The concept of social representations. Fundamentals of the theory of “social representations 30 social representations, their structure and formation

The theory of social representations was developed by S. Moscovici. He believes that ideas are the leading and only characteristic of both social and individual consciousness. Moscovici argues that any forms of beliefs, ideological views, knowledge, including science, are social representations (Moscovici S., 1995).

Social representations are a person’s ability to perceive, draw conclusions, understand, remember in order to give meaning to things and explain a personal situation.

Representations, according to Moscovici, are the basis of interaction: before entering into communication with a person or group, an individual must imagine possible connections and results of interaction.

As a way to study social ideas, the author considers common sense (folk-science), which gives the researcher direct access to social ideas.

Consciousness is defined by K.A. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya as the vital ability of an individual, and the thinking of an individual as the ability, and sometimes the inability, of a person to adapt to new conditions. Unlike general psychology, this approach studies not just thinking as such, but the thinking of the individual, or rather the thinking personality.

In the thinking of each individual, there is a universal human system of concepts, everyday and everyday ideas, and stereotypes of a social group. All these concepts and ideas are in their totality a functional system of the individual as a thinking subject. The functional components of social thinking are the following procedures: problematization, interpretation, representation and categorization.

The study of functional procedures was built using two techniques - the typological method and the method of cross-cultural comparison.

Problematization, according to S.L. Rubinstein, is the main procedure of thinking and cognition. This is the ability to theoretically structure reality and its relationship with the subject; transformation of some unformed reality into an object of thought. To identify the transition from stating a problem to turning it into an object, a classification of problems was carried out. They were divided into abstract and concrete, perspective and situational, personally significant and neutral.

Problematization is determined by the ability to change the attitude towards reality, the ability to overcome stereotypes of a way of thinking and a way of life (Beletskaya G.E., 1995. P. 48). Interpretation is a procedure that relates something to the subject of experience and understanding. This is the process of the subject developing an attitude: to an object, to reality, to an event, and forming his own opinion, view of things.

In the study by A.N. Slavskaya selected ideal objects as the object of interpretation - the author’s concepts (theories of major psychologists - L.S. Vygotsky, A.N. Leontiev, S.L. Rubinstein, D.N. Uznadze, etc.) As a result of the study, four groups were identified subjects with different interpretation features. The first group was characterized by an a priori interpretation, which began with a conclusion, while the second group was characterized by an a posteriori interpretation, since the conclusion in it was built on the basis of reasoning; the third group, in the middle of the reasoning process, formulated a hypothesis that narrowed this process, and the fourth formulated a hypothesis that expanded the nature of the search.

In addition to interpretation, the reinterpretation, or reconstruction, of the author’s concept was also studied, which included its analysis, evaluation, and additions to the author’s point of view. The methods of reinterpretation are: juxtaposition, comparison, contrast and destruction of the author's concept.

As a general conclusion, it was concluded that interpretation is meaning formation, the definition of new meanings based on the person’s existing system of concepts. This is the comprehension and rethinking of reality in relation to a given subject (Slavskaya A.N., 1995, pp. 109-126).

Representation is social ideas about different spheres of reality - legal, political, as well as about oneself (one's self, responsibility, intellect, etc.). A study of the domestic sample revealed the predominance of moral ideas in all other representations (ideas about personality, intelligence, responsibility). Moral ideas prevail over legal ones, which distinguishes the domestic sample from the European one. For the latter, the leading ones are not moral, but rational ideas. One of the important stages in the study of social representations is determining their content and identifying the components of the semantic space. This approach consists of finding the meaning of specific combinations of various concepts that make up the content of social ideas. In addition to the semantic content of social representations, the following are determined:

1) common values and beliefs,

2) ideas about the relationship between various social categories,

3) the connection between representation and specific social positions of respondents (V. Duaz).

The listed influences are called anchoring.

V. Duaz describes the results of an analysis of the phenomenon of anchoring in the study of social ideas about the causes of delinquency. The study identified three factors. The first factor included judgments reflecting the social and economic causes of delinquency (exploitation, social inequality, recidivism as a consequence of punishment in prison, etc.). The second factor reflected biological explanations for the occurrence of delinquent behavior (organic diseases, heredity, mental abnormalities). The third factor was psychological explanations of this phenomenon (adolescence crisis, dysfunctional interpersonal relationships, etc.). The next question the subjects were asked was what social regulation measures should be taken to deal with cases of violation of social behavior norms. All answers were distributed according to three factors; the first factor is the conduct of psychotherapeutic work with a delinquent, the second factor is imprisonment, the third factor is the ineffectiveness of either psychotherapeutic work or imprisonment.

The anchoring is that social ideas are really existing phenomena, reflected in objective reality, in specific cases of delinquency.

Categorization is a procedure that allows for a cognitive attitude towards objective reality in order to relate oneself to other people and form one’s identity. We can talk about territorial, ethnic, gender, personal and other types of identity. The marginal mechanism of identity is hidden in categorization: against the background of the desire for interpersonal comparison and imitation, the opposition between “I” and “Other” clearly appears.

For example, social identity correlates with the fact that impressions of the world are organized into related interpretations - ideas, attitudes, stereotypes, expectations, which act as regulators of social behavior.

The theory of social identity of G. Tejfel is well known. According to this concept,

1) an individual, considering himself a member of a group, strives to evaluate it positively, raising the status of the group and self-esteem;

2) the quality and meaning of identity is determined using categorization (logical operations) and comparison of one’s group with external groups according to a number of parameters; categorization and comparison are cognitive ways of an individual’s self-determination;

3) positive social identity is achieved on the basis of comparisons in favor of oneself, one’s group and is called group favoritism;

4) the cognitive component is associated with the emotional one, where the latter is described as experiencing the fact of belonging to a group in the form of various feelings - love, hatred, resentment, etc.

“Ideas, like money, are social, are a psychological fact in three respects: they have an impersonal aspect, belonging to the whole world; they are considered the representation of another, belonging to other people or a group; they are personal ideas, emotionally felt as belonging to the Ego. Let’s not forget that these ideas are formed, like money, for the dual purpose of acting and evaluating. They, therefore, do not belong to a separate branch of knowledge and are therefore subject to the same rules as other types of social actions and evaluations" (Moscovici S. , 1995. No. 2. P. 12).

