Within contemporary social psychology, a theory that appears as a attempt to overcome behavioral models and to the positivist approach to psychological science. Although it has been subjected to great criticism, the Theory of social representations has gained followers who dedicate their valuable time to research in this field of Psychology.
It is interesting to delve into the study of one of the most recent models in social psychology, which, according to its main exponent Serge Moscovici, is easy to grasp social representations but not their concept. That is why, in this PsicologíaOnline article, we intend to delve into the concept of Social representations.
Introduction.
In this work The main foundations of the theory of Social Representations are described and analyzed. from the point of view of its most renowned theorists as well as other researchers who have worked on the line. Some notes are also outlined regarding the work methodology on which the theory is based and which serve as a basis for the study of various social objects. It is considered an introduction for all those interested in the investigation of social representations, as well as for those for whom it is a model of necessary consultation within research in the field of social sciences.
In search of the genesis of social representations.
Social representation is one of the topics that has sparked the most controversy in recent years in the field of Social Psychology. Followers and detractors have dedicated valuable time to its study, which is why research has multiplied from and on its principles.
It was precisely at the beginning of the sixties of the last century when this theory came to light, which was aimed at people concerned with understanding the nature of social thought. It was exactly in Paris, in 1961, that its author, Serge Moscovici presents his Doctoral Thesis entitled “La Psychoanalyse son imàge et son public” (“Psychoanalysis, its image and its public”) as the culmination of years of theoretical and empirical studies. In it, he studied the way in which French society viewed Psychoanalysis, through analysis of the press and interviews with different social groups.
Social psychologists at that time limited themselves to describing individual categories without explaining the social constitution of behaviors. Furthermore, they considered that the social was a mere “added value” to psychological mechanisms of a particular nature. Therefore, it took ten years for this theory to begin to gain followers, becoming, years later, one of the most cited works in European psychosocial bibliography.
According to Tomás Ibáñez (1988), The poor acceptance of the theory was due to the profound influence of the behaviorist current that recognized manifest behavior as the only object of study and underestimated other explanations supported by subjective elaborations. Other reasons that Ibáñez also points out are:
- The privilege granted in studies to individual processes, which They underestimated the group.
- The existing image in the United States of European and particularly French studies, marked by verbalistic and speculative, assessment also transferred to Moscovici’s studies.
- The reduction of the concept of social representation to that of attitude, a fact that can be explained through one of the mechanisms proposed by Moscovici through which new knowledge is assimilated through reduction to known schemes or referents. So that for many, representation was nothing more than a new way of conceptualizing attitude.
The evolution of Social Psychology It has gone through stages associated with precise concepts such as attitudes, social cognitions and social representations, which have left deep traces in the historical development of the discipline and the theory proposed in particular. Therefore, locating its antecedents is a quite complex task since several currents and schools in Psychology and other Social Sciences are recognized as being closely linked to it.
The Moscow proposal of reintroduce the social dimension in psychological research It has its antecedents in the works of William Thomas and Florian Znaniecki (1918) on the Polish peasant. They propose a more social conception of attitudes, considering them mental processes that determine the responses of individuals towards phenomena of a social nature: values. The work of Jahoda, Lazarsfeld and Zeisel (1933) with unemployed people from an Austrian community can also be found along these lines.
These works have in common the try to explain behavior by beliefs of social origin that are shared by groups, establishing relationships of interaction and interdependence between the social and cultural structure and mental aspects. Thus, through the concept of attitude it was possible to capture the subjective expression of social changes. Due to this, many debates have arisen around the similarities and differences between social representations and attitudes that persist to this day.
