The theory of social representations in modern psychology. The theory of "social representations" S. Moscovici
The elements of the social world, in addition to those analyzed, include a large number of various phenomena. They are difficult to classify and even give their own list. The life of society is many-sided and varied, and it is undoubted that its image can be sufficiently complete only if the whole mosaic of its constituent phenomena is taken into account. These may include, for example, various social institutions, social and national movements, other manifestations of mass movements, and finally, various phenomena of culture, art, science, religion. How is knowledge of these diverse phenomena organized? Perhaps we should find out ways of knowing each of them, but this task is hardly foreseeable. In modern social psychology an attempt was made to substantiate a certain general approach to the analysis of such phenomena.
The most developed in this sense is the theory of "social representations", the author of which was the French social psychologist S. Moskovisi and which is accepted by most researchers of the French school. A detailed description of the ideas of this school is given in Russian literature. In this context, it is important to identify some provisions of the theory that are directly related to the processes of social cognition, although, by the way, all of it is quite closely related to this subject.
In the French school, they are especially active in the named
vein of S. Moskovisi, J.-P. Kodol, D. Jodelet and others. The essence of the theory of "social representations" is expressed, first of all, in its general orientation. Just as it happened in A. Taschfel's theory of social identity, the main "edge" of the theory is directed against the American approach to social behavior, which, according to S. Moskovisi, is “desocialized”. Therefore, the first task of the theory of "social representations" is to establish a closer connection between human cognitive processes and social macroprocesses. Using the motto we have adopted - to reveal what is "beyond cognitions", now beyond these limits it is necessary to consider the very "fabric" of social relations, their entirety. This idea of Moskovisi is closely connected with his general views on the subject of social psychology, namely, the need for its greater "sociologization", i.e. inclusion in her studies in a much more complete social context [cf. 7].
The classical definition of social representation is given by Moskovisi himself and a number of his collaborators. Moskovisi understands social representation as a network of concepts, statements and explanations that are born in Everyday life during interpersonal communication. The use of the term "representation" in Moskovisi's theory requires a special explanation. It is not equivalent to the meaning that is traditional for psychology or logic, where "representation" is a link in the transition either from perception to thinking, or from an image to a concept. For Moskovisi, social representations are meaningful knowledge, they are in modern society the equivalent of what is considered in traditional societies as myths and beliefs. They may therefore be called "the modern version of common sense". D. Jodelet adds to this: “The category of social representation denotes a specific form of cognition, namely the knowledge of common sense, the content, functions and reproduction of which are socially conditioned” [see. 40]. In this definition, it is especially significant in our context to emphasize the idea that social representation is a form of cognition of social reality. The need to introduce such a concept into the lexicon of social psychology is brought to life by the insufficiency of other models, especially the behaviorist one, for explaining the semantic connections of a person with the world.
Developing the thoughts expressed in these definitions, we can say that social representations are born in ordinary, everyday thinking in order to comprehend, understand surrounding a person the social world, comprehend and interpret the social reality surrounding a person. It is clear that it is through social representation, by means of it, that an ordinary person realizes the knowledge of the social world. From this it is easy to see that the basic idea of the concept of social representations is organically included in those searches that are typical for other representatives of the psychology of social cognition in Europe.
According to the authors of the concept, for a person there is always the possibility of meeting with something “strange and unfamiliar” (either because it is too far from the individual, or because it does not meet the standards, or simply because it is “redundant” when comprehending the picture of the world). Such a meeting is fraught with the danger of destroying the usual course of things, blowing up an established image. Moskovisi believes that a person feels the need to somehow "tame" new impressions and thereby reduce the risk of surprise, adapt to new information. He believes that it is with the help of social representations that the “strange and unfamiliar” becomes understandable and familiar over time. In fact, few people can say for sure, without being a specialist, what is biochemistry, nuclear physics, sociology of knowledge or ethology. But somehow scraps of information about these complex matters seep into the mass consciousness, a simple sum of information about them flickers in everyday discussions and conversations and allows even not very knowledgeable people to talk about these complex topics.
The previous experience of a person also takes part in this process, for example, fragmentary information gleaned at school, from acquaintances, etc. In general, with the participation of many different sources, ideas about the “strange” in a complex way penetrate into the “gap” of everyday consciousness and, as it were, are transformed in it in a fairly understandable and not so strange. Occurs, according to Moskovisi, "the triumph of the ordinary through the mastery of the strange." This is the channel of social cognition of an ordinary person. On this path, naturally, there is a danger of losing a significant part of the information, as soon as the complex characteristics of no less complex phenomena turn into banalities. Moreover, under the influence of such transformations, the social representation can generally deviate very far from the actual content of the encountered new (“strange”) object or event and acquire a kind of autonomy. However, this is exactly how the process takes place, and once again social psychology has to state that it studies not how “it should be”, but how it “is”.
Moskovisi proposes to reconsider the image of an ordinary person as a naive observer or even as a naive scientist, who is characterized by "innocence of observation", "neutrality to the world", "transparency of information". He is not Adam, he lives in a social environment, belongs to various groups, often looks at the world through their eyes: social representation is the product of the group, since the fragments of knowledge obtained in it rotate, acquire a certain semantic load. Such an ordinary person is more like an amateur scientist who replenishes his knowledge base with self-education, conversations, personal observations and reflections.
All this is necessary for a person in order to understand the meaning of the world around him, in order to facilitate the process of communication with other people about various events. 54], finally, in order to build for themselves a relatively consistent picture of the world. At the same time, not only cognitive “work” is performed - the transformation of some concepts and categories into others, “understandable”. The social representation has a “biased”, as A. N. Leontiev used this term, nature, since the facts of the surrounding world are subject to transformation and evaluation, appealing specifically to the real social experience of the individual. As the new, unusual, incomprehensible is introduced into the sphere of ordinary representations, they are filled with real meaning, therefore, they are “colored” in a certain way and at least concretized.
In a number of points, the theory of social representations, as it were, merges with cognitive theories of correspondence. As in them, the idea is held that a number of surprises and contradictions await in a person's life, and this threatens to destroy the established picture of the world - connected and consistent. The desire to preserve this established picture of the world leads the individual - as the theories of cognitive correspondence say - to selective selection of information, obtaining only that which recreates the "correspondence". The logic of constructions in the theory of social representations is similar, however, there is no emphasis on the human need for “correspondence”, but the need to understand the meaning is fixed, i.e. to make his life meaningful, with a more or less clear strategy of behavior, and for this he has to transform the “unusual” into the “ordinary”. Since the group needs the same, it also participates in the production of social representation. That is why social representation acts as a factor constructing reality not only for an individual, but also for a whole group. One of Moskovisi's key ideas is that social representation is not "opinion" individual person, but precisely - the "opinion" of the group, which can be considered as its original "calling card". It is no coincidence that D. Jodelet insists that social representation is “a general vision of reality inherent in a given group, which may not coincide or oppose the views adopted in other groups. This vision of reality orients the Actions and relationships of the members of a given group.
