This, however, is only the first step toward the psychologization of the economy. The next step will be the expansion of the psychic component of the services.

Here, again, we are already moving in the predictable direction, as a glance at air travel demonstrates. Once flying was simply a matter of getting from here to there. Before long, the airlines began to compete on the basis of pretty stewardesses, food, luxurious surroundings, and in-flight movies. Trans-World Airlines recently carried this process one step further by offering what it called "foreign accent" flights between major American cities.

The TWA passenger may now choose a jet on which the food, the music, the magazines, the movies, and the stewardess' miniskirt are all French. He may choose a "Roman" flight on which the girls wear togas. He may opt for a "Manhattan Penthouse" flight. Or he may select the "Olde English" flight on which the girls are called "serving wenches" and the decor supposedly suggests that of an English pub.

It is clear that TWA is no longer selling transportation, as such, but a carefully designed psychological package as well. We can expect the airlines before long to make use of lights and multi-media projections to create total, but temporary, environments providing the passenger with something approaching a theatrical experience.

The experience may, in fact, soon go beyond theater. British Overseas Airways Corporation recently pointed a wavering finger at the future when it announced a plan to provide unmarried American male passengers with "scientifically chosen" blind dates in London. In the event the computer-selected date failed to show up, an alternate would be provided. Moreover, a party would be arranged to which "several additional Londoners of both sexes of varying ages" would be invited so that the traveler, who would also be given a tour of discotheques and restaurants, would under no circumstances be alone. The program, called "The Beautiful Singles of London," was abruptly called off when the governmentowned airline came under Parliamentary criticism. Nevertheless, we can anticipate further colorful attempts to paint a psychic coating on many consumer service fields, including retailing.

Anyone who has strolled through Newport Center, an incredibly lavish new shopping plaza in Newport Beach, California, cannot fail to be impressed by the attention paid by its designers to aesthetic and psychological factors. Tall white arches and columns outlined against a blue sky, fountains, statues, carefully planned illumination, a pop art playground, and an enormous Japanese wind-bell are all used to create a mood of casual elegance for the shopper. It is not merely the affluence of the surroundings, but their programmed pleasantness that makes shopping there a quite memorable experience. One can anticipate fantastic variations and elaborations of the same principles in the planning of retail stores in the future. We shall go far beyond any "functional" necessity, turning the service, whether it is shopping, dining, or having one's hair cut, into a pre-fabricated experience. We shall watch movies or listen to chamber music as we have our hair cut, and the mechanical bowl that fits over the skull of a woman in the beauty parlor will do more than simply dry her hair. By directing electronic waves to her brain, it may, quite literally, tickle her fancy.

Bankers and brokers, real estate and insurance companies will employ the most carefully chosen decor, music, closed circuit color television, engineered tastes and smells, along with the most advanced mixed-media equipment to heighten (or neutralize) the psychological charge that accompanies even the most routine transaction. No important service will be offered to the consumer before it has been analyzed by teams of behavioral engineers to improve its psychic loading.