Welfare state: conditions of emergence and stages of development

The social state is a higher level of statehood is a state that serves the interests of society. Today, the Scandinavian countries, more than others, embody in practice the model of the state that was discussed.

The first thing that comes to the mind of an ordinary citizen when the term “welfare state” is mentioned is the social protection of such categories of citizens as pensioners, disabled people, and the poor. Powerful social protection is possible only when there is the necessary material potential for this. That is why, among the characteristics of a social state, first place should be given to those that relate to citizens who create the wealth of society, namely those who are able to work.

The idea of social statehood was formed at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. the result of objective socio-economic processes occurring in the life of bourgeois society, when two of its most important principles came into conflict - the principle of freedom and the principle of equality. Theoretically, two approaches to the relationship between these principles have emerged. Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Benjamin Constant, John Locke and others defended the theory of individual human freedom, charging the state with the primary duty of protecting this freedom from any interference, including the interference of the state itself. At the same time, they understood that such freedom would ultimately lead to inequality, but they considered freedom to be the highest value.

Another approach is personified by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who, without denying the importance of individual freedom, believed that everything should be subordinated to the principle of equality, which is the task of the state to ensure.

The principle of individual freedom, which liberated the initiative and initiative of people, contributed to the development of private entrepreneurship and a market economy, thus had an economic basis during the period of consolidation of the economic power of bourgeois states. However, by the end of the 19th century. As wealth developed and accumulated, the property stratification of bourgeois society began to occur, its polarization, fraught with a social explosion. And in this situation, the principle of individual freedom lost its relevance and gave way to the principle of social equality, requiring the state to move from the role of a “night watchman” to active intervention in the socio-economic sphere. It is in such a historical and political situation that the concept of a social state and an understanding of its special qualities and functions begin to take shape.

Subsequently, the idea of a social state begins to receive increasing recognition and is embodied in the practice and constitutions of modern states. The state was first called social in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949. One way or another, the principle of sociality is expressed in the constitutions of France, Italy, Portugal, Turkey, Spain, Greece, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Japan and other states. The teachings of the English economist J. Keynes were of great importance for the theory and practice of the social state, under the influence of whose views the concept of a welfare state was formed, based on the increase in the social function of the state.

It should be noted that undoubtedly the catalyst for the development of the idea of a social state and its implementation in the West was the emergence of the Soviet state, which constantly declared in its Constitutions and other legislative acts the social orientation of its policies. And, although the political theory and declarations of socialism were in conflict with the realities of the absence of democracy, civil society, the rule of law and private property as the economic basis of these institutions, real achievements in the social policy of socialist states cannot be denied. Of course, in the above-mentioned socio-economic conditions, the socially oriented activities of the socialist state could only have a paternalistic (paternalistic) character associated with the establishment of wretched equality.

Stages of development:

the first stage (from the 70s of the 19th century to the 30s of the 20th century) - socialist;

the second stage (from the 30s to the end of the 40s of the twentieth century) - a legal social state;

the third stage (from the late 40s to the 60s of the twentieth century) - the state of social services;

the third stage (from the late 50s to the mid-80s of the twentieth century) - the welfare state;

fifth stage (from the early 80s to the mid-90s of the twentieth century) - destruction and crisis of the welfare state;

sixth stage (from the mid-90s of the twentieth century to the present) - a liberal social state.

Modern ideas about the essence of the welfare state

There are two main approaches to the essence of the state: 1) class; 2) general social.

With a class approach the state can be viewed as an organization of political power of the ruling class, in which class contradictions arise and are resolved through violence. The class essence of the state is clearly expressed in non-democratic, dictatorial states.

With a whole-of-society 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 achieving 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 can be traced.

You can also distinguish between national, religious, racial, etc. Depending on various conditions, certain interests may dominate.

Many scientists have interpreted the essence of the state in different ways. Some believed that the state is a political phenomenon inherent in any class society, others reduced the essence of the state to a type of governing body of society.

In the modern period, 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 property, primarily those means of production and wealth that appeared in a small 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 development of an organization of the entire society, into a completely legal state.

Based on the above, when defining the concept of a state, it is necessary to take into account both class elements and corresponding characteristics, as well as universal, non-class features and characteristics.

The fundamental significance of the essence of the state is that: 1. it is a territorial organization of people; 2. it overcomes tribal (“blood”) relationships and replaces them with social relations; 3. a structure is created that is neutral to the national, religious and social characteristics of people.

It is important to understand the essence of the state to understand 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 ensures 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 and the fair distribution of these benefits. All this captures only certain aspects of the social essence of the state. The main thing in the social essence of the state - it is an organizational form of society, its unity and functioning on generally accepted principles and norms.

3. The principles of the welfare state and their rationale. Welfare state - this is a legal democratic state, which proclaims the highest value of a person and creates conditions for ensuring a decent life, free development and self-realization of the creative (labor) potential of the individual. A person’s decent life is understood as his material security at the level of the standards of a modern developed society, access to cultural values, guarantee of personal security rights, and the free development of a person means his physical, mental and moral improvement.

The experience of many European states, which are social according to the Constitution, shows that they build their socio-economic policies based on such essential principles :

1 .economic freedom of a person, his right to freely choose any type of activity in the field of hired labor and entrepreneurship;

2. trust in the regulatory role of the market and, if necessary, its regulation using economic methods;

3. development and economic efficiency of the social market economy;

4. social justice and social solidarity of society, ensured through the development of shareholder ownership of workers, as well as through tax redistribution of income from rich to poor and greater workload for the most able-bodied members of society in order to help the less able-bodied;

5. gender equality between men and women;

6. participation of all citizens in the management of state and public affairs, participation of workers in production management, development of a system of social partnership. Solidarity as the goal of society has made the function of redistribution the main function. state

IN Taking the theory of E. Durkheim as the starting point for his concept, S. Moscovici proved that the concept of collective ideas makes sense in relation to previous societies, while in modern society there is a predominance of scientific judgments. Therefore, it is necessary to transform the concept of collective representations into social representations. In development of the ideas of E. Durkheim, S. Moscovici believed that social ideas are not identical to collective ideas. This is, rather, not a procedure of collective, supra-individual consciousness, but “a fact of individual consciousness, a psychosocial phenomenon that includes the unity of the cognitive and emotional”

S. Moscovici believes that ideas are the leading and only characteristic of both social and individual consciousness. Moscovici argues that any form of belief, ideological views, knowledge, including science, are social representations.