What is the structure of social representation? It consists of three components: information, presentation field, setting. It is these three components that are replenished both in the course of socialization and in everyday life experience: information, as noted, penetrates into the “crevices” of everyday consciousness through various sources; the field of representation is formed directly in the group - it defines the general semantic frame in which new information is placed, as well as the range of possible interpretations of a particular concept (for example, a child in a family learns the first possible interpretations of concepts that adults operate with); installation is the internalization of what has already been learned from the information received, and from the "field" created in the group, and from one's own experience. Of course, in modern societies the process of forming a social representation is very difficult: the development of education, means mass media modify the process of transforming "high" concepts into judgments of common sense. However, numerous empirical studies carried out within the framework of the theory of social representations have shown that in modern complex societies the mechanism for the emergence of representations operates approximately in the same way as it is depicted in the theory.
Social representation performs three main functions: 1)
it is an instrument of knowledge of the social world - its role here is similar to the role of ordinary categories, through which the individual describes, classifies, explains events; 2)
it is a way of mediating behavior - it contributes to the direction of communication in the group, the designation of values that regulate behavior; 3)
it is a means of adapting ongoing events to existing ones, i.e. contributes to the preservation of the existing picture of the world.
The implementation of these functions is provided by a special mechanism for the emergence of social representation. It includes three stages: “engagement” (in the French socio-psychological vocabulary - “anchoring”)8; objectification and
naturalization.
The essence of the first stage - “hooking” is that at first any new object (as a rule, unfamiliar) needs to be somehow “hooked”, concentrate attention on it, fix something in it that will allow it to fit into a previously existing concept frame. Then, at the second stage, you can try to turn the designation of a new unknown object into a more specific image. This process is called objectification. These mechanisms are well illustrated by an example given by D. Jodelet. It is drawn from S. Moskovisi's study of how the social idea of psychoanalysis was formed in French society. First of all, an individual, having heard about psychoanalysis, “hooks” on this unfamiliar concept. Something forces him to focus his attention (to use a term traditional for the psychology of social cognition) on the phenomenon designated by this concept. Then begins further work with the concept of "psychoanalysis" - objectification.
It is during this process that the unfamiliar and abstract is transformed into something concrete, familiar to common sense. “Objectification,” says Moskovisi, “means to reveal a familiar quality in a vague idea or essence, to translate a concept into an image” (143, p. 38]. Objectification is most often carried out in the form of personalization, i.e. more or less "familiar". In this case, the logic of the behavior of an ordinary person will be as follows: "Psychoanalysis ... I heard something ... Oh, yes, of course, this is Freud ... Something about complexes... Yes, of course, this is psychoanalysis". Thus, some "knowledge" is obtained, it is incorporated, included in the cognitive structure of the individual, naturally, in a greatly simplified, dissected form. It is important to emphasize that the new, the unknown is reduced here to a better known specific name, specific person(person).
Objectification can also be carried out in another form: figurations. At the same time, the content of the concept, denoting something new, unfamiliar for an ordinary person, is tied not just to the name of someone, but to some formula associated with this name. Example: work with the concept of "theory of relativity". Few people in the randomly assembled company know anything significant about this theory, but once at school they heard something about this theory, just as they heard something about Einstein. Implemented
personalization: “Oh yes, the theory of relativity is
Einstein". But the forward movement continues: again, according to some old school memories, the formula E \u003d mc2 pops up in my memory. Its meaning has long been forgotten, it pops up almost visually, but the situation is saved: "How, how - the theory of relativity, Einstein, the formula E \u003d mc2." Also among non-professionals, one can observe a variant of reasoning about the philosophical current of rationalism: "Rationalism - it seems, Descartes - yes, of course, the formula "Cogito ergo sum"". “Knowledge” was also obtained this time, although, of course, again in some very approximate form.
The next stage is coming - naturalization: the acceptance of the received "knowledge" as some kind of objective reality. It does not matter that such "knowledge" is barely enough for a conversation in a random company, no more. Another thing is important - the need to bring new, encountered information in line with the existing picture of the world, which does not destroy it, is satisfied; it can be said that new knowledge is "tamed"
The above example well illustrates the main idea of the concept of social representations: each individual integrates and modifies at any given moment the social forms created by culture and separate groups. On this path, he meets various "intermediaries": institutions of power, laws, mass media, etc. All of them, of course, affect the extent and degree of modification of the concept when translating it into the representation of common sense. The most important background against which this happens is the group, its experience, its system of preconceived notions.
Moskovisi criticizes cognitivism for its "asociality", but also calls for an alliance, for the integration of the two approaches. He sees his contribution in the fact that he sees the source of social knowledge in social relations. He sees his theory as an attempt to place the problems of social cognition at the crossroads between psychology and social sciences. He considers the so-called “identification matrix” to be the most important addition to the cognitivist approach, which explains how new information fits into the cognitive structure of each individual, depending on how social group he identifies himself: "Each class defines a repertoire of behavior and rules, denoting what is allowed or forbidden to all who are included in it" [op. according to: 40]. That is why social knowledge is fixed in such matrices - a kind of framework for accepting social information. If you wish, you can see in the proposed matrices just a new version of traditional cognitive maps, schemes, repertory grids and other formations proposed in the cognitive stack tradition (this, by the way, is what some Moskovisi critics do). But for all that, the pathos of the main idea remains undeniable: in contrast to the “purely” cognitivist approach, which operates with rather abstract categories, the emphasis is constantly placed on the fact that the entire body of knowledge (“representations”) of a person about the world is given in the system, and this leads to To this, according to D. Jodelet, that “social representations are the object whose studies return social psychology to a historical, social and cultural scale” [cit. according to: 29]. one.
Response plan
The structure of social representations.
Functions of social representations.
The emergence of social ideas.
Self-image or personal identity.
Image of the Other.
Group image.
Time image.
The image of the environment.
image of the social world.
The main elements of the image of SM.
The image of the world and social instability.
Answer:
image of the social world.
The image of the social world is the result of the process of social cognition. This image has integrity, although individual elements are distinguished in it. Everyone has their own vision of the world. However, many have a belief in a just world (Lerner). The world is fair. Nothing bad can happen to us without our fault. This belief is seen as a kind of perceptual defense. We do not perceive the information that destroys faith in a just order of the world. For example, if an act of violence occurs, the victim will be blamed for it. disregard for the balance of justice is often the cause of conflicts.
In general, all elements form a single picture of the image of the social world. The following elements of the image of the social world are distinguished: the image-I or I-image, the image of the Other person, the image of the group, the image of time, the image of the environment and other elements that are difficult to classify.
Other elements of the social world can be described using the concept of social representations (E. Durkheim, S. Moskovisi, D. Jodelet). Social representations are a form of cognition of social reality. This is common sense knowledge. Social representations are born in our everyday thinking so that we can understand and interpret social reality.
The structure of social representations.
Structure: information, presentation field and setting.
Information is the sum of knowledge about an object.
The representation field is a qualitative characteristic of an object, a certain general semantic framework or a range of possible interpretations of this phenomenon. Formed in a group.
Installation - general attitude to the object. Represents the internalization of the information received and learned in the field of representations.
Functions of social representations.
knowledge - description, classification and explanation of phenomena;
mediation of behavior - regulation of orientations in behavior;
Adaptation is the integration of new knowledge into the existing ones.
