Value of Social Representation Theory to the Social Sciences - Essay Example

Critically discuss the value of social representation theory to the social sciences and Section # of Name> This essay seeks to familiarize the reader with an important contribution to social psychology; the social representations theory. It applies to a broad range of concrete situations and provides people with insights into their modern lives. The essay highlights the contribution of the above mentioned theory to social psychology. Dispelling popular myths it also enlightens the reader on what the theory can do. It is however criticized for supporting emotion based on a certain social order. Secondly no efforts have been made to promote the theory in order to utililize it for areas other than lay knowledge and science. Its uses include in the democratization of developing countries and in areas such as health and medicine. "Social theory refers to the use of theoretical frameworks to explain and analyze social action, social meanings and large-scale social structures. The field is interdisciplinary, drawing ideas from and contributing to such disciplines as anthropology, economics, history, literary theory, philosophy, sociology, and theology. Some social theories make philosophical attempts to answer the question 'what is', not 'what should be'. Other "critical" social theories, such as neo Marxist theories and feminist theories, argue that as theories are generally based on premises that entail normative positions, it is necessary to critique the ideological aspects of theories and related oppressive social relations."6 There are various social theories. Some belong to the Marxists' eras, others are concerned with postmodernism. Some are concerned with human activity while others have cognition as their core concept. However, all of them are concerned with the social aspect of life. How human beings interact with one another and the society They answer questions such as Why How And When In order for groups and individuals to relate to one another, a system of common understanding is needed. Thereby there must be terms and concepts peculiar to that group and not within common understanding. They have thus become words with specific meaning for certain groups. The social representation theory is described as: "Systems of values, ideas and practices with a two-fold function; first, to establish an order which will enable individuals to orientate themselves in their material and social world and to master it; secondly, to enable communication to take place amongst 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" 1 Its meaning is thereby not fixed or rigid. It is created through a series of social negotiation and an understanding of the social environment. Hence it is based on social perspectives and perceptions which may vary .9 It is difficult to define social representation because of its breadth in theory which cannot be captures in words. However, as written above certain sound definitions exist. One of these is also one by Jodelet(1991) which says that social representations are images which allow people to perceive and understand what is going on around them it permits a classification of scenarios, people and phenomena into various heads in order to establish facts about them. Therefore social representations are all above together embedded in the reality of our lives.2 From what is described in the definition of the theory by Jodelet we can see that representations are something that can be used for acting in the world and on others. In addition to this it can also be used for re-enacting, re-forming a view of the world which stands in conflict with our values, beliefs and sense of self-identity. Social representations are what we do in order to understand the world we live in and in doing so the social representations are converted into a social reality for ourselves and others. As we can see in the table below such social representations have great impact on the social order in this world. To elaborate in learning about the world that we live in, we take in bits and pieces from our representations and connect them to what we already know about this world to form a complete picture. Therefore social representations become a constituent of reality. They give us a means of understanding socially significant phenomena. Different representations compete in their claims to reality and thereby limit and exclude others 3 There is much at stake in the practice of representation. "Take this example from a study of social representations of Brixton, south London this is from a focus group with teenage girls who live in the general area of Brixton. Aimee and Tara3, both 14 years old, define themselves as 'mixed' (heritage), while Assia, 15 years old, defines herself as Muslim. Aimee: One of my friends, he was mistaken and what happened, right, was that the Triads (apparently a London-Chinese gang) went to his school, and he was actually mistaken for another person and he actually got chopped on his hand with a machete. Assia: See! Don't these things scare you Like these things that come to mind. If that's happened there, then why would I want to go there All talking at once (very heated) Assia: I know Brixton, and it's not that dangerous, I mean, it can be and it can't be, but another person - Tara: Are you scared at the moment Tell me the truth! I don't want to know about the Triads, just be honest, are you saying - All talking at once (very heated) Caroline: Just listen! Assia: But when this is going on so close, you know I live in Norwood and it's just happening across a couple of miles away, and it also makes me think: for another person who does not know this place, never been there, why would they want to go there when they have heard these things And they have heard all these rapes, murders, shootings, you know, on the news, why would they - All talking at once (very heated)." 