Social representations are a person’s ability to perceive, draw conclusions, understand, remember in order to give meaning to things and explain a personal situation. Social representations, according to S. Moscovici, are “a universal socio-psychological phenomenon that includes all forms of cognition”, uniting “ideas , thoughts, images and knowledge that are shared by members of a collective (community).” S. Moscovici, explaining the nature of social ideas, considers them a series of “concepts, statements and explanations that arise in everyday life in the process of interpersonal communication. In our society they are equivalent to the myths and religious belief systems of traditional societies: they could even be called the modern version of common sense.”

As a way to study social ideas, the author considers common sense (folk-science), which gives the researcher direct access to social ideas.

According to Moscovici, “social ideas are public everyday consciousness, in which various beliefs, ideological views, knowledge, science itself, which reveal and largely constitute social reality, interact very complexly at the level of common sense.” The author proceeds from the position that statements, opinions and assessments of various social phenomena are organized in different ways in different classes, cultures and groups, and therefore should be considered as characteristics of the groups themselves, and not of their individual members. These opinions and ideas form systems that have a special language, the structure and logic of which is determined by the conditions of social life.

Each community, within the framework of its social practice, creates its own “theory”, covering certain phenomena of everyday consciousness. Therefore, we can distinguish ideas (or judgments) about the realities of political life, about art, about psychoanalysis, and others that are social in nature.

In his work “Social Representations: A Historical View,” S. Moscovici states that our society is by no means scientific, as it confidently claims to be. “Most people tend to prefer conventional ideas to scientific ideas, to make misleading comparisons that are not corrected by objective data. People are especially willing to accept facts or adopt behaviors that confirm their habitual beliefs, and this has not yet been refuted. Even if experience tells them: this is false, and reason is absurd.”

S. Moscovici discusses that it is social ideas that subordinate the mental apparatus to external influences and encourage people to form habits or, conversely, not to perceive events in the outside world. In other words, a person sees the world around him not as it really is, but “through the prism of his own desires, interests and ideas.” To help understand these strange, at first glance, distortions in people’s thinking, according to S. Moscovici, a new the science of social representations. Thus, he writes: “The theory of social representations, it seems to me, is unique, since it tends increasingly to become both a particular theory of social phenomena and a particular theory of mental fragments... The primacy of ideas or beliefs, the social origin of perception and belief, causality , and sometimes the coercive role of these ideas and beliefs, is the general plan on which the theory of social ideas is built.

Such an analysis of social reality is possible, according to S. Moscovici, through communication and practice of social groups. Our ideas are not based on the things and situations that are mentioned in them, they are based on communication regarding these things and situations. In this sense, they are socially shared before they are internalized by people. This finally makes clear why the process of communication shapes and transforms our shared ideas.

So, according to S. Moscovici, “the main types of ideas have a social origin”. S. Moscovici believes that social ideas are “a kind of calling card of a social group.”

These observations are important for analyzing the ethnic characteristics of social representations. From the point of view of the theory of social representations, it can be assumed that ethnic representations are social, symbolic entities that cannot be studied by assuming that a person is rational. Social ideas are a form of “naive”, “natural” knowledge, opposed to scientific knowledge. This knowledge is generated in the process of interactions, communications, dialogue between people and ethnic groups.

That. S. Moscovici's school examines social ideas as a phenomenon of social thinking. According to S. Moscovici, social ideas are public everyday consciousness, in which various beliefs, ideological views, knowledge, science, which reveal and constitute social reality, interact very complexly at the level of common sense. S. Moscovici believes that all knowledge and beliefs are formed only in the interaction of people and in no other way. Social ideas influence the psyche, forming habits. The main types of ideas have a social origin.

In domestic psychology, this approach is reflected in the works of K.A. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya - head of the laboratory of personality psychology at the Institute of Psychology of the Russian Academy of Sciences and her staff. She argues that the theories of consciousness developed by L.S. Vygotsky, A.N. Leontyev, S.L. Rubinstein and D.N. Uznadze came up with concepts that were faced with another task - to explore the state of real consciousness of the individual, to reveal the essence and trends of its real change. The essence of this approach is that the social thinking of an individual explores consciousness in the process of its functioning. In the thinking of each individual, there is a universal human system of concepts, everyday and everyday ideas, and stereotypes of a social group. All these concepts and ideas are in their totality a functional system of the individual as a thinking subject. The functional components of social thinking are the following procedures: problematization, interpretation, representation and categorization. Problematization is determined by the ability to change one’s attitude towards reality, the ability to overcome stereotypes of a way of thinking and a way of life (Beletskaya G.E.). Interpretation is the process of the subject developing an attitude: to an object, to reality, to an event, and forming his own opinion, view of things. Reinterpretation, or reconstruction, of the author's concept includes its analysis, evaluation, and additions to the author's point of view. The methods of reinterpretation are: juxtaposition, comparison, contrast and destruction of the author's concept. Representation is social ideas about different spheres of reality - legal, political, as well as about oneself (one's self, responsibility, intellect, etc.). Categorization is a procedure that allows for a cognitive attitude towards objective reality in order to relate oneself to other people and form one’s identity; Against the background of the desire for interpersonal comparison and imitation, the opposition between “I” and “Other” clearly appears.

Classification of groups in social psychology (conditional and real, laboratory and natural, large and small, emerging and established). Methodological problems of studying groups in social psychology.

In the history of social psychology, numerous attempts have been made to construct a classification of groups. The American researcher Eubank identified seven different principles on the basis of which such classifications were based. These principles were very diverse: the level of cultural development, the type of structure, tasks and functions, the predominant type of contacts in the group, etc. To this were often added such reasons as the period of existence of the group, the principles of its formation, the principles of accessibility of membership in it and many others . However, a common feature of all proposed classifications is the forms of life activity of the group. If we accept the principle of considering real social groups as subjects of social activity, then, obviously, a different principle of classification is required. It should be based on a sociological classification of groups according to their place in the system of social relations. But before giving such a classification, it is necessary to systematize those uses of the concept of group discussed above.

