Social Representations Constitute the Principal Organising Agents of Individual thought a Discussion - Research Paper Example

SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS CONSTITUTE THE PRINCIPAL ORGANISING AGENTS OF INDIVIDUAL THOUGHT A DISCUSSION Introduction “ …… in knowing any phenomenon in the world, we can know only what we can grasp by means of available concepts, individual and social experience and the ways of communication.”1 In our day to day life we meet a lot of people. We are subject to many impressions and statements. There are also a lot of explanations found in the action of others. Over and above all of this we are bombarded with various messages from the media. The phenomenal increase in means of communication has radically changed the way we perceive the world around us. Radio, Television and now the internet have drastically lowered the time lag between occurrence of an event and its reporting. Many happenings can now be seen unfolding almost live. In the circumstances our individual thoughts can not stay aloof of these impressions and shape the way we perceive and understand the world. Earlier on, individual thought was the result of an orthodoxy shared with the immediate surrounding community. The community thought as a whole entity. Later still in the age of enlightenment i.e. after the advent of the written word, individual thought was freed from the shackles of traditional beliefs. In the present era, however social representations shape our thoughts to the extent that we are unable to make any choice without reference to the social repercussions that it may have. Our impressions are informed by the social representations which organize our thoughts. Our thoughts however arise out of multiple stimuli, which may be physical, economical or the purely personal like loss of a loved ones. These thoughts do not arise out of social representations but out of our innate instinct. This paper will discuss whether social representations constitute the principal agents of individual thoughts. Some Definitions Representation for an individual or otherwise means a formal system for clearly expressing information from various sources and the method with which this is done. Social representations are the means of communication and understanding of the complex phenomena that form the collective impact on the individual. Social representations are the "environment" in relation to the individual or group, and are specific to our society.2 Humans are social animals, living through interaction with each other. Individuals therefore do not think in isolation. Instead, they construct a framework of shared references which define how to think about the world around them. Such shared references can be viewed as social representations.3 Social representations are a set of ideas, beliefs, opinions and other bits of knowledge which we share with other members of a particular group. There are various groups that we belong to. Some of us have political affiliations and some belong to Parents Teachers Associations. Some persons belong to special interest groups like parents of autistic children. Our perceptions, thoughts and ideas shared with one particular group will form one set of social representations for us. Social representation as a term was used firstly by Serge Moscovici. However, the origin of social representation as a special cognitive phenomenon was inspired by the theory of collective consciousness or representation propounded by Durkheim in the nineteenth century. The social representation theory is an evolution of the term collective representation used by Durkheim. However, collective representations are not to be confused with social representations, nor are social representations like individual cognitions. Social Representations Theory (is) …… a theory of the social knowledge that binds us together, that makes joint projects possible, and which enables us to live in a pluralistic world of alternative representations4 Moscovici studied psychoanalysis in France and published his research in 1961 in a paper titled La psychanalyse, son image et son public in which propounded the theory of social representations. It was used by him to mean the shared perception of social circumstances by the community which was used by it to set standards of behavior and communication of ideas. Social representations have a double function. Firstly, they establish an order which allows individuals to adjust themselves in the community and make themselves better members by practice of ideas derived by these social representations and “secondly, to enable communication to take place among the members of a community by providing them with a code for social exchange and a code for naming and classifying unambiguously the various aspects of their world and their individual and group history".5 The study of social representations entails the analysis of how we come to form our opinions from external stimuli. Social representations allow us to make sense of the world that we live in and allow us to communicate with ease with other individuals or groups. Knowledge comes to us as an instinct or as information passed down by some better informed people like scientists and theorists in other fields. The study of social representations is the study of how this second type of information becomes common sense from being knowledge of a specialist. What is our perception of swine flu or the virus now famous as H1N1 virus? Scientists have discovered a lot of information about this particular phenomenon. But our social representations tell us that this is derived from pigs, that it may turn fatal and that it can be prevented by vaccination. Sociologists study the methods of circulation of scientific theories and their percolation down to the layman which then becomes what is known as common sense. Thus we say that it is “common sense” to get inoculated against the swine flu virus. The scientists gain knowledge by following particular scientific rules and procedures with leads them to specialized knowledge. This knowledge is then made public either by word of mouth or in print, voluntarily or otherwise and then it is open to elaboration and discussion by the public at large. The public may simplify, distort or ritualize it. “First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win” Mahatma Gandhi The knowledge may be made