The emergence of social ideas.
Two main processes of the emergence of social representations: objectification or objectification, anchoring.
Objectification is an operation to translate an abstract concept into a concrete figurative form. There are 3 phases (stages):
Selection: elements are selected from some general construction/theory. Often done by specialists who popularize this concept.
Formation of the symbolic core of representations: the selected elements add up to general scheme, picture.
Revitalization and naturalization: elements of the scheme are endowed with the properties of living natural beings and begin to be reproduced as some kind of existing reality.
Then comes anchoring- Binding a new social representation to the individual's already existing ones.
Social representations are the main element of group consciousness. The social representation expresses the attitude of a certain group to a particular social object. Our social representations are representations as a member of a particular group, class, culture. The group and social representations mutually influence each other. It is proposed to integrate two theories: the concept of social representations and social identity.
The theory of social representations is an analysis of how scientific knowledge is appropriated by ordinary consciousness and used in everyday practice. The theory was formulated by the French social psychologist Serge Moscovici. The consciousness of the theory of social representations was a response to the process of individualization of social psychology, which intensified after World War II and was expressed in the widespread dissemination of the ideas of American experimental social psychology. In this theory, Moscovici relies on the ideas of Durkheim, Vygotsky, Piaget, Wundt, Levy-Bruhl and offers a social interpretation of the social. psychology.
Social representation is a value system of ideas and practices designed to guide individuals in the social and material worlds, as well as to ensure intragroup communications between individuals.
In the theory of social representations, the following types of social representations are distinguished:
Leading - shared by all members of the group;
Uniform and compulsory
Emancipated - a product of circulating knowledge and ideas belonging to subgroups, each subgroup develops its own ideas;
Polemic - developed in a situation of social conflict or controversy, that is, not shared by all members of society, determined by their antagonistic relations.
The main methodological approaches to the study of social representations:
Influence study social structure for the development of social representation (Geneva School of Doise)
The study of the regulatory role of representations in social interaction(Jodem School of Paris)
Structure analysis.
In its structure, there are:
The core (a stable and stable part of ideas associated with collective memory, with the history of the group, its values and norms);
Peripheral system (specifies the meaning of the core of the representation, this is the link between the core and the specific situation in which the representation is developed and operates. It is characterized by variability and variability).
There are a number of areas in the theory of social representations:
The activity of groups in constructing meanings and giving meaning to objects and phenomena of the surrounding world is investigated.
Intergroup relations are considered.
Emphasis is placed on discursive analysis
The focus is on the structure of the views.
There are 3 structural components:
Information;
View field;
Installation.
Information is understood as the sum of knowledge about the object of study. On the other hand, information is seen as necessary condition their formation (People learn about nature and social worlds through sensory experience).
The field of representations is a hierarchized unity of elements, where there are figurative and semantic means of representations (interpretation of new information).
Attitude is defined as the relation of the subject to the representation object. It is believed that the installation is primary, since it can exist with insufficient awareness and fuzziness of the field of representations.
Functions: (G. M. Andreeva):
Maintaining the stability of consciousness;
Determination of behavior;
Interpretation of facts and their inclusion in noun. individual picture of the world.
Essence is the main thing, the main thing in a concept or phenomenon. To reveal the essence of the state means to reveal the main, determining factor that determines its objective necessity in society, to understand why society cannot exist and develop without the state. The essence of the state is the main thing in this phenomenon that determines its content, goals, functions. And such a basic is power, its belonging.
There are two main approaches to the essence of the state:
class;
general social.
With a class approach, the state can be viewed as an organization of the political power of the ruling class, in which class contradictions arise that are resolved with the help of violence. The class essence of the state is clearly expressed in non-democratic, dictatorial states.
In the general social approach, the state is seen as an organization of political power. In developed democratic countries, the state is an effective mechanism for eliminating social contradictions by reaching a public compromise. In them, the class essence recedes into the background.
When considering the state in development, a pattern of gradual transition from the class essence of the state to the social one is traced.
Along with these two approaches to the essence of the state, one can also single out national, religious, racial, etc. Depending on various conditions, certain interests may dominate.
Many scientists interpreted the essence of the state in different ways. Some believed that the state is a political phenomenon inherent in any class society.
Some scholars reduced the essence of the state to a variety of governing bodies of society.
In the modern period, the point of view is widespread that the state is a social organism, a political way of existence of civil society.
One of the important reasons for the emergence of the state was the need to consolidate and protect forms of ownership, primarily those means of production and wealth that appeared in an insignificant but very influential part of society.
In modern civilized societies, there is a narrowing of the coercive functions of the state, expansion and enrichment of social functions, which brings the state closer to the organization of the whole society, into a completely legal state (for example, in some advanced countries of the West).
Based on the foregoing, when defining the concept of the state, it is necessary to take into account both class elements and the corresponding characteristics, as well as universal, non-class features and characteristics.
The fundamental meaning of the essence of the state is that:
~ it territorial organization of people;
~ they overcome tribal ("blood") relationships and are replaced by social relations;
~ a structure is being created that is neutral to the national, religious and social characteristics of people.
Socialappointmentstates
Important for understanding the essence of the state is the understanding of its goals, objectives and social purpose. Plato and Aristotle believed that the state exists for the sake of establishing moral standards, achieving the common good of people and justice. Plato believed that the state creates the needs of people and it is useful. According to Aristotle, the state is the political communication of citizens. It provides a life in accordance with virtue. Modern Western political scientists believe that the state exists for the sake of creating a variety of social benefits for all members of society, a fair distribution of these benefits (Rostow and others). All this captures only certain aspects of the social essence of the state. The main thing in the social essence of the state is that it is the organizational form of society, its cohesion and functioning on generally recognized principles and norms.
Knowledge begins with surprise.
Aristotle
Social representations are the most complex mental formation of a person, since they correlate with a large number of mental phenomena: memory, beliefs, beliefs, ideologies. Some of these mental formations are still not fully understood, and perhaps cannot be studied in principle, due to the constant complication of mental processes.
At present, there are no rational explanations for many social phenomena that took place in the past, for example, the paradoxically great influence of fascist ideology and "racial theory" on huge masses of people in Europe and especially in Germany in the 30s. 20th century Of course, one can talk about the lost World War I, the humiliation of the German nation, the phenomenon of Hitler, etc. But can all these reasons fully explain the scale of the prevalence of fascism, which took the form of religious rituals (torchlight processions and bonfires from books) and ideological faith ? The situation is even more complicated with the communist ideology. On the one hand, it is connected with the ancient collective ideas of all Europeans about justice, equality and the right of the individual to make decisions, coming from the depths of millennia of the primitive system. On the other hand, in Russia during the Stalinist dictatorship, fundamental distortions of these ancient collective ideas arose. The very word "communism" began to be used all over the world in a negative sense.
Phenomena such as the mass suicide of members of the "People's Temple" in Guyana in the late 1970s, the rapid growth of new religious movements and their equally rapid collapse remain poorly understood. One way or another, they are all connected with the collective ideas of the participants about the main life values, which push people to such eccentric acts as the departure of a religious group with old people and babies underground in Penza region autumn 2007 in anticipation of the end of the world. The forced withdrawal from the cave in the spring of 2008 and the trial of the schizophrenic leader “forced” the sectarians to “postpone the end of the world” for 30 years, but, unfortunately, not to abandon it.
