Social representation theory

Question 1

What is social representations?

Answer 1

Moscovici defines social representations as the ideas, thoughts, images, and knowledge which members of a collective share: consensual universes of thought which are socially created and socially communicated.

Question 2

SRT is a more social approach

Answer 2

Can see a shift in cognitive emphasis from graded strcture approach and social schema approach.
Social constructionism is more social than SRT

Question 3

What are the two key roles of SRT?

Answer 3

1. Conventionalise
   (objects, people, events, etc.).
   We see only that which underlying conventions allow us to see, and we remain unaware of these conventions.
   e.g. pink and blue, girls and boys.
   While these representations, which are shared by many, enter into and influence the mind of each they are not thought by them; rather, to be more precise, they are re-thought, re-cited, and re-presented.
2. Prescriptive
   Imposed with irresitable force.
   Combine: a structure which is present before we have even begun to think, and … a tradition which decrees what we should think.

Question 4

What is the social aspect of SRT?

Answer 4

Systems of classification:
- Circulate in a society.
- propel continutiy (can link today to yesterday).
- Take on a life of their own (grow and recede; link and spring apart, birth new representations and kill off old ones).

Question 5

How are representations formed?

Answer 5

Through two mechanisms:
1. Anchoring.
2. Objectification.

Question 6

What is anchoring?

Answer 6

Taking the new, foreign, unfamiliar disturbing, and making it ordinary, fitting, familiar, safe.
All about:
- Understanding anything you haven’t experienced in terms of what you’ve already experienced.

We anchor by:
Classifying and naming - we confine something to certain characteristics, behaviours, rules, etc.

Consequences:
Transforming the phenomenon to fit: the images and ideas by means of which we grasp the unusual only bring us back to what we already knew and had long been familar with and which therefore, gives us a reassuring impression of deja vu.
Adds moral evaluation to the phenomena: whether it fits/doesn’t fit, permissable/non-permissiable, etc.

Question 7

What is objectification?

Answer 7

Transform the abstract -> something concrete.
To objectify is to discover the iconnic quality of an imprecise idea or being, to reproduce a concept in an image.

Example: evolutionary tree
Makes our connections to history of organisms more clear, concrete, imaginable.

We objecify by:
Symbolise, metahor, cartoon/picture/graph, grammer.

Consequences:
The gap between the representation and what it represents is bridged.
“people as machines” - underplays soul, creativity, etc.
“housing prices fall” - overplays lack of control, error, problem.
Define people by one attribute/preference/skill.

Question 8

Summarise the characteristics of social representations

Answer 8

A means by which we understand provided by consensus -> help us construct understanding of the social world.
Created through social interaction and communication.
Faciliate interaction and communication.
Dynamic and changeable.
Make the unfamiliar seem familiar.

Question 9

Example of SRT: Kilby (2015)

Answer 9

9/11 as symbol of terrorism.
Poined out 9/11 is anchored and acts as an anchor for the events in new york on Sep 11, 2001, and the concept of terrorism.
Acts so as to objectify the concept of terrorism.
9/11 represented in media unlike anything that had happened before so: the opposite of familar, unclassifiable.
Events were anchored to concepts of war (‘act of war’, ‘declaration of war’, ‘ war on America’).
By anchoring attacks of 9/11 as war, opened the way to classify the US response as also a war (‘the war on terror’).

Anchoring: naming
Kilby suggests that 9/11 is an ideograph - by the first anniversary of the events the term 9/11’ had features in over two hundred headlines within UK national newspapers.
Mosocvici (2001) comments on the power of symbols - talking about national flags.
9/11 symbol - the digits 9-1-1- were already symbolic, this form the point of inception, the 9/11 symbol was infused with notions of danger, threat, and panic as well as invoking a trusted call to action.

Objectifiying
9/11 became accessible as an additional, widely recognised ‘reality’ of terrorism with the capacity to objectify what terrorism is. Moreover, when these events are represented by invoking the 9/11 ideograph, the particulars of the events simulatanously recede, allowing the object to transofrm into the abstract.

Question 10

Critique of SRT

Answer 10

Not completely distinct from other concepts (Jahoda, 1988).
‘Groups’ in srt to circular.

Still too individualistic.
Not social enough.

Solution: social constructionism.