnum was the tales of Ivy Island. His hometown was a place of pranksters, especially in his family. One prank that he remembered well was when his parents told him how he had inherited a large, beautiful plot of land because his name was
Phineas Taylor. It was called Ivy Island. Everyone in the town knew about it. Ivy Island began to inflate the young Barnum’s pride as he promised to share the wealth among his friends and family. He held himself higher than the rest, thinking that once he had the land he would no longer have to deal with menial tasks. I believe this built within him an attraction to the shinier BARNUM AND THE “BARNUM” EFFECT 7 side of life and to the feeling of superiority. We will get back to Zuckerman’s Sensation Seeking theory, but for now, we are going to explore Barnum’s possible superiority complex. Alfred
Adler’s Superiority Complex theory says that someone may attempt to overcompensate in overcoming inferiority and thus bring them to an exaggerated view of themselves, their abilities, and accomplishments. In Barnum’s case, it drove him to feel the need to work hard to become extremely successful. Barnum had a tendency for boasting about himself and for being vain, both key markers for someone with a superiority complex.
Adolescence – Ages 12-18
This stage has the conflict of Identity Cohesion vs. Role Confusion. The strength gained from this is Fidelity. I believe it is from these years that we can truly learn what it means to
“resolve” an Erikson conflict. P.T. Barnum is someone who Erikson would describe as one who has gained Identity Achievement in this stage in his life. It is strange to say so since the strength gained from this stage is Fidelity and Barnum has his reputation for being a “Humbug.” But in everything, Barnum was true to himself and he was quoted for saying “The noblest art is that of making others happy.” Maybe it takes a man with much Fidelity to know when to reveal the truth so that the truest good can be befitted from.
Why can we learn much from these years? The conflict seems to last throughout the entirety of the six years. It shows that the strengths gained from these stages aren’t just gained by a single conflict, but by years of struggling. The more we struggle, the more the strength will come out “refined.” Not only that, but if we spend the entirety of the stage in the conflict, it won’t be hard to forget.
In Barnum’s case, these years begin with the Ivy Island dream being pulled out from under him. In a classic reveal, Ivy Island turned out to be an island covered in ivy surrounded by BARNUM AND THE “BARNUM” EFFECT 8 marshland, completely useless. His dreams of wealth crashed to the floor, but he later learned from this prank that he can only rely on himself. Then when Barnum was 15, he lost his father, putting him in the position of providing for his family for a few years. Eventually he found his way to Brooklyn to clerk a store when he was 17 and when he was 18, he opened up his own store in his hometown with a lottery business that was very successful.
Losing Ivy Island will become symbolic of something that will happen many times in
Barnum’s life, a loss of fortune. Using B.F. Skinner’s Reinforcement theory again, we can see that these failures come in non-regular variable intervals throughout his life. When he begins to pass on his lessons, he shares lessons that he learned in his failures in business. The environment around him was unique to him and through that he ended up sharing unique lessons.
Young Adulthood – Ages 18-35
This stage has the conflict of Intimacy vs. Isolation with the strength of Love. It is interesting that Erikson starts this conflict with this age because P.T. Barnum married Charity
Hallett when he was 19 and became a father of four. But if we consider the logic that we used in the previous conflict, where was most of Barnum’s conflict focused on during these years? In his autobiography, Barnum writes of Charity minimally and it is mostly focused on how he met her.
If a man doesn’t speak of something, it doesn’t mean it didn’t occur, but if we are to look at
Barnum’s life through the limited lens of Erikson in this stage then most of his conflicts show a love of his work. But, in truth, P.T. Barnum initially began looking for a larger investment such as the American Museum because he was looking for something stable for his family.
The conflict here for Barnum here is to balance the relationship of his family and the work which isolates himself from them yet supports them. In his business life during these years, we can see a few examples that we can look at through the lens of Karen Horney’s Theory of BARNUM AND THE “BARNUM” EFFECT 9
Neurotic Needs and Trends as well as Competitiveness. In the purchasing of the American
Museum, we can slightly see Barnum’s aggressive personality that comes out in his business dealings. We can also see his competitiveness. When he saw the posting, he didn’t have the money for it, but he went to the building owner and proposed an offer to pay around 80% of the cost with some of it being paid upfront and the rest paid over a year. The owner agreed, yet when it came to the administrator of the museum, he sold the museum to another party, Peale’s
Museum, who was paying full price. However, Barnum began to use the press for his advantage to plummet the stock of Peale’s Museum. He also went to the building owner and the museum administrator, since the purchase wasn’t entirely complete since the purchaser hadn’t made the upfront payment and the deadline was coming up. He requested of these two for the right to buy the American Museum the day after the deadline, if Peale’s museum didn’t make their first payment. With their stock plummeting and with Peale’s Museum completely unaware of this deal, they decided to wait a few weeks to pay. But by then, the museum belonged to Mr.