8.1. The concept of "social representations"
The origins of the theory of social representations are rooted in the ideas of E. Durkheim and L. Levy-Bruhl, who used the concept of "collective representations". “Social life consists entirely of representations,” wrote Durkheim. They are woven into the public consciousness, which is something quite different from the private consciousness, although they are possessed only by individuals. Durkheim explained the difference between public and individual consciousness by the fact that individual and public consciousness are formed from different elements. He considered collective representations to be the main element of social consciousness. They express the way in which group members make sense of themselves in their relationship with the world. Collective ideas are included in the consciousness of each of us, they dominate us from within. In this they differ from the beliefs and customs that act on us from the outside. The initial causes of the emergence of collective ideas, moods, attitudes, values are not the state of individual consciousness, but the conditions of social life and interaction between people. Durkheim believed that social psychology should study how representations merge together, attracting or excluding each other, having similarities or differences.
E. Durkheim distinguished between the concepts of "collective consciousness", "individual consciousness", "psychological type of society". Collective consciousness is “facts of a mental order, they consist in systems of ideas and actions” (55, p. 88). Collective consciousness differs from individual consciousness in that a certain number of states of consciousness are common to all members of the same society. The psychological type of community can be collective or individual. Durkheim proposed to consider three criteria for determining psychological type societies:
1) the ratio between the volumes of collective and individual consciousness;
2) the average intensity of the state of collective consciousness. Assuming equality of volumes, its impact on the individual is greater, the greater its life force. If it is weakly expressed, then it is easier for a person to follow his own path;
3) consensus on ideas, beliefs and customs: the more consistent ideas and beliefs, the less they leave room for individual differences.
Durkheim's main merit lies in the fact that he discovered the content of social consciousness, the main functions of which are to unite people, create solidarity, and accumulate the energy necessary for the development of society.
Durkheim's ideas were developed by the French philosopher, sociologist and social psychologist L. Levy-Bruhl. He believed that primitive thinking, obeying the law of participation (participation), is controlled by collective ideas. The content of these representations is made up of mythologems and ideologemes, which are extremely stable, “impenetrable to experience”. A person who is in the grip of collective ideas of this kind is deaf to the arguments of common sense, denies objective criteria in assessing the facts and events of real life.
Since the late 1950s Serge Moskovichi took up the development of the theory of social representations. In the book Psychoanalysis, Its Image and Its Public (1961), the author set himself the task of showing how a new scientific or political theory spreads in a certain culture, how it transforms and changes people's views on themselves and on the world in which they live. As an object of study, Moscovici chose psychoanalysis as a theory of human behavior that has penetrated into wide circles of French society and is present in the minds of people "in a spilled state." According to Moscovici, any new scientific theory after publication becomes an element of social reality.
In the first part of the book, the author used traditional questionnaires designed to assess the knowledge of different sections of the French population about psychoanalysis, its author and practical application. In the second part, a content analysis of articles published in 1952-1956 was carried out. in periodicals. Thus, the social ideas of the French about psychoanalysis and the sources from which they received this knowledge were analyzed (190, pp. 396-398).
In the 1980s Moscovici proposed replacing the term "collective representations" with the term "social representations". He explained his terminological innovation by the need to build bridges between the individual and the social world and to understand the latter as being in a state of constant change. The main thing, according to Moscovici, is that in modern post-industrial societies, scientific knowledge is of greater value, and through the system school education it is available to almost everyone. Therefore, collective ideas are being replaced by social ones.
The appeal to the concept of "social representation" was also due to the insufficiency of classical models, especially psychoanalysis and behaviorism, which could not explain the significant interactions of people with the outside world. Criticizing the concepts of "image", "opinion", "attitude", Moscovici explains the failure of the previous research tradition by the desire to understand and predict people's behavior within the framework of the object-subject paradigm, when everything comes down to the stimulus-response relationship. Moscovici believed that this approach led to a gap between the outer world and the inner world. In his opinion, "to imagine something is to consider the stimulus and response together, without separating them." At the same time, one should remember the words of J. Piaget about the givenness of “the interaction of the subject and the object, which, having interlocked, constantly change each other” (56, p. 379).
Moscovici characterized the end of the 20th - the beginning of the 21st century. as a genuine era of social representations. They owe their origin to the media and through them play a decisive role in the creation and dissemination of opinions, ideas, values and beliefs. Many ideas that arise in people are not so much individual as social.
Our mental apparatus is arranged by nature in such a way as to adequately reflect the world. However, notes Moscovici, there are failures and errors in the accuracy of reflection. The first reason for failures is the breakdown of the mental apparatus itself, the second reason is the influence of the social environment. In addition, three factors of distortion are called - cognitive, group and cultural. Firstly, an ordinary person in everyday life tends to neglect incoming information, to think in a stereotypical way. Secondly, it has been experimentally established that people who have gathered in a group change their mental qualities: they lose some and acquire others. Thirdly, culture imposes restrictions on the attribution and interpretation of perceived objects. People have created general way, which tells them how to classify objects, judge them according to their value, decide what information is trustworthy, etc. (122, pp. 4-7).
Social representations– is a complex scientific concept that includes:
a) images in which a set of meanings is concentrated;
b) reference systems that allow people to interpret events happening to them, to comprehend the unexpected;
d) theories that make it possible to make a decision about them.
As the French researcher Denise Jodelet emphasizes, social representations clothe social knowledge in a specific form, provide a way to interpret and comprehend everyday reality. The concept of "social representation" refers to "spontaneous", "naive" knowledge, to knowledge usually called common sense or natural thinking as opposed to scientific thinking. This knowledge is formed on the basis of experience, information, training, traditional ways of thinking, upbringing and social communication (56, p. 375).
Social representations are socially developed and shared knowledge with other people. They are aimed at ensuring that people master the environment, understand and can explain the facts and ideas that exist in the world, can influence others and act together with them, can position themselves in relation to them, answer questions, etc. Social Views perform four main functions:
1) cognitive;
2) integration of the new;
3) interpretation of reality;
4) orientation of behavior and social relations.
Social representations are practical knowledge. Being a mental product of society, like science, myths, religion, ideology, they differ from them in the ways of creation and functioning. Social representations should be approached as a product and process of processing psychological and social reality. D. Jodle gives the following definition.
social representationdenotes a specific form of knowledge: knowledge of common sense, the content of which testifies to the action of socially marked generative and functional processes. In a broader sense, it refers to a form of social thinking(56, p. 377).
A representation is a mental representative of something: an object, a person, an event, an idea. In this sense, it is related to a sign, a symbol. It is a mental reproduction of something else, but it also implies a certain creation, a share of individual or collective creativity.
Social representation is a kind of practical thinking aimed at communication, understanding and development of the social environment, material and ideal. It can only be adequately considered in the context of a particular culture. For example, in the culture of the Suri tribe living on the border of Ethiopia and Sudan, a woman is considered valuable if her lower lip was cut and her lower incisors were knocked out in childhood. A clay circle with a diameter of about 10 centimeters is inserted into the hanging lower lip. For such a "beauty" the ransom is 20 more cows. Most likely, this custom appeared as a way to prevent the abduction of women by men of other tribes.