First of all, the division of groups into conditional and real is significant for social psychology. She focuses her research on real groups. But among these real ones, there are also those that primarily appear in general psychological research - real laboratory groups. In contrast, there are real natural groups. Socio-psychological analysis is possible in relation to both types of real groups, but the real natural groups identified in sociological analysis are of greatest importance. In turn, these natural groups are divided into so-called “large” and “small” groups. Small groups are a well-established field of social psychology. As for large groups, the question of their study is much more complicated and requires special consideration. It is important to emphasize that large groups are also unequally represented in social psychology: some of them have a solid tradition of research (these are mostly large, unorganized, spontaneously emerging groups, the very term “group” in relation to which is very conventional), while others are organized, long-existing groups, like classes and nations, are much less represented in social psychology as an object of research. The whole point of the previous discussions on the subject of social psychology requires the inclusion of these groups in the scope of analysis. In the same way, small groups can be divided into two varieties: emerging groups, already defined by external social requirements, but not yet united by joint activity in the full sense of the word, and groups of a higher level of development, already established. This classification can be clearly represented in the following diagram.

There are several types of groups: conditional and real; permanent and temporary; big and small. Conventional groups of people are united according to a certain criterion (gender, age, profession, etc.). Real individuals included in such a group do not have direct relationships with each other, may not know anything about each other, or even never meet each other.

Real groups of people, communities in a certain space and time, are characterized by the fact that their members are interconnected by objective relationships. Such groups differ in size, external and internal organization, purpose and social role.

A contact group brings together people who have common goals and interests in one or another area of life and activity.

A small group is a fairly stable association of people connected by mutual contacts. It is not numerous - from 3 to 15 people who are united by common social activities, are in direct communication, contribute to the emergence of emotional relationships, the development of group norms and the development of group processes.

With a larger number of people, the group is usually divided into subgroups. Distinctive features of a small group: co-presence of people in space and time. It allows you to establish contacts that include interactive, informational, perceptual aspects of communication and interaction. Perceptual aspects help a person perceive the individuality of all other people in the group, and only in this case can we talk about the presence of a small group.

In a small group, the interaction is very close: the activity of one of the members is both a stimulus for all other participants and the latter’s reaction to them.

It is also important to have a constant goal for joint activities. Its implementation as a certain anticipated result helps to satisfy the needs of everyone, while simultaneously corresponding to general needs. The goal as a prototype of the result and the initial moment of joint activity determine the dynamics of the functioning of a small group.

Three types of goals can be distinguished:

1. Short term: goals that are realized quickly in time and express the needs of this group.

2. Secondary goals: longer in time and lead the group to the interests of the secondary team (the interests of the enterprise or school as a whole).

3. Long-term perspectives: they unite the primary group with the problems of the functioning of the social whole.

The socially valuable content of joint activities should become personally significant for each member of the group. What is important is not so much the objective group goal as its image, that is, how it is perceived by group members. Goals and characteristics of joint activities cement the group into one whole and determine its external formal and goal-oriented structure.

THE CONCEPT OF SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS is one of the “middle rank” theories aimed at identifying trends in the functioning of the structures of everyday consciousness in modern society. Developed by S. Moscovici together with a group of psychologists. It is one of the concepts that arose in French social psychology in the 60-70s of the 20th century as a reaction to the dominance of American models of socio-psychological knowledge of a scientistic kind in European science.

The main idea of the Concept of Social Representations is contained in the following statement: the mental structures of society are designed to strengthen the psychological stability of a social subject (group or individual) and guide his behavior in changing situations. The subject of study is social reality, understood as a set of social ideas through which social relations are represented in individual consciousness.

The key concept is social representation, borrowed from the sociological doctrine of E. Durkheim. It is interpreted as a special form of collective knowledge, assimilated by individuals. The structure of social representation is a combination of three dimensions: 1) information - the amount of knowledge about the represented object; 2) the field of representation, characterizing the organization of its content from the qualitative side; 3) attitudes towards the object of representation.

The dynamics of social representations of ordinary consciousness is called objectification and includes a number of phases: 1) personification - associating the object of representation with specific individuals; 2) the formation of a figurative scheme for representing a visually represented mental structure; 3) naturalization - operating in everyday consciousness with elements of a figurative scheme as autonomous objective entities.

Within the framework of the Concept of Social Representations, the following areas of analysis of social representations have emerged: 1) at the level of an individual picture of the world, social representation is considered as a phenomenon that resolves the tension between familiar and new content, adapts the latter to existing systems of representations using so-called consolidation models and turns the unusual into banality; 2) at the level of a small group, social representation generally appears in the Concept of Social Representations as a phenomenon of reflexive activity in intragroup interaction; the existence of a hierarchical system of ideas about the elements of an interaction situation is shown, as well as the effect of over-conformity of the Self, expressed in the subject’s construction of an idea of himself as a person who is more consistent with the requirements of the situation than other people; 3) in terms of intergroup relations, based on premises close to the provisions of the theory of social categorization (G. Tejfel), social representation is understood as an element of reflexive relations between groups, determined by general social factors or particular situational features of interaction; an important theoretical result is the conclusion about the non-absolute nature of the phenomenon of intergroup discrimination and its dependence on social factors; 4) at the level of large social groups, an approach to the study of elements of everyday consciousness has been created, systems of ideas about psychoanalysis, the city, the human body, health and illness, etc. have been studied.

Conclusions Concepts of social ideas about the features of modern mass consciousness (for example, about the growing individualization of the individual; about the uniformization and standardization of life; about the lack of true equality of the sexes; about the fetishization of prestige) have not only socio-psychological, but also ideological significance. The methodological contradictions in this concept are associated with its dual orientation towards the French sociological tradition and the cognitivist doctrine of the social.

Shapar V.B. The latest psychological dictionary / V.B. Shapar, V.E. Rassokha, O.V. Shapar; under. total ed. V.B. Shaparya. – Ed. 4th – Rosnov n/a. Phoenix, 2009, p. 224-226.

Knowledge begins with wonder.