Barnum. In the future, competition would continue between Barnum’s American Museum and
Peale’s Museum, which was ran by Mr. Bennett, who also was the founder of the New York
Times.
Adulthood – Ages 35-55
This stage has the conflict of Generativity vs. Stagnation. From this conflict arises the strength of care. This stage of conflict can also be looked at through Marvin Zuckerman’s
Sensation Seeking Theory. Phineas Taylor was always attracted to business because of his talent, but he also liked what wealth brought with it. He loved that you could use money to buy things.
While he started off saving money as a kid, that smart habit didn’t seem to continue as strongly throughout his later years. While he was great at getting money, he spent it as fast as he got it BARNUM AND THE “BARNUM” EFFECT 10 and every time, he lost his fortune he found himself stumbling. He did establish a bit of a savings once he learned from that. But as his enterprise grew, the sensation seeker in him shone. In marketing campaigns, tours of Europe, and the marvelous Jenny Lind, soon nothing became too spectacular for Barnum. As a monument to his enterprise that he had built, he had moved his family into Iranistan, a huge ornate mansion built outside of Bridgeport, Connecticut. But in a bad investment decision, he lost the American Museum and Iranistan burned down the following year. After spending a year with his family on the beach, he returns with a seminar meant to teach the next generation in “The Art of Money Getting.” Again, we see an example of an actual conflict that occurred over time. In balancing these two in conflict, Barnum was ready to move on to be the man who brought a new level to the circus, making people smile.
Maturity – Old Age – 55+ years
In his “retirement” years, Barnum regained the American Museum (even though it burned down a couple of times afterward) but he never again rebuilt Iranistan. He took his show on the road, under a traveling tent. It became a circus ring. After his wife died, he partnered with
James Bailey to make “Barnum and Bailey’s The Greatest Show on Earth.”
This stage has the conflict of Ego Integrity vs. Despair with the strength being Wisdom. I do not know much about the last years of Barnum’s life except that he kept doing what he does.
That tells me about his strength in integrity.
Personal Statement
P.T. Barnum was shaped through key events in events where he chose to see himself as a victor. Ivy Island was one of the most influential moments in his life because he began to only depend on himself. It became a hardened truth when his father died three years later. His belief in himself kept him going from his first business when he was 18 to Barnum and Bailey’s. But BARNUM AND THE “BARNUM” EFFECT 11 even before Ivy Island his money-making ways were being shaped by his trips to the store to buy candy at the lowest price. However, his money-making ways often manifested in the form of greed and when things turned bad and he lost everything, he learned from his mistakes and kept on going, showing resilience. Phineas Taylor Barnum may have been the “King of Humbug” as he has self-titled himself, but he was also a leader in business marketing, advertising, and entertainment and is a prominent historic voice in the ethics of business.
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References
Barnum, P. T., & Mihm, S. (2018). The life of P.T. BARNUM: Written by himself with related
documents. Boston, MA: Bedford / St.Martin's.
Erikson, E. H. (1980). Chapter 2. In Identity and the life cycle (pp. 51-107). New York, NY:
Norton.
Gracey, M. (Director). (2017). The Greatest Showman [Video file]. United States: 20th Century
Fox. Retrieved December 02, 2019, from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdtCpI9_aMs
Jando, D. (n.d.). Short history of the circus. Retrieved December 02, 2019, from
http://www.circopedia.org/SHORT_HISTORY_OF_THE_CIRCUS
P.T. Barnum: Fiction VS FACT [Video file]. (2018). Retrieved December 1, 2019, from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_4fljgEp_c
Schultz, D. P., & Schultz, S. E. (2017). Theories of personality. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Xu, S., Luo, L., Xiao, Z., Zhao, K., Wang, H., Wang, C., & Rao, H. (2019). High sensation
seeking is associated with behavioral and neural insensitivity to increased negative
outcomes during decision-making under uncertainty. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral
Neuroscience, 19(6), 1352-1363. doi:10.3758/s13415-019-00751-x
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