8.2. Structure of social representations
According to the apt remark of D. Jodle, “social representations condense into one frozen image history, social relations and prejudice, which actually constitute their structure (56, p. 374). The researcher came to this conclusion as a result of studying the image of Paris in the eyes of its inhabitants in 1976. The choice of place of residence, the preferences of people showed the following division of the territory of the city: the historical center, then the ring encircling it, which appeared as a result of the social ordering of the city by Baron Osman in the middle of the 19th century, and, finally, the outskirts, where small people were forced out. This organization of space influenced the perception of various areas, especially the northeastern outskirts, which in the last 150 years were inhabited by the poor, and after the Second World War by emigrants from Portugal and Africa. Thus, the history of the city, its social stratification and racial prejudices have formed a social idea of more and less prestigious areas for life.
For a more accurate understanding of the phenomenon of social representations, one should present their structure as a system of processes associated with the mental reproduction of a certain object: an object, a person, a material or mental event, a thought, etc. It should be borne in mind that they do not duplicate either the real or ideal, neither the subjective nor the objective part of the object or subject. “Social representation is a process that establishes relationships to the world and objects” (56, p. 377). The structure of social representations is determined by the following provisions:
1. Social representation lies on the border between social and mental. Consequently, in its structure it is necessary to discover both what is determined by the life of the individual in society, and what is due to the peculiarities of his mental structure.
2. The structure of each representation, according to S. Moscovici, "appears to be bifurcated, it has two sides, as inseparable as two sides of one sheet of paper." These are figurative and symbolic sides. You can derive the following formula:
From the point of view of the structural approach, central and peripheral elements are distinguished in social representations. According to the hypothesis of S. Moscovici, the most rigid and archaic elements that are present in every social representation act as a central element: for example, about the role of the family, the social structure of the community, leadership style, etc., which have been introduced into human consciousness over the centuries. This fairly stable central core organizes other elements, determines the meaning of social representations and the possibility of changing it. The core consists of knowledge of a special property - normative, based not on facts, but on values which, in turn, are associated with the collective unconscious.
Selection central core representations is based on the following quantitative criteria: 1) the level of agreement of group members about the importance of a given characteristic of the representation object; 2) evaluation of its characteristics to determine the object.
As an example, let us cite the results of a study of the social ideas of our contemporaries about the upbringing of children in boarding schools. In 2007, studying the problems of children deprived of parental supervision, within the framework of the master's work (M. Lutskaya, 2008), 260 questionnaires were collected, one of the questions of which was aimed at identifying the social perception of the quality of raising children outside the family. The question was formulated as follows: “Do you think that a person who was deprived of parental care and spent his childhood in an orphanage can become a full-fledged person?” The results were amazing. Of all the women surveyed, 34% fully agreed with this judgment and 44.6% agreed with it, provided that they were fully cared for, that is, only about 80 %. And only 5.4% of women chose the statement: "No, such a person will never be able to build his family, because he does not have the necessary experience." It is especially alarming that the idea of the usefulness of education in boarding schools is widespread among women of childbearing age (81% in 18-25 year olds and 91% in 26-40 year olds). Even in men of the same age, these figures are lower (about 70%). Men were more likely to choose the neutral answer “difficult to say”. The result obtained indicates the presence of an established social representation, which historically formed in the USSR after 1917. As a result of the First World War, revolution and civil war turned out to be unattended great amount orphaned and lost children. Then orphanages were organized for the children of repressed parents, and after the Great Patriotic War for all the orphans. If children under the age of 5 were placed in orphanages, they were deprived of the main socializing agents necessary for normal emotional development. The fate of infants was especially tragic, since in the orphanages even today only their physical survival is ensured and there are no conditions for full-fledged socialization. All children left without parental care receive mental trauma (see the works of E. Erickson and J. Bowlby), but those who survived naturally believe that upbringing in an orphanage is quite acceptable, that this is the norm. So do those around you.
Today, when considering the problems of the demographic situation in Russia, we must take into account the false social perception that we have identified, which has developed as a result of tragic history country, those relations, values and beliefs that were quite actively promoted and introduced into the consciousness at the time communist regime, for example, the Stalinist idea to raise ideological fighters without the influence of bourgeois-oriented parents. All these factors contributed to the formation nuclei social perception of the reliability of orphanages and boarding schools as normative educational institutions. It is this false social perception that is responsible for the constant increase in the number of young women who abandon their children right in maternity hospitals. After all, they do not know anything about the fact that their healthy children are doomed to a sharp lag in psychophysical development precisely in the first two years of life, that this lag can never be filled, that the lack of emotional contacts leads to a loss of a sense of trust forever.
This example confirms Moscovici's idea that the content of the core of social representations is determined by the historical, social and ideological conditions of the existence of a people or group.
The peripheral system of social representations is intended to explain individual differences in the process of representation. It is more fluid than the central core and therefore provides an opportunity to integrate various information and practices. It consists of cognitive schemas and is a mediating link between representation and reality. Social representation is personally determined by its bearer, that is, the subject, individual, family, group, and, finally, society as a whole. Therefore, representation depends on the position occupied by subjects in society, economy and culture. And since any social representation is a representation of something or someone, then social representation can be defined as a process that establishes a relationship to an object, subject, and the relationship between them.
D. Jodle calls five fundamental properties of representation:
- is always a representation of the object;
- has a figurative character and the ability to make sensory and mental, percept and concept interdependent;
- is symbolic and denoting;
- has a constructive character;
– acquires the properties of autonomy and creativity (56, pp. 377-380). Experiment J.-C. Abrika (1976) aimed to reveal the relationship between the interpretation given by a representation and behavior.
Abrik's experiment. The experimental situation in which the subject found himself made it possible to prepare for interaction with a partner and give meaning to his behavior. The subject had to interact with the partner through the experimenter. This fictitious partner was presented either as a person or as a machine. Depending on the interpretation of the partner (as a person or as a machine), the subject develops different behavior. With a man, great flexibility and adaptability of behavior is manifested, and with a machine - great rigidity and intransigence (56, pp. 389-390).
The results indicate that social representations have a surprising duality, they can be both innovative and rigid at the same time, that is, they are both mobile and stable. Moscovici called this phenomenon cognitive polyphasia.
Thus, social representations have a rather complex structure that combines the image and its meaning for the individual. Every social representation has a core, conditioned by the historical, social and ideological conditions of the existence of the people, and peripheral systems associated with personal characteristics and social status of the individual. In addition, the individual's social representations can be both rigid and flexible at the same time, depending on the object with which the individual interacts and on the previously formed attitude towards it. This happens very often in everyday life. A person either agrees with a new opinion or disagrees, depending on who expresses this opinion. If for a person the bearer of a new social representation is an undoubted authority, he will show great flexibility, perceiving new information for himself and embedding it into existing cognitive systems. If the bearer of new information does not have such moral authority, new ideas will be discarded, and the person will show rigidity, intransigence and unwillingness to change anything in his ideas.