Aristotle

Social ideas are the most complex mental formation of a person, since they correlate with a large number of mental phenomena: memory, beliefs, convictions, 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. XX century Of course, we can talk about the lost First World War, the humiliation of the German nation, the phenomenon of Hitler, etc. But are all these reasons capable of fully explaining the scale of the prevalence of fascism, which took the form of religious rituals (torch processions and bonfires from books) and ideologized faith ? The situation is even more complicated with 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 thousands of years 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 throughout 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 incompletely studied. One way or another, they are all connected with the participants’ collective ideas about the main values in life, which push people to such eccentric actions as the departure of a religious group with old people and babies underground in the Penza region in the fall of 2007 in anticipation of the end of the world. The forced removal 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. Lévy-Bruhl, who used the concept of “collective representations”. “Social life consists entirely of ideas,” wrote Durkheim. They are woven into social consciousness, which is something completely different from private consciousness, although they are possessed only by individuals. Durkheim explained the difference between social and individual consciousness by the fact that individual and social consciousness are formed from different elements. He considered collective ideas to be the main element of social consciousness. They express the way in which group members make sense of themselves in their relationships with the world. Collective ideas are included in the consciousness of each of us and dominate us from within. In this they differ from beliefs and customs that affect us from the outside. The initial reasons for the emergence of collective ideas, moods, views, and values are not the state of individual consciousness, but the conditions of social life and interaction of people. Durkheim believed that social psychology should study how ideas 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 of 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 taking into account three criteria to determine the psychological type of society:

1) the relationship between the volumes of collective and individual consciousness;

2) the average intensity of the state of collective consciousness. Assuming equality of volume, its impact on the individual is greater, the greater his vital force. If it is weakly expressed, then it is easier for the individual to follow his own path;

3) consensus regarding ideas, beliefs and customs: the more ideas and beliefs are agreed upon, the less room they leave 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 uniting people, creating solidarity, and accumulating 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, subject to the law of participation, is governed by collective ideas. The content of these ideas consists of mythologemes 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 and denies objective criteria when assessing the facts and events of real life.

Since the late 1950s. Serge Moscovici began developing 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 of themselves and the world in which they live. As the 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 diffuse state.” According to Moscovici, every 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 psychoanalysis, its author and practical application among different segments of the French population. 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 social world and to conceptualize 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 has greater value, and through the school education system it is available to almost everyone. Therefore, collective ideas are 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 world around them. Criticizing the concepts of “image,” “opinion,” and “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 external world and the internal world. In his opinion, “to imagine something means to consider 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 subject and object, which, having become interlocked, constantly change each other” (56, p. 379).

Moscovici characterized the end of the 20th – beginning of the 21st centuries. as a genuine era of social ideas. They owe their origin to the media and thanks to them they 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 designed by nature in such a way as to adequately reflect the world around us. However, Moscovici notes, there are glitches and errors in the accuracy of reflection. The first reason for failures is a breakdown of the mental apparatus itself, the second reason is the influence of the social environment. In addition, three distortion factors are called cognitive, group and cultural. Firstly, an ordinary person in everyday life tends to neglect incoming information and think in a stereotypical way. Secondly, it has been experimentally established that people gathered in a group change their mental qualities: they lose some and gain others. Third, culture imposes restrictions on attributions and interpretations of perceived objects. People have created a certain general way that tells them how to classify objects, judge them according to their value, decide what information is worthy of trust, etc. (122, pp. 4-7).

Social representations– This is a complex scientific concept that includes:

a) images in which a set of meanings is concentrated;

b) frames of reference that allow people to interpret the events that happen to them and comprehend the unexpected;

d) theories that allow us to make decisions about them.

As French researcher Denise Jodelet emphasizes, social representations put social knowledge into concrete form and provide a way to interpret and comprehend everyday reality. The concept of "social idea" 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, education and social communication (56, p. 375).

Social ideas are knowledge that is socially developed and shared 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 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 ideas are practical knowledge. Being a mental product of society, just like science, myths, religion, ideology, they differ from them in the ways of creation and functioning. Social ideas should be approached as a product and process of processing psychological and social reality. D. Jodlet gives the following definition.

Social performancedenotes a specific form of knowledge: knowledge of common sense, the content of which indicates the action of socially marked generative and functional processes. In a broader sense, it denotes 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 akin to a sign, a symbol. It represents the mental reproduction of something else, but also involves a certain creation, a share of individual or collective creativity.

Social representation is a type of practical thinking aimed at communication, understanding and mastering the social environment, material and ideal. It can only be adequately considered in the context of a specific culture. For example, in the culture of the Suri tribe, living on the border of Ethiopia and Sudan, a woman whose lower lip was cut and her lower incisors knocked out as a child is considered valuable. 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 cows more. Most likely, this custom appeared as a way to prevent the abduction of women by men of other tribes.

8.2. The structure of social ideas

According to the apt remark of D. Jodelet, “social ideas condense history, social relations and prejudices into one frozen image”, which actually constitute their structure (56, p. 374). The researcher came to this conclusion as a result of studying in 1976 the image of Paris in the eyes of its inhabitants. The choice of place of residence and people's preferences showed the following division of the city's territory: the historical center, then the ring surrounding it, which appeared as a result of the social ordering of the city by Baron Haussmann in the middle of the 19th century, and, finally, the outskirts, where the small people were forced out. This organization of space influenced the perception of various areas, especially the north-eastern 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 shaped the social idea of more and less prestigious areas for living.

For a more accurate understanding of the phenomenon of social ideas, one should imagine 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 taken into account 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 ideas 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 determined by the peculiarities of his mental structure.