3 This example shows the tension and clashes that exist within social representation. These young people recognize that Brixton is though to be dangerous in the media, they debate over the results and consequences of it all. Aimee has brought to light the imminent danger in the form of a friend who was attacked mistakenly. Assia uses this to support her argument that Brixton is indeed dangerous and there is no reason why she would want to go there. Using this representation she manages to create a negative image of Brixton and is able to develop a division based on dangerous, safe; and ' them' and ' us'. Tara and others in the group reject this representation as they think of themselves as insiders unlike Assia who lives in another neighbourhood. Tara on the other hand find this deeply upsetting and seeks to challenge Assia who can she that she is being positioned as a biased outsider. She then manipulates the representation to depersonalize the association by placing it as an external construct by the media more specifically the view point of people who do not know the area. Hence Assia puts forward the quiet implication that her views and fear are based on racism. Generally in comparison with other social theories, the social representation theory comes across as the one with a broader scope of concept and applicability. For example in comparison with the theory of social schemas there are a lot of differences as well as similarities. Both the theories emphasize on a knowledge structure. "Social schemas like social representations have been construed as internalizes social knowledge. which guides and facilitates the processing of social information" . Both emphasize the use of heuristics. However, the schema theory is essentially an information processing model with an individualistic focus. It fails to take into account the interactive nature and cultural context within which human cognition takes place. The social representations theory is much more than this. It covers both collective and societal processes and explores their functioning at both the levels. Hence the social schemas theory seeks to benefit from the social representations theory. The latter provides a missing context to the social schemas theory. Social representations act as the reference points for selection, recognition and organization of social information. Therefore it has been suggested that social representations theory be combined with the social cognitions theory to give it the much needed support and context.8 One of the main criticisms of the "social representation theory" is what it actually does. It fails to address aspects such as the difference between mentioning and using. Other aspects that it does not highlight include: "reflecting on or knowing about a body of knowledge on the one hand and acting as if this knowledge is 'true' or 'real' on the other That is, when are we critically aware of significant social representations in our encounters and practices (and so possibly come to develop these, transform or reject these), and when do we act within a representational field as our accepted construction of reality Within research on school exclusion, for example, young Black pupils detailed dominant representations of 'troublesome Black youth' that marginalize their position and restrict their potential at school. This does not mean that they claim any veracity for such representations. Rather, they recognize and describe how these representations are institutionalized within the material and symbolic curricula at school. That is, they see how particular knowledge systems are legitimized and reified at school. They describe how representations inform the realities they experience; at the same time, some of these pupils find ways to resist and reject such representations or 'versions' of themselves and their position at school." 3 This shows that we do have multiple representations of the same social object in this case the "Black Pupil". They are played to our advantage in order to achieve various goals. Therefore representations must be alive and dynamic existing only in the relational facet within the space that we create between conversation and negotiation with someone. They can never be rigid, static schemas that we pull out of our cognitive systems. In fact, the plurality and multiplicity of social representations has been at the heart of the "social representation theory". The claims that social representations theorists have not studied what it is supposed to do is not very legitimate. 3 The theory has placed discussion and communication at the centre of its concept. It can therefore be said that it has the right focus since a thinking society is a talking society. Representations are produced due to communication and exchange of thoughts and ideas. Hence interpersonal communications play a key role in forming of social representations. The theory of social representations is precisely a modern theory of social change as well as an element of social knowledge. Contrary to popular expectations however, it provides no means to criticize the social order by providing an account of the unequal social relations. The social psychology of power is not central to the theory and it needs to be developed further in order to become a more rigorously critical theory. These include: 1) "The relationship between psychological processes and social practices (2) The reification and legitimization of different knowledge systems (3) Agency and resistance in the co-construction of self-identity." 