8.3. Formation of social representations
The process of formation of social representations depends on many factors. However, one way or another, they develop in an individual under the influence of various influences of the surrounding social and natural world, as well as personality traits and previously formed ideas. On fig. 8.1. a cognitive model of the formation of social representations is shown. The natural and social environment constantly produces information that is selectively perceived and assimilated by man. He forms social representations, as a kind of picture of the world, which, in turn, directs his efforts to transform the environment.
S. Moscovici, analyzing the phenomena of representations, identifies two main questions underlying the theory:
– how does social representation participate in the psychological processing of information?
- like this psychological work operates in the social?
In this regard, Moscovici proposes to distinguish between two processes that explain how the social transforms knowledge into representation and how the emerging representation transforms the social. These two processes Moscovici calls objectification and implementation. They determine the process of formation of social representations.
Rice. 8.1. Cognitive model of the formation of social representations
8.3.1. The process of objectification
In the process of objectification, the content of words and concepts is somewhat simplified and, as Moscovici says, "superfluous meanings are absorbed."
Objectification– it is the concretization of abstractions and the materialization of concepts and words, which are given a figurative and structural content.
P. Roqueplo (P. Roqueplo, 1974) illustrates this process with the following example. In everyday life, we use the word "weight", which allows us to interpret the physical concept of mass at the level of common sense. And although the scientific definition of mass has existed for 300 years and is part of our school knowledge and our culture, we still use the word “weight”, which came into use several millennia ago, when our ancestors sought to compare objects of different density and mass (56, p. 382).
The process of objectification consists of three successive phases:
1. Selection elements of scientific theories and taking them out of context. So, according to Moscovici, happened to psychoanalysis in France. People who had unequal access to information “pulled out” the prohibitions regarding the sexual side from the theory, since this was consistent with their previous ideas. Thus, the general public projects information from the field of science into their everyday world. Incidentally, the same thing happened to psychoanalysis in our country, since most people (non-specialists) are convinced that Freud is “something about sex.”
2. Formation of the "figurative nucleus". In this process, if we continue the example of psychoanalysis, the main concepts of psychoanalysis are involved: conscious, subconscious, repression, complexes. A logical scheme is constructed from them, which creates a kind of ordinary vision of Freud's theory and is compatible with other theories of man.
3. Naturalization. The figurative model allows for better assimilation of new concepts that become natural and widely used to explain human behavior. For example, “the subconscious is restless”, “the complexes are aggressive”, “the conscious and subconscious parts of the individual are in a state of conflict”. They begin to play out in plays, movies and novels. The explanatory scheme integrates the elements of science into the reality of common sense (56, pp. 382-384).
Rice. 8.2. Explanatory scheme for the objectification of Freud's theory in everyday consciousness (56, p. 383)
Thus, the process of objectification makes scientific concepts more accessible to the ordinary consciousness of people, although this simplifies, and in some cases somewhat distorts the meaning of scientific theories.
8.3.2. Implementation of social representations
The implementation process is complex and even fundamental. It is in a dialectical relationship with objectification and links together the three main functions of social representations: the cognitive function of integrating new knowledge, the function of interpreting reality, and the function of regulating behavior and social relations.
Implementation– it is a process that: a) gives meaning to an object; b) systematically interprets the social world, setting the framework for behavior; c) integrates views into social systems, converting those elements that correspond to them.
D. Jodle considers the process the introduction of social representations as the attribution of meaning. She explains this by the example of the penetration of psychoanalytic theory into the public consciousness, when new theory assigned different meanings. Initially, psychoanalysis was considered not as a science, but as an attribute of various groups (rich, women, intellectuals).
Later, it became a symbol of freedom of sexual life in the wider society. The attribution of meaning depended on the social status of groups, their system of values and ideas, which could be correlated and reconciled with the ideas of psychoanalysis. The process of introducing social concepts of psychoanalysis depended on how groups expressed their identity and what meanings they attached to ideas about themselves.
Besides, implementation regarded as instrumentalization of knowledge. In the case of psychoanalysis, the social concept of science has gradually been transformed into knowledge useful to all, which helps people understand themselves and those around them. People begin to use the conceptual vocabulary of psychoanalysis to explain the behavior of others. In films and books in Russian, the concepts of psychoanalysis are also gradually spreading, initially in those translated from foreign languages, and now Russian-speaking authors. The term “inferiority complex”, proposed by A. Adler, has become especially popular in everyday speech.
Finally, one can consider implementation as a fixation in the system of thoughts. We are constantly learning something new, previously unknown. The introduction of new information involves mechanisms of a general nature, which we already met in Chapter 5 on social cognition. These are classification, categorization, labeling, naming, as well as explanatory procedures that follow their own logic. To understand something new means to explain it to yourself and assimilate it. The process of cognition of new social representations is based on existing knowledge, on milestones, with the help of which implementation introduces the already known and gives it a familiar explanation. “To learn something new means to bring it closer to what we already know, characterizing it with the words of our language” (56, p. 391).
Let's explain this procedure on an example, for which we will try to use the experience of our historical knowledge, since the process of introducing psychoanalysis into French society is quite far away for the Russian reader. As an example, we can discuss our social perception of the status of Prince Alexander Nevsky in Veliky Novgorod. On the one hand, for several centuries now we have been intensively introduced into our consciousness that a prince is a person who has full power, that is, meaning is being introduced social perception of the commander as the main controlling figure, standing at the top of the hierarchical ladder of feudal society. However, such an idea does not agree well with the fact that Prince Alexander was invited by the Novgorodians as a commander. twice.
Where did the prince go after the first victory on the Neva? Why didn't he immediately agree with the second proposal? Why didn't he become a permanent commander and ruler of Novgorod? Scientists, of course, know the answers to these questions: Novgorod was a republic, and there were no prince-rulers in it. Consequently, Alexander Nevsky was a hired commander, that is, not even chosen by the governor (like strategists in Greek policies), but temporarily acting. He was hired and paid for a job well done. But you can't read anything about it. school textbook stories. Process instrumentalization knowledge takes a different path: a description of the heroism of the Novgorodians, the tactics of the German, Swedish and Russian troops, battle schemes and other details that give the necessary authenticity to events. Through innuendo, the image of the commander is fixed in the system of hierarchical thinking traditional society, from feudal in the XV century. to totalitarian in the 20th century. The image of the ruler of Novgorod is imposed, which can be built into the existing social idea of the feudal hierarchy and the centralized Russian state. Therefore, the facts are spoken out, but not explained, and due to the invented details and replicas in the movies, the image of the feudal leader of Novgorod is drawn, which Alexander Nevsky never was.
Thus, under the influence of ideology, the necessary social representation is formed, which goes back to the era of Ivan III. The situation may change if the authorities need to turn to their own traditions of democratic governance. Nothing will change in the image of Prince Alexander Nevsky himself, he will remain a hero Russian history because he really is. The description of the context of his patriotic service will change. This example shows that ideology is always present in social representations.
D. Jodlet also considers the process of introducing ideas into social consciousness through the structuring of its form. The implementation process is stratified into several forms that allow you to understand:
1) how the value of the represented object is attached;
2) how representation is used as a system of interpretation of the social world;
3) how the integration of the new representation into the already established system takes place and how it correlates with the existing knowledge.