2. The structure of each representation, as S. Moscovici states, “appears bifurcated, it has two sides, as inseparable as two sides of one sheet of paper.” These are figurative and symbolic sides. The following formula can be derived:

From the point of view of the structural approach, central and peripheral elements are distinguished in social representations. The central element, according to S. Moscovici’s hypothesis, is the most rigid and archaic elements that are present in every social idea: 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 ideas and the possibility of changing it. The core consists of knowledge of a special nature - 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 among group members about the importance of a given characteristic of the object of representation; 2) assessment 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 raising children in boarding schools. In 2007, while studying the problems of children deprived of parental supervision, as part of a master's thesis (M. Lutskaya, 2008), 260 questionnaires were collected, one of the questions of which was aimed at identifying social ideas about 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% completely agreed with this judgment and 44.6% agreed with it under the condition of full care, that is, about 80 in total %. And only 5.4% of women chose the statement: “No, such a person will never be able to build his own family, because he does not have the necessary experience.” It is especially alarming that the idea of the full value of upbringing in boarding schools is widespread among women of childbearing age (81% among 18-25 year olds and 91% among 26-40 year olds). Even among men of the same age, these numbers are lower (about 70%). Men more often chose the neutral answer “hard to say.” The obtained result indicates the presence of an established social idea, which was historically formed in the USSR after 1917. As a result of the First World War, the revolution and the Civil War, a huge number of orphaned and lost children were left unattended. Then orphanages were organized for the children of repressed parents, and after the Great Patriotic War for all orphans. If children under the age of 5 were sent to orphanages, they were deprived of the main socializing agents necessary for normal emotional development. The fate of infants was especially tragic, since in Orphanages even today only their physical survival is ensured and there are no conditions for full socialization. All children left without parental care suffer mental trauma (see the works of E. Erickson and J. Bowlby), but those who survived naturally believe that being raised in an orphanage is quite acceptable, that this is the norm. Others think the same.

Today, when we consider the problems of the demographic situation in Russia, we must take into account the false social idea that we have identified, which has developed as a result of the tragic history of the country, those attitudes, values and beliefs that were quite actively promoted and introduced into consciousness during the 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 kernels social ideas about the reliability of children's homes 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 abandoning their children directly in maternity hospitals. After all, they know nothing about the fact that their healthy children are doomed to a sharp lag in psychophysical development in the first two years of life, that this lag can never be made up, that the lack of emotional contacts leads to the loss of a sense of trust forever.

This example confirms Moscovici’s idea that the content of the core of social ideas is determined by the historical, social and ideological conditions of existence of a people or group.

The peripheral social representation system is intended to explain individual differences in the process of representation. It is more variable than the central core, and therefore makes it possible to integrate various information and practices. It consists of cognitive schemes 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. Consequently, representation depends on the position occupied by subjects in society, economics and culture. And since every social representation is an idea of something or someone, social representation can be defined as a process that establishes an attitude towards an object, subject and the relationship between them.

D. Jodlet names five fundamental properties of representation:

– is always a representation of an object;

– has a figurative character and the property of making the sensory and mental, percept and concept interdependent;

– is symbolic and denoting in nature;

– has a constructive character;

– acquires the properties of autonomy and creativity (56, pp. 377-380). Experiment J.-C. Abrika (1976) aimed to identify the relationship between the interpretation given by a performance and behavior.

Abric's experiment. The experimental situation in which the subject found himself provided an opportunity 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 represented as either a person or a machine. Depending on the interpretation of the partner (as a person or as a machine), the subject exhibits different behavior. With a person, greater flexibility and adaptability of behavior is manifested, and with a machine, greater rigidity and intransigence are manifested (56, pp. 389-390).

The results indicate that social ideas have a surprising duality; they can simultaneously be both innovative and rigid, that is, they are both flexible and stable. Moscovici called this phenomenon cognitive polyphasia.

Thus, social ideas have a rather complex structure that combines the image and its meaning for the individual. Each social idea has a core, determined by the historical, social and ideological conditions of the people’s existence, and peripheral systems associated with the personal characteristics and social status of the individual. In addition, an individual’s social representations can be both rigid and flexible, 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 idea is an undoubted authority, he will show greater flexibility, perceiving new information for himself and integrating 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 reluctance to change anything in his ideas.

8.3. Formation of social ideas

The process of forming social ideas depends on many factors. However, one way or another, they develop in the individual under the influence of various influences of the surrounding social and natural world, as well as personality characteristics and previously formed ideas. In Fig. 8.1. a cognitive model of the formation of social ideas is shown. The natural and social environment constantly produces information that is selectively perceived and assimilated by humans. He develops social ideas as a certain 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?

– how does this psychological work operate 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 resulting representation transforms the social. Moscovici calls these two processes objectification And implementation. They determine the process of formation of social ideas.

Rice. 8.1. Cognitive model of the formation of social representations

8.3.1. Process of objectification

In the process of objectification, the content of words and concepts is somewhat simplified and, as Moscovici says, “excessive meanings are absorbed.”

Objectification– This is the concretization of abstractions and the materialization of concepts and words, which are given figurative and structural content.

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 thousand years ago, when our ancestors sought to compare objects of different densities and masses (56, p. 382).

The process of objectification consists of three successive phases:

1. Selection elements of scientific theories and taking them out of context. This, according to Moscovici, happened with psychoanalysis in France. People who had unequal access to information “wrested” the sexual prohibitions from the theory because it was consistent with their previous ideas. Thus, the general public projects information from the field of science into their everyday world. By the way, the same thing happened with psychoanalysis in our country, since most people (non-specialists) are convinced that Freud is “something about sex.”

2. Formation of the “figurative core”. In this process, if we continue the example with psychoanalysis, the main concepts of psychoanalysis are involved: conscious, subconscious, repression, complexes. From these, a logical scheme is constructed that creates a certain everyday vision of Freud's theory and is compatible with other human theories.

3. Naturalization. The figurative model allows you to better assimilate 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 be played out in plays, films 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 at the same time the meaning of scientific theories is simplified, and in some cases somewhat distorted.

8.3.2. Embedding Social Representations

The implementation process is complex and even fundamental. It is in a dialectical relationship with objectification and links together 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 ideas into social systems, converting those elements that correlate with them.

D. Jodle considers the process implementation of social representations as the attribution of meaning. She explains this using the example of the penetration of psychoanalytic theory into public consciousness, when different meanings were attributed to the new theory. Initially, psychoanalysis was viewed not as a science, but as an attribute of various groups (rich, women, intelligentsia).

It later became a symbol of sexual freedom in wider society. The attribution of meaning depended on the social status of the groups, their value systems and ideas, which could be correlated and reconciled with the ideas of psychoanalysis. The process of introducing social ideas about psychoanalysis depended on how groups expressed their identities and what meanings they attached to ideas about themselves.

Besides, implementation seen as instrumentalization of knowledge. In the case of psychoanalysis, the social understanding of science was gradually transformed into knowledge that is useful to all, which helps people understand themselves and others. People begin to use the conceptual vocabulary of psychoanalysis to explain the behavior of others. The concepts of psychoanalysis are also gradually spreading in films and books in Russian, first in those translated from foreign languages, and now by Russian-speaking authors. The term “inferiority complex”, proposed by A. Adler, has become especially popular in everyday speech.