A milestone on the path that leads to current research on social cognition and social representations was marked by the psychosociologist Fritz Heider, who explained the enormous and complex system of common sense psychological knowledge that people use in their daily lives, both to explain themselves to themselves their behaviors to understand those of others, and therefore, their behaviors, a phenomenon that he called “naïve psychology.” In this regard, in one of his statements he mentioned:
“…According to naïve psychology, people have knowledge of their environment and the events that occur in it, they achieve this knowledge through perception and other processes, they are affected by their personal and impersonal environment. .. remain in unity relationship with other entities and are accountable according to certain standards. “All these characteristics determine the role that the other person plays in our living space and how we react to them…” (Heider, 1958, cited by Perera, M., 2005, p. 34)
Heider was right, Reality comes to us and it is through its interpretation that we are able to decipher it. Consequently, the meanings that we attribute to it are what will constitute it as unique and individual, and it is that which has certain effects on us. Taking this consideration into account, the statement made by the sociologist WI Thomas would gain enormous value when he said that “…situations are indeed real if they are perceived as such.” (Thomas and Thomas, 1928, cited by Ibáñez, T., 1988)
In this historical development of the Theory of Social Representations The influence of the French sociologist Emile Durkheim is of great relevance, who from Sociology proposed the concept of Collective Representation referring to “… the way in which the group thinks in relation to the objects that affect it…” (Durkheim, 1895/1976, cited by Perera, M., 2005, p. 26); He considers them to be social facts of a symbolic nature, the product of the association of the minds of individuals.
… “Social facts do not differ only in quality from psychic facts; They have another substrate, they do not evolve in the same environment nor do they depend on the same conditions. This does not mean that they are not also psychic in some way, as they all consist of ways of thinking or acting. But the states of collective consciousness are of a different nature than the states of individual consciousness; They are representations of another type: they have their own laws…” (Durkheim, 1895/1976, cited by Perera, M., 2005, p. 28)
In his theory of the two consciousnesses (individual and collective), Durkheim assumed that members of collectivities unconsciously shared models that they assimilated, reproduced and propagated to others through education, as forms of behavior. In this regard, Moscovici points out that Durkheim’s proposal was rigid and static compared to what he pointed out and stated that this was typical of the society where this sociologist had developed. In relation to this Moscovici said:
… “In the classical sense, collective representations are an explanatory mechanism, and refer to a general class of ideas or beliefs (science, myth, religion, etc.), for us they are phenomena that need to be described and explained. Specific phenomena that are related to a particular way of understanding and communicating – a way that creates reality and common sense -. It is to emphasize this distinction that I use the term “social” instead of “collective…” (Moscovici, 1984, cited by Perera, M., 1999, p. 5).
In the opinion of Tomás Ibáñez, the collective representations “…they are mental productions that transcend particular individuals and that are part of the cultural baggage of a society. It is in them that individual representations are formed, which are nothing more than their particularized expression adapted to the characteristics of each specific individual…” (Ibáñez, T., 1988, p. 19).
Although it is true that Durkheim was not the first to point out the social factor as a determinant of man’s thought and action, As previously explained, it is indisputable that it laid the foundations for a conception of the human mind as a product of history and culture. For this reason, Moscovici recognizes these ideas as one of the most significant precedents for his proposal.
Another of the antecedents that we find at the beginning of the 20th century are the studies of Tarde (1901), who helped to unravel the mechanisms of operation and methods of elaboration of the theory of social representations, although in contrast to Durkheim, he defined the role of the individual and individual consciences as the foundations of all life in society.
Other schools such as Piagetian Evolutionary Psychology have also drawn on this theory. What is related to the notion or operative social scheme capable of acting in front of real or symbolic objects, the states of intelligence, the representation of the world in the child, among others, are points of view of Piaget that in some way have traces in the notion of social representation. Likewise, the notions of assimilation and accommodation provided Moscovici with elements to explain the process of formation and functioning of a social representation.
For its part, the theory of social representations has also been nourished by the vast work of Sigmund Freud. One of the ideas that account for this is found in “Mass psychology and analysis of the self” (1921) when Freud proposed the social character of individual psychology as a constituent characteristic of human life.
There are also other antecedents in the school of Social Cognitivism, its main representatives being Bartlert, Ash and Bruner, who are going to…