We now live in an era where technological advancements and unbridled capitalism have created algorithms and other tracking techniques to not only monitor our interests and our purchases, but to also manipulate us into purchasing items on the fringe with strategically placed advertisements, offers, or other suggestive psychological-based sales and marketing tactics. This control is not only extended to those who are playing into the consumer role, but the psychology and experimentation becomes even more concerning in regards to the worker.

When it comes down to how the processes of corporate industrial psychology are applied and practiced there is no clear governing or regulative authority, and when it comes down to the individual, the lines begin to become blurred between what is simply marketing strategy and what is strategic and manipulative psychological experimentation, both in the role of consumer or worker.

It seems as if most individuals simply accept that advanced manipulation tactics will be applied within their day-to-day lives, and they foolishly pay no regard to how these techniques are changing the ways by which we function as a community, or how the collection and storage of such information may impact themselves and their futures.

Each day we are not only being tracked throughout our usage of social media, home electronics, and the internet, but we are also continuously monitored by facial recognition programs, automatic license plate readers, membership cards and rewards programs, along with smartphone tracking. Much of this is done without regard to our ability to give consent, and often if even consented to, the consent is expressed through wordy and mostly unread privacy policies and terms of use. Even if consent is given, often times the research and practice of marketing psychology and corporate industrial organizational psychology gives little regard to any risks associated with such experimentation.

The dangers of uninhibited psychological experimentation and manipulation has since long been proven. Corporate industrial organizational psychology has been used since the 1920’s to create operant conditioning and a singular uniformity of pacified consumers out of human individuals, there has been no regard given toward how this type of practiced psychology can effect, create, or otherwise exacerbate mental illness and other medical conditions in human individuals. While medical psychology now has a focus on maintaining certain ethical standards, such as those of the American Psychological Association, corporate industrial psychology does not fit within the same confines of study and practice, and thus does not mindfully adhere to such standards.

The psychology implemented behind mass consumerism has created a culture of acceptance toward data collection and privacy violations. We are further blinded to the corporate industrial psychological perspective as we live in an age of unconstitutional massive governmental surveillance and data collection, and for most individuals and activists this is where our focus has been maintained.

When individuals maintain the role of the worker in today’s society they are not only subjected to their employer’s brand, company ethics, and beliefs, they are typically forced into adhering to corporate policy and guidelines (which were created through corporate industrial psychological practice and study) or they risk loosing their livelihood. Today’s worker is, in a way, forced to subjugate themselves to ethics which may directly conflict with their own ideals, or ideals that are otherwise questionable, and against that which is considered humane or ethical. While factors such as these are clear and consented upon going into a job, the positional obedience, emotional trading, and normalization of the tasks by which we conflict with can create cognitive dissonance in a worker which can both create or exacerbate psychological illness.

As workers, we expect corporate industrial research and psychology to play into both quality assurance and training. Often this type of research is done in the form of surveys, video surveillance, recorded and monitored telephone calls, computer and internet usage tracking, along with corporate coaching, training, and other feedback opportunities.

Often overlooked and rarely (if ever) consented upon is being subjected to “Secret Shopping”, or “Mystery Shopping” while maintaining the role of a worker. While many activist workers may be aware of and despise both governmental and corporate industrial informants – workers, including independent contractors and those working on sales commissions, are conditioned by corporate managers to fear the “Mystery Shopper”.

Mystery shoppers are people hired to pose as regular consumers who test the behavior of the worker without their explicit consent. Theindustry of the “Mystery Shopper” claims to abide by ethical standards, as set by the Mystery Shopping Professionals Association (MSPA), these standards fail to take the psychology and risks of the worker into consideration, thus proving that there is no intent to dignify or provide any thought to the subjects of this experimentation. Another often broken standard is that the information gathered during such experimentation should not be used to punish workers, however there is no direct enforcement of such ethics set forward by the MSPA (essentially an industry lobbying group) and the act of Mystery Shopping not only provides an opportunity for corporate managers to punish their workers for supposedly failing on some point of behavior, it can and has led to employment termination.