Finally, one might consider implementation as consolidation in the system of thoughts. We constantly learn something new, previously unknown. The integration of new information involves general mechanisms that we already saw 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 to assimilate it. The process of learning new social ideas is based on existing knowledge, on milestones with the help of which implementation introduces what is 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 us explain this procedure with 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 distant for the Russian reader. As an example, we can discuss our social understanding of the status of Prince Alexander Nevsky in Veliky Novgorod. On the one hand, for several centuries now they have been strenuously introducing into our consciousness that a prince is a person who has full power, that is meaning is introduced the social idea of the commander as the main governing figure standing at the top of the hierarchical ladder of feudal society. However, this idea does not fit well with the fact that Prince Alexander was invited by the Novgorodians as a commander twice.

Where did the prince go after his first victory on the Neva? Why didn’t you 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 a chosen governor (like strategists in Greek city-states), but an acting one. He was hired and paid for a job well done. But you can’t read anything about this in a school history textbook. Process instrumentalization knowledge follows a different path: a description of the heroism of the Novgorodians, the tactics of the German, Swedish and Russian troops, battle patterns and other details that give the necessary authenticity to the events. Through understatements, the image of the commander is fixed in the system of hierarchical thinking traditional society, from feudal to the 15th century. before totalitarianism 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 invented details and replicas in films, the image of the feudal leader of Novgorod is drawn, which Alexander Nevsky never was.

Thus, under the influence of ideology, the necessary social idea is formed, which dates 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 of Russian history, because he really is. The description of the context of his patriotic service will change. This example demonstrates that ideology is always present in social ideas.

D. Jodlet also considers the process of introducing ideas into social consciousness through the structuring of its form. The implementation process is divided into several forms that allow you to understand:

1) how meaning is attached to the represented object;

2) how representation is used as a system for interpreting the social world;

3) how the new representation is integrated into an already established system and how it relates to existing knowledge.

Using the example of orphanages and orphanages, we can consider the implementation process proposed by the researcher through structuring the form. 1. The meaning of 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 traditional belief in European culture that all members of the community, young and old, should receive social support. In Asian cultures, the same function is performed by the extended family, which is why in these countries there are practically no children's homes or nursing homes. 3. Integration of a new idea into an already established system of ideas occurs easily, since several generations of Russians are personally well acquainted with orphanages and boarding schools. Consequently, the formula of our knowledge is this: of course, it’s a pity for the children, but there’s nothing wrong with that.

The numerous examples given in this chapter of the penetration of psychoanalysis into everyday social ideas of people are due not so much to its special significance and usefulness in the 21st century, but to the fact that it was through the example of the dissemination of this theory that Moscovici first explored the problem of transforming scientific knowledge into a system of social ideas. What is important for Russia is not psychoanalysis as such, but modern scientific theories in the field of social psychology, which will help eliminate prejudices and false social ideas, especially in the field of principles of human interaction and education of the younger generation.

8.4. Main directions of studying social representations

8.4.1. Social ideas about the past

In the last third of the 20th century. the formation of ideas about the past became the object of close attention from psychologists, who previously dealt mainly with general problems of cognitive processes and memory. History began to be understood as a part of social memory that directly influences the behavior of people and the decision-making of governments in different countries. Modern culturologist Jan Assmann (J. Assmann) believes that in the cultural evolution of humanity, “cultural memory” forms and reproduces the identity of a clan group, state, nation, etc. This process is carried out through the constant circulation of cultural meanings, the exchange of them - that is, through communications. Civilization, he believes, arises when for the first time restrictions are imposed on the “right of the strong” and values and rules are formed that regulate the coexistence of people (16, p. 27).

In the historical science of the 20th century. major shifts took place: the history of events was replaced by the history of interpretations. Therefore, since the early 1980s. historians began to actively study collective memory, using the concepts and terms of social psychology, paying special attention to social representations. To interpret certain events, the entire arsenal of psychological knowledge was needed to explain the actions of people and their behavior in difficult situations of choice and decision-making. One of the most famous and large-scale works in this direction was the French project “Places of Memory” led by Pierre Nora. The aim of the study was to reconstruct collective memory in France, based on places, things and events that together define the material of history. “Symbolic objects” were monuments, events, rituals, symbols and traditions that make up the diversity of French national identity: the Pantheon, Joan of Arc, the Arc de Triomphe, the Larousse Dictionary, the Wall of the Communards and dozens of others. The main objective of the study, which brought together the largest historians of France, was to find answers to questions that are pressing for today's French society: what is France? what does it mean to be French? How have ideas about France and the French changed over time?

The search for a new collective identity is also relevant for Russia today. The rapidly changing world urgently poses the task of forming new national (and often supranational) identities, requiring transformations of existing forms of collective memory. Already conducted studies of historical memory in modern Russia include both socio-psychological and sociological knowledge to more accurately determine the content of social ideas.

8.4.2. Beliefs, convictions and ideologies

The study of the system of ideas of individuals and groups began to develop especially intensively after the Second World War, in which over 60 million people died. It was necessary to understand how this could happen, what exactly prompted people to commit such terrible crimes. This phenomenon has been 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 Nazi ideology was able to take shape 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 indicate which ones exactly, but introduced four parameters represented by a system of attitude scales: anti-Semitism, economic and 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 ideas called stereotypies 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 conducted in which an attempt was made to understand human mentality as a much more complex formation than is commonly believed. Indeed, despite the psychoanalytic developments of T. Adorno, E. Fromm and M. Horkheimer, the experiments of S. Asch, F. Zimbardo, S. Milgram, the motives of the people who ran the concentration camps in the Nazi era are still not entirely clear Germany and the Soviet Union, since these people in everyday life were neither sadists nor psychopaths. What beliefs and beliefs were they guided by? After all, one can still hear as an excuse for Stalin’s repressions that no one was imprisoned in vain. We hear the voice of the victims, but we know little about the beliefs 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. 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 hypothesizes the existence of a special belief, the influence of which is quite common, namely the belief in “distributive justice”, which plays a role filter when perceiving facts (48, p. 360).