Using the example of orphanages and orphanages, we can consider the implementation process proposed by the researcher through the structuring of the form. 1. The value of the children's homes is easily determined through the alternative - the child will either survive or die without maternal care. Naturally, the choice is made in favor of life. 2. The organization of the system of interpretation of the social world is built around the belief, traditional for European culture, that all members of the community, young and old, should receive social support. In Asian cultures, the extended family performs the same function, so there are practically no children's homes or nursing homes in these countries. 3. The integration of the new idea into the already established system of ideas is easy, since several generations of Russians are personally well acquainted with orphanages and boarding schools. Consequently, the formula of our knowledge is as follows: children, of course, sorry, but there is nothing wrong with that.
The numerous examples of the penetration of psychoanalysis into everyday social representations of people given in this chapter are due not so much to its special significance and usefulness in the 21st century, but to the fact that it was on the example of the spread of this theory that Moscovici first investigated the problem of transforming scientific knowledge into a system of social representations. For Russia, it is not psychoanalysis as such that is important, but modern scientific theories in the field of social psychology, which will contribute to the eradication of prejudices and false social ideas, especially in the field of principles of human interaction and education of the younger generation.
8.4. The main directions of the study of social representations
8.4.1. Social representations of the past
AT last third 20th century the formation of ideas about the past has become the object of close attention on the part of psychologists, who until then dealt mainly with general problems of cognitive processes and memory. History began to be understood as part of social memory which directly affects the behavior of people and the decision-making of governments different countries. The modern culturologist Jan Assmann believes that in the cultural evolution of mankind, "cultural memory" forms and reproduces the identity of the tribal group, state, nation, etc. This process is carried out through the constant circulation of cultural meanings, their exchange - that is, through communications. Civilization, he believes, arises when restrictions are first imposed on the "right of the strong" and values and rules are formed that regulate the cohabitation of people (16, p. 27).
AT historical science 20th century there have been major shifts: the history of events has been replaced by a history of interpretations. So since the early 1980s. historians began an active study of collective memory, using the concepts and terms of social psychology, paying special attention to social representations. To interpret these or those events, it took the whole arsenal of psychological knowledge to explain the actions of people and their behavior in difficult situations choice and decision making. One of the most famous and large-scale works in this direction was the French project under the leadership of Pierre Nora (P. Nora) "Places of Memory". The aim of the study was to reconstruct the collective memory in France, based on places, things and events that together determine the material of history. Monuments, events, rituals, symbols and traditions that make up the diversity of French national identity have become “symbolic objects”: the Pantheon, Joan of Arc, the Arc de Triomphe, the Larousse dictionary, the Wall of the Communards and dozens of others. The main task research, which brought together the largest historians of France, was the search for answers to questions that are topical for today's French society: what is France? what does it mean to be french? how did ideas about France and the French change over time?
The search for a new collective identity is also relevant for Russia today. The rapidly changing world urgently sets the task of forming new national (and often supranational) identities, requiring the transformation of existing forms of collective memory. Studies already carried out on historical memory in modern Russia include both socio-psychological and sociological knowledge to more accurately determine the content of social representations.
8.4.2. Beliefs, convictions and ideologies
The study of the system of representations of individuals and groups began to develop especially intensively after the Second World War, in which more than 60 million people died. It was necessary to understand how this could happen, what exactly prompted people to such terrible crimes. This phenomenon was studied both at the level of individuals (experiments by F. Zimbardo and S. Milgram) and at the level of ideologies. One of the first studies was the work "The Authoritarian Personality", carried out under the direction of Theodor Adorno (T. Adorno). The authors raised the question of a paradox: how to explain the fact that the Nazi ideology was able to form in a country with a long cultural tradition, aroused enthusiasm and was supported by a large number of people? T. Adorno rightly believes that some psychological mechanisms were involved that ensured the popularity of fascist slogans. He did not specify which ones, but introduced four parameters represented by a system of attitude scales: anti-Semitism, economic-political conservatism, anti-democratic tendencies, and ethnocentrism.
In terms of social psychology, these attitudes were operationalized by M. Rokeach. He suggested that the basis of simplified representations, called stereotypes, is general mental rigidity, which affects not only cognitive structures, but also emotional value judgments. It was then that M. Rokeach introduced a new concept - "dogmatism".
As part of the study of social representations, more complex experiments were carried out in which an attempt was made to understand the human mentality as a much more complex entity than is commonly believed. Indeed, despite the psychoanalytic developments of T. Adorno, E. Fromm and M. Horkheimer (M. Horkheimer), the experiments of S. Asch, F. Zimbardo, S. Milgram, the motives of the people who controlled concentration camps in Nazi Germany and in the Soviet Union, because these people in everyday life were neither sadists nor psychopaths. What convictions and beliefs were they guided by? After all, until now, as an excuse for Stalin's repressions, one can hear that no one was imprisoned in vain. We hear the voice of the victims, but we know little about the convictions of those who played the role of executioners. Therefore, it is necessary to talk about false social ideas, since there are quite a lot of them today.
J.-P. Deconchy (J.-P. Deconchy) notes that the question of identifying the specifics of the formation of beliefs and beliefs was raised by the American psychologist M. Lerner in the early 1960s. Together with other scientists, he continues this work today. M. Lerner's idea is original: in order to explain the paradoxical socio-psychological behavior established experimentally, he puts forward the hypothesis of the existence of a special faith, the impact of which is quite widespread, namely, faith in the "justice of the world" (distributive justice), which plays a role filter in the perception of facts (48, p. 360).
The fundamental paradox of our psyche is that, knowing the finiteness of our existence, seeing the amount of evil, suffering and injustice in human communities, we continue to live and strive to constantly do something to improve the situation. To do this, each of us builds a complex argument, at the center of which is the idea of "the justice of the world", when every person in the end deserves what he gets, that sooner or later evil will be punished. This is what the most ancient socio-psychological textbooks of life teach us - fairy tales, where good always triumphs over evil. A witty experiment conducted by M. Lerner with students of one of the American universities showed that people are always internally ready to find additional arguments in favor of the winner.
Lerner experiment
The subjects were students who observed the work of two people - Bill and Tom. Two students, assistants to the experimenter, worked together, they created anagrams on the material of the vocabulary reported to them. Both worked equally well. But then the subjects were told that due to the reduction in funding for research, the work of one of them would not be paid. One of them must be eliminated by drawing lots. The results obtained were amazing. Different groups of students believed that the one to whom the lot fell, and it fell in each case, first to one, then to the other, “deserved” the reward because he worked better or because he was prettier. And this despite the fact that the subjects knew about the randomness of the choice and the procedure of drawing lots.
The experiment showed that people filter their perception when analyzing a situation through the belief or conviction that "everyone gets what he deserves", that there is a fate that is favorable for one and disastrous for another. And in this case, we are practically no different from the ancient Greeks, in whose myths the theme of the inevitability of fate is always present.
Another experiment, called the Lerner and Simmons paradigm (1967), was also designed to confirm that people believe in the justice of the world.