3 The theory of social change fails to address the multiplicity of society in which ideas bounce between spheres in the circulation of knowledge. This is because of its original conceptualization of two distinct universes dominated by two form of knowledge development. These problems have been catered to by the claim that norms and traditions which are practiced collectively as a society and knowledge forms which comprise parts of a community can also be conceptualized as social representations. Despite these advances however, little empirical or theoretical attention has been paid to communication channels operating between scientific and lay knowledge. Also the application of social representation to other social fields has been relatively ignored. 4 The social representations theory needs a clear cognitivist perspective in order to understand how social representations are acquired, processed, developed and used by human in their everyday lives. 8 In a lot of instances the theory can appear distorted and incomplete. This can be manifested in the fact that the social representation of emotion is taken to be what emotion is within a given social order. For example; "the representation for emotion under conditions of market capitalism and instrumental rationality ignores precisely the background emotions which are continuous with the operations of the pervasive social institutions". We usually tend to ignore these emotions as they do not fall within the realms of the conventional definition of emotion. 6 Since the theory is about social realities which are a part of everyone's lives, it has become of major interest in developing countries and in countries where democratization is considered valuable. Also included are countries in which initiatives and values aiming to improve human life have become the primary goals. Therefore the theory is much advanced in Latin America, Asia and in post-Communist European countries.7 "As well as via the media and education, translation and interaction between science and common sense occurs in modern societies via political and public policy processes and the work of professional practitioners. The work of health professionals, social services workers, local government officials, financial advisers and lawyers, for example, involves the practical application of 'expert' or scientific knowledge systems in direct interaction with laypeople. We might expect these social groups to play a key 'intermediary' role in translating knowledge generated by scientists and other 'experts' (e.g. economists, academics and policy makers) into forms that are compatible with and integrated into 'common sense'. Across all these social spheres, 'reified' and 'consensual' forms of knowledge generation may compete and coexist in the development of social representations that reflect the roles and social positioning of these various communities." 4 The social representation has been criticized on many counts. One of which includes the representation of risk. In this instance the theory has no predictive element. It is an anomaly to other more linear, casual models in social psychology. The theory leads one to accept that certain factors will be present in responses to risk. Aspects of the meaning systems regarding each risk shall be unforeseen. 7 The theory of social representation seeks to understand the individual psychological functioning by making links with societal and collective processes 8.As the theory of social knowledge the theory of social representations defines the field of social psychology. "It is a unifying epistemological force that binding the discipline together". The theory of social representations by stressing on different styles of communication and the thought process and by laying an emphasis on multiple social realities lends diversity to social psychology. 2 The theory has its merits and demerits. Where it recognizes the power of communication in forming representations and stresses on the role of interpersonal communication; critics point out that in certain instances the representations seem distorted and incomplete. They often follow the social order and fail to take into account unconventional forms of emotions. Secondly, where it recognizes the existence of a multi-dimensional world it provides no means to criticize the existence of the social order with reference to power. Its applications can be in the democratization is considered valuable and in countries where human welfare is a primary objective. It can be used in health field as well as in the field of science and other experts. Bibliography Deaux,K., and.Philogene, G. (2001), Representations of the Social: Bridging Theoretical Traditions. Blackwell Publishing Markova, I. (2003), Dialogicality and Social Representations: The Dynamics of Mind. Cambridge University Press. Howarth, C. (2006), A social representation is not a quiet thing: Exploring the critical potential of social representations theory. British Journal of Social Psychology. 45, 65-86 Morant, N.( 2006), Social representations and professional knowledge: The representation of mental illness among mental health practitioners. British Journal of Social Psychology, 45, 817-838 Flick, U. (1998), The Psychology of the Social. Cambridge University Press Barbalet., J.M. ( 1998), Emotion, Social Theory, and Social Structure: A Macrosociological Approach. Cambridge University Press Joffe, H. (2003), Risk: From perception to social representation. British Journal of Social Psychology, 42, 1 Walker, I., and Augoustinos, M. (1995, . Social Cognition: An Integrated Introduction. Sage Publications.Inc. 1. (2002) Social Representation Theory. Retrieved October 08, 2007, from ChangingMinds.org Website: http://www.changeminds.org Read More