The fundamental paradox of our psyche is that, knowing the finitude 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 “justice in the world,” when every person ultimately deserves what he gets, that sooner or later evil will be punished. The most ancient socio-psychological textbooks on life teach us this - fairy tales, where good always triumphs over evil. An ingenious experiment conducted by M. Lerner with students at 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 based on the vocabulary given to them. Both worked equally well. But then the subjects were informed that, due to cuts in research funds, one of them would not be paid for the work. By drawing lots, one of them must be eliminated. The results obtained were surprising. Different groups of students believed that the one who received the lot, and in each case it fell to one or 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 lot procedure.

The experiment showed that people filter their perceptions when analyzing a situation through the belief or belief that “everyone gets what they deserve,” 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 (1967) paradigm, was also designed to confirm people's belief that the world is just.

Lerner and Simmons experiment

The Lerner-Simmons hypothesis was as follows: if the perception of social space is truly mediated by the belief that “the world is just,” then the expression “innocent victim” itself will be internally contradictory. Scientists have tried to identify perceptual-cognitive strategies aimed at belittling the victim, underestimating her qualities, and questioning her behavior (48, pp. 361-362).

The subjects were informed that they were participating in an experiment to study the emotional reactions characteristic of people in different social situations. They had to observe them through a mirror without amalgam, that is, secretly. The observed situation was quite tough. A student and an experimenter's assistant conducted a training session in which the student had to memorize a very long list of word pairs and verbally pair a stimulus word, called the assistant, with its pair. As punishment for a mistake, the student received a rather painful electric shock.

At the end of the session, subjects answered a questionnaire designed to describe the student's general behavior. The questionnaire included 15 bipolar scales with adjectives that have a pronounced value judgment. Subjects had to identify what type of interaction they would like to engage in with this student and say how much they identified with him.

The results of the experiment surprised the scientists, since the subjects had to evaluate what was essentially an “innocent victim.” In all cases, the subjects sought to belittle the personality of the student - an “innocent victim.” In the first case, the victim is belittled the least if the subjects think that the training session is over, the victim's suffering has stopped, or that he has received positive reinforcement - a reward for his suffering. In the second case, the victim's personality traits and performance are rated lower if subjects think that only half the time of the training session has passed and it is unknown what will happen next. In the third case, the belittlement of the victim’s personality is the most significant and occurs when the subjects heard how the student, before the training session, told the experimenter that, despite the fear of upcoming suffering, he agreed to it out of dedication and self-denial (48, pp. 361-362 ).

According to J.-P. Deconchy, the results of the experiment with merciless truthfulness remind us that people strive to justify “inconvenient” facts for themselves not only affectively, but also cognitively, reaching in extreme cases to deny their existence at all. For example, the current Iranian leadership denies the very fact of the Holocaust and genocide of the Jewish people during the Second World War. This is necessary to justify aggressive plans against modern Israel.

The originality of Lerner’s experiments lies in the fact that he explores not just individual aspects of social ideas, 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 Deconchy, the most appropriate name for the psychological status of this “something” is “beliefs and convictions” (48, p. 363). However, the question remains where exactly these beliefs and beliefs that people tend to ardently defend come from.

In our opinion, here we should recall the amazing experiment of I. P. Pavlov, which was described by L. S. Vygotsky. It shows how ideas are distorted and even distorted as a result of negative personal experiences.

Pavlov's experiment

A classic example of a “perversion of instinct” is Academician Pavlov’s experience with training a dog to have a conditioned reflex to cauterize the skin with an electric current. At first, the animal responds to painful stimulation with a violent defensive reaction; it breaks out of the pen, grabs the device with its teeth, and fights with all means. But as a result of a long series of experiments, during which painful stimulation was accompanied by food reinforcement, the dog began to respond to the burns inflicted on it with the reaction that it usually responds to food. The famous 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 ascended to the stake.” In his words, he outlined the enormous 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 upbringing and the influence of the environment on us... 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 by an innate reaction due 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 notice 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 the concept of learned helplessness by M. Seligman. In a situation where electric shocks are accompanied by feeding, the dog is “forced” to “get used to” them. She does not demonstrate learned helplessness and does not lie down to die, but her life can hardly be called pleasant. The same adaptation mechanism operates in human communities: if I cannot change reality, I am forced to get used to it and justify the actions of the authorities. This can create false social perceptions. This especially clearly illustrates the spread of fascist ideology, which was accompanied by a rapid improvement in the financial situation of “pure-blooded” 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 were not threatened. This means that we can close our eyes to obvious violence and injustice against Otherness.

The field of research on social representations of beliefs and beliefs is still awaiting further development. However, it is clear that beliefs are sociocognitive processes that are not associated with any particular theory or methodology. Conducted in the late 1990s. experiments by Deconchy and Hurteau (1997) showed that irrational explanations of phenomena arise in situations of lack of cognitive control. That is, people who cannot rationally explain a particular phenomenon tend to look for its cause, mythologizing the incomprehensible and unstudied. This area of research into social representations requires fundamentally different approaches to theoretical constructions and new research methods.

The study of social representations is a powerful alternative to social cognitivist models because it examines the cognitive mechanisms at work in social thought. Through their connections to language, ideology, symbolism, the social imagination, and their role in guiding human behavior, social ideas give new meaning and 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 began to be developed in the early 1960s. S. Moscovici and his school. Experimental work in this area has led to a deeper understanding of both the social ideas of the individual and the role of social ideas in the life of society. At the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, according to Moscovici, collective ideas characteristic of 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 ideas for the survival of society - they give meaning and unite people, ensure existence in unity, and ultimately create community.

Social representations have a complex structure, in which there are central and peripheral components. The core of social ideas 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 among group members regarding the importance of one or another characteristic of the object of representation.

The formation of social ideas 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. Moscovici calls these two processes "objectification" And "implementation".

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.

Research into the mechanisms of formation of a system of ideologies, beliefs and convictions has shown that there are certain filters that allow one to maintain the stability of beliefs. Such a filter, in particular, is the belief in the “fairness of the world,” which forces people to attribute merit to a random person who wins. M. Lerner's experiments make it possible to find the mechanism for the formation of social ideas. 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 beliefs that people tend to ardently defend come from.

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