Lerner and Simmons experiment
The Lerner-Simmons hypothesis was as follows: if the perception of social space is indeed mediated by the belief that "the world is just," then the very expression "innocent victim" would be self-contradictory. Scientists have tried to identify perceptual-cognitive strategies aimed at belittling the victim, at underestimating her qualities, at casting doubt on her behavior (48, pp. 361-362).
The subjects were told that they were participating in an experiment to study emotional reactions characteristic of people in different social situations. They had to watch them through a mirror without an amalgam, that is, covertly. The observed situation was quite tough. The student and the experimenter's assistant conducted a training session in which the student had to memorize a very long list of paired words and verbally pair the stimulus word called assistant with its pair. As punishment for the mistake, the student received a rather painful electric shock.
At the end of the session, the subjects answered a questionnaire designed to describe the general behavior of the student. The questionnaire included 15 bipolar scales with adjectives that have a pronounced value judgment. The subjects had to determine what type of interaction they would like to participate in with this student, and say how much they identify with him.
The results of the experiment surprised the scientists, since the subjects had to evaluate the actual "innocent victim." In all cases, the subjects sought to belittle the personality of the student - the "innocent victim". In the first case, the victim is humiliated the least if the subjects think that the training session is over, the victim's suffering has ended, or that she has received positive reinforcement - a reward for her suffering. In the second case, the qualities of the victim's personality and her work are rated lower if the subjects think that only half the time of the training session has passed and it is not known what will happen next. In the third case, the belittling of the victim's personality is the most significant and occurs when the subjects heard the student tell the experimenter before the training session that, despite the fear of the upcoming suffering, he agrees to it out of dedication and self-denial (48, pp. 361-362 ).
According to J.-P. Deconchi, the results of the experiment with merciless truthfulness remind us that people strive to justify “inconvenient” facts for themselves not only in the affective, but also in the cognitive sense, in extreme cases reaching the denial of their existence in general. For example, the current Iranian leadership denies the very fact of the Holocaust and the genocide of the Jewish people during the Second World War. So it is necessary to justify the aggressive plans against modern Israel.
The originality of Lerner's experiments lies in the fact that he explores not just certain aspects of social representations, but tries to find the mechanism of their formation, including false beliefs. The scientist concludes that there must certainly be “something” that filters the perception of uncomfortable situations and organizes their decoding. This “something”, not yet defined by science, nevertheless leads to well ideologically organized systems. This vague "something" directly affects the style of interaction between people. According to Deconchi, the most appropriate name psychological status this “something” – “beliefs and convictions” (48, p. 363). However, the question remains where exactly these beliefs and convictions come from, which people tend to ardently defend.
In our opinion, here we should recall the amazing experiment of I. P. Pavlov, which was described by L. S. Vygotsky. He shows how the distortion and even perversion of ideas occurs as a result of negative personal experience.
Pavlov's experiment
A classic example of a "perversion of instinct" is the experience of Academician Pavlov with the training of a conditioned reflex in a dog to cauterize the skin with an electric current. First, the animal responds to pain irritation with a violent defensive reaction, it rushes out of the machine, grabs the device with its teeth, and fights with all means. But as a result long series In experiments during which pain stimulation was accompanied by food reinforcement, the dog began to respond to burns inflicted on it with the same reaction that it usually responds to food. The well-known English physiologist Sherrington, who was present at these experiments, said, looking at the dog: “Now I understand the joy of the martyrs with which they went up to the stake.” In his own words, he outlined the tremendous perspective that this classic experience opened up. In this simple experience, he saw a prototype of those profound changes in our nature that are caused by education and influence on us. environment... Conditioned reflexes, building on unconditioned ones, deeply modify them, and very often, as a result of personal experience, we observe a “perversion of instincts”, that is, a new direction received innate reaction thanks to the conditions in which it manifested itself (41, p. 31).
Despite the terminology adopted in science at the beginning of the 20th century, it is easy to see that the very process of acquiring a “perverted instinct” under the influence of a situation where a dog cannot avoid painful electric shocks is very reminiscent of M. Seligman’s concept of learned helplessness. In a situation where electric shocks are accompanied by feeding, the dog is “forced” to “get used” to them. She doesn't display learned helplessness or lie down to die, but her life is hardly pleasant. The same mechanism of adaptation operates in human communities: if I cannot change reality, I am forced to get used to it and justify the actions of the authorities. In this way, false social perceptions can be formed. This is especially vividly illustrated by the spread of fascist ideology, which was accompanied by a rapid improvement in the material situation of “purebred” Germans (social security system, trade unions) and an increase in their social status: after all, they were not Jews, therefore, they had a high status and nothing threatened them. This means that one can turn a blind eye to the obvious violence and injustice in relation to Otherness.
The field of research on social representations of beliefs and beliefs is still waiting to be further development. At the same time, it is clear that beliefs are sociocognitive processes not associated with any specific theory or methodology. Conducted in the late 1990s. experiments by Deconchi and Hurteau (1997) showed that irrational explanations of phenomena arise in situations where there is no cognitive control. That is, people who cannot rationally explain this or that phenomenon tend to look for its cause, mythologizing the incomprehensible and unexplored. This area of research on social representations requires fundamentally different approaches to theoretical constructions and new research methods.
The study of social representations is a powerful alternative to models of social cognitivism, as it explores the cognitive mechanisms that operate in social thinking. Through their links to language, ideology, symbolism, social imagination, and their role in guiding human behavior, social representations give new meaning and a new direction to social psychology.
Social representations began to be studied within the framework of social psychology much later than values and attitudes. A new concept has been developed since the early 1960s. S. Moskovichi and his school. Experimental work in this area has led to a deeper understanding of both the social representations of the individual and the role of social representations in the life of society. At the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, according to Moscovici, the collective ideas inherent in traditional society gave way to social ideas, a significant part of which is formed under the influence of the media. Particularly important is Moscovici's conclusion about the importance of social representations for the survival of society - they give meaning and unite people, ensure existence in unity, and ultimately create a community.
Social representations have a complex structure in which there are central and peripheral components. The core of social representations consists of knowledge of a special nature - normative, based not on facts, but on values. They represent the most rigid and archaic elements. Selection central core representations is based on quantitative criteria, primarily on the level of agreement of group members about the importance of a particular characteristic of the representation object.
The formation of social representations depends on many factors; they develop in an individual under the influence of various influences of the surrounding social and natural world, as well as personality traits and previously formed ideas. Moscovici identified two processes that explain how the social transforms knowledge into representation and how this representation transforms the social. These two processes Moscovici calls "objectification" and "introduction".
Today, the study of social representations is centered around the problem of "cultural and historical memory" as part of the social representations that determine the identity of individuals, groups and ethnic groups.
The study of the mechanisms of formation of a system of ideologies, beliefs and beliefs showed that there are certain filters that allow maintaining the stability of beliefs. Such a filter, in particular, is the belief in the “justice of the world”, which makes people attribute dignity to a randomly won person. M. Lerner's experiments make it possible to grope for the mechanism of formation of social representations. According to M. Lerner, there is “something” that filters the perception of uncomfortable situations and organizes their decoding, leading to the emergence of ideologically well-organized systems. However, the question remains where exactly these beliefs and convictions come from, which people tend to ardently defend.
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