almost a sacred bit of information, as in the scare over the Y2K phenomenon when the doomsday prediction was taken as a scientific certainty. On the other hand, genuinely good ideas meet the opposite fate. For instance, the theory of evolution of species propounded by Darwin was treated in this manner On the one hand collective representations are produced by societies, yet on the other hand, they are part of individual psychological functioning to the extent of structuring the minutiae of perception.6 In his study, Moscovici investigated the way scientific theories interact with what we term common sense. He was also interested in analyzing what happens when the specialized scientific knowledge is understood and popularized in the general public. For such analysis, Moscovici imagined two universes, the reified universe and the consensual universe. The former is in the sphere of science, operates according to scientific rules and procedures and gives rise to scientific knowledge. Social representation is the consensual universe lay public where sense is made the often obscure terms in simple language. This then becomes common sense. Social Representations as Agents of Individual Thoughts We as members of an increasingly global society derive a lot of information of which we try to make sense with the help of certain guidelines. What a particular bit of information means to an individual, a group of persons or even entire nations depends upon circumstances prevalent, but the perception about the implication of that event by an individual is shaped primarily by his set of social representations which he shares with differing sets of people. Thus the role religion plays in our mind, our political leaning and the social norms that we adopt are all the outcome of the social contexts that these thoughts arise from. For example, a warlike condition may make a particular person feel more tolerant of his fellow citizens. Conversely, a profiteer will look upon this situation as an opportunity to make handsome profits. The change in circumstances Our religious beliefs, political and social ideologies, ideas about right and wrong, and even scientific theories are for the most part defined by the social contexts in which they develop. We are, as individuals, more or less ruled by our basic instincts. But this is also subject to the all pervading influence of society and our participation in it. We learn from books and other means of knowledge communication, but the various social representations that we are faced with are the main influences that go in to shaping our thoughts. Our perceptions about the medical condition of a person may be informed by his race, ethnicity, language in which he communicates, his relative attractiveness. His actions, speech, diction and choice of form of language (formal or informal) reveals to the doctor an impression which is the result of years of assimilation of perceptions about all these aspects, which can not be singled out. When we say something is wrong with him, we may be talking about the physical or mental condition, his robustness or otherwise, but there is relatively little that we can be impressed with unless it has come to us in the form of some social representation. Social representations or a combination of them are used as a tool by people who want to manipulate others. Thus an orator may in various ways influence an audience. He may do so by his diction i.e. his delivery of sentences, the language that he uses, and the subtle messages he conveys by leading his audience in a particular manner to the conclusion that he wants them to arrive at. He may act hurt at the action of a person perceived as an enemy by the audience. However the audience might have been prejudiced against the opinion that the orator wants to put across, his appeals to their preconceived attitudes which are formed by the impression of social representations work effectively to make his ideas sound appropriate to the audience. Social representations are formed by two processes known as anchoring and objectification. In anchoring, new ideas are assimilated or anchored in to old established notions, whereas in objectification, abstract ideas are given a definite form. For example, Mohammed Ali came to be objectified as the symbol of conversion of hitherto Christian Afro-Americans to Islam. His race, colour, his success at boxing, his lifestyle and the aura around him all contributed to his becoming a hero to the public. Likewise, Stephen Hawking, a talented scientist was made in to a celebrity. This may have been despite of or probably because of his being afflicted by a complicated disease. Our notions as to how a scientist should look, his unconventional and crippled life, his victory over his illness all form part of the phenomenon that has made his book “A Brief History of Time” the most selling ‘popular’ (i.e. it is not intended for a specific likely readership of scientists) science book. Thus we are forced to make our beliefs according to the prevalent notions to which we are conditioned by social representations and it can be safely said that social representations are the principal agents of individual thought. References Moscovici, S. Attitudes and opinions. (1963) Annual Review of Psychology, Vol 14, 231-260. http://thinkexist.com/quotations/Ridicule/ retrieved on 23rd August 2010 Alex Gillespie Social Representations, Alternative Representations and Semantic Barriers http://stir.academia.edu/documents/0010/8334/Gillespie_Alternative_representations_and_semantic_barriers.pdf retrieved on 23rd August 2010 Ivana Markova Gerard Duveen on the epistemology of social representations (2010) Papers on Social Representations Volume 19, pages 4.1-4.9 (2010) http://www.psych.lse.ac.uk/psr/PSR2010/19_04Markova.pdf retrieved on 23rd August 2010 Invitation for submissions for Special Issue on “Cultural encounters and social solidarity” Papers on Social Representations http://www.psych.lse.ac.uk/psr/ retrieved on 23rd August 2010 Moscovici, S. The phenomenon of social representations. In R. M. Farr & S. Moscovici (eds.) Social Representations, 1984 http://faculty.babson.edu/krollag/org_site/soc_psych/moscovici_soc_rep.html retrieved on 23rd August 2010 Introduction to the Theory of Social Representations Internet Article (Author unknown) http://pages.slc.edu/~gphiloge/socrep.html retrieved on 23rd August 2010 Read More