In other words, which trends or tendencies flourish when the economy is underperforming? This source makes a (weak) case for facial hair. In 1926 George Taylor claimed that hemlines went up with strong economies; presumably skirts become longer when times are bad. This post and chart suggest that dystopian science fiction movies go away in bad times.
Which of these tendencies — if any — are the most reasonable to actually believe?
Apparently the length of Japanese women’s hair correlates positively with the strength of the economy.
Both this and the skirt thing seem counterintuitive to me. In a weak economy, high-earning men are in shorter supply. Wouldn’t women have a stronger incentive to try even harder to attract them (i.e., longer hair and shorter skirts)?
I once heard this about gloomy pop songs. Though, now I’m too old to know what really are pop songs.
I’d expect to see an increase in sales of hair dye and certain forms of women’s cosmetics, as people try to look younger in an attempt to increase their marketability.
I’d guess that families become a big thing in bad times, as people turn to something that gives (the illusion of) security, when the economy can’t provide any.
in 1926 (and before), the textiles and garment industry was still a huge % of the manufacturing economy. as late as 1970, T/G was still around 15% of manufacturing employment and 12% of manufacturing output in the OECD. certainly this % was higher in 1926 and even more so for textiles production in C19. a strong economy would increase demand and thus prices for fabric, leading people (especially female people – who still made a significant % of their clothing at home – and whose dresses at that time requried lots of fabric) to economize on fabric at the margin. weak economy, the reverse.
while the link is not likely to be as robust these days (in the US T/G employment output as % manufacturing is now < 5-6%) anything that closes the midriff gap on teenage/tweenage girls and brings waistlines up on man’s pants certainly is the silver lining to the depression cloud.
I do not believe that any of these hypothesises (or whatever the plural of hypothesis is) are reasonable to believe.
1. Culture isn’t exactly fast-moving, but trends are. Comparing 1908 to 2008 just introduces too many confounding variables that probably can’t possibly be corrected.
2. Comparisons between nations would be even worse, as the cultures are VASTLY different.
3. The above points also suggest that, since culture is so vastly different, any links would have to be evolutionary in nature.
4. There’s a lot we do not know about evolutionary psychology (such as how strong evolutionary factors are compared to cognitive and behavorial factors)
5. Even if we can prove a POSSIBLE link (such as feelings of insecurity—->motivation to cover lip—->beard growing), it doesn’t mean that the link actually exists.
6. If we can show a link, that doesn’t mean all people will respond in the same way, or will always react in the same way, as evolutionary influences are just one factor in thinking. Thoughts pass through many “lenses” in our heads. We see through an evolutionary framework, a cultural framework, a social framework, a familial framework, and an individual framework. So, people will react differently. You may grow a beard to cover your insecurity. I may simply decide to keep my head lowered. So even with an evolutionary link proven NOW, an evolutionary link may not hold throughout time.
7. The genetic structure of different peoples may lead to different responses. For instance, I may be genetically inclined to feel insecurity during times of economic distress. That doesn’t mean that EVERYONE will.
That being said, these links are very interesting, perhaps too much to chalk up to coincidence. So I would say it is only rational to believe these links COULD exist, perfectly reasonable to believe these links DO exist, and unreasonable to believe any given link taken at random DOES exist.
I think we’d need to calculate the correlation between stress levels and economic performance. Things like facial hair, style, and hair length may have to do with stress levels and not directly the economy. At least that’s what I think.
Maybe the counter cyclical trends are just a moderation or reversal of the social change experienced in expansionist periods. More of a reversion to the mean.
It seems to me that most expansionist periods have bubbles or temporary big winners. I can think of the bizarre office environments developed during the dot com era. I think of the aeron chair as the iconic dot com design statement. http://awardsforexcellence.stores.yahoo.net/hm-aeron.html
As far as the real estate driven bubble, I think the huge suv’s like the Lincoln Navigator were the iconic symbol. The era was about McMansions and to fill them up, you needed cargo space. In fact, you could view the absurdly large houses as boxes of air, and the vehicles with huge cargo space as the vehicular equivalent.
I have an image of a house frau in a Navigator, driving away from the Starbucks to go window with a cell phone in one hand.
70s Blockbusters and award winning films:Airport. Tower inferno.Jaws. Eartquake.Fort apache. Superman II
Deer hunter. Coming Home.Blade Runner.Rocky( he lost by Ko).It was the time of the Antihero
Stangflation.
But It was also the times of Star wars and Close encounters.
80 s the times of growth.
Et , Indiana Jones.Charriots of Fire.Excalibur.Rambo and Rocky sequels( him winning and becoming a marketing expert in the movie).
And was also the time of riske movies like 9 and a half weeks.Around the world is a cult movie
Reportedly, although I can’t vouch for it, enrollment in graduate school is a counter-cyclical trend. The theory being that furthering your education is a good way to ride out a recession. Or more baldly, if you can’t get a job, you might as well go back to school.
No one mentioned music. Bad times = good music.
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