Embracing ChangePub Date : 2021-12-23DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197617366.003.0009
D. Romaioli, A. Contarello
{"title":"Social Constructionism and Social Representation Theory","authors":"D. Romaioli, A. Contarello","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197617366.003.0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197617366.003.0009","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter considers how the perspectives of social constructionism and social representations theory can overlap and cross-fertilize more than was once recognized, when the study of change is at stake. This applies particularly to the study of meaning-making through practices and relations via social artifacts. Focusing on those scholars considered to be the main initiators and developers of these two perspectives in social psychology—Serge Moscovici and Kenneth J. Gergen—the authors analyze their works on different levels: meta-theoretical, theoretical, and methodological. Grounding their reasoning on research that they themselves and others have conducted on the two frameworks, mainly on aging in an aging society, the authors call for a further erasure of distinctions between the two. They conclude by suggesting a fruitful future enrichment of the dialogue and a reciprocal cross-fertilization that might overcome nominalistic barriers in the study of social knowledge, particularly where change and continuity are concerned.","PeriodicalId":370035,"journal":{"name":"Embracing Change","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115543515","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Embracing ChangePub Date : 2021-12-23DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197617366.003.0004
G. Leone, A. Nadler
{"title":"Social Representations in the Classroom","authors":"G. Leone, A. Nadler","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197617366.003.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197617366.003.0004","url":null,"abstract":"In this chapter, the authors briefly summarize relevant research in two distinct fields of research before suggesting their merging to show how teachers’ help might promote their pupils’ future growth, eventually challenging the current unequal social status quo between advantaged and disadvantaged groups. Two studies, conducted with original research methodology, illustrate the point and conclude with practical suggestions for effective helping relationships in the classroom, underlying the pivotal role of social interactions in fostering the child’s active involvement in relevant social groups. Relaunching and employing the concepts of contingent scaffolding, as a provisional structure of knowledge offered by the adult, the teacher’s capacity of fading, in accordance with the growing capacity of students, and the transfer of responsibilities from teachers to students, the “thirdness” in the knowing process and its potential role in changing existing unequal status quo stands out.","PeriodicalId":370035,"journal":{"name":"Embracing Change","volume":"197 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116147968","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Embracing ChangePub Date : 2021-12-23DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197617366.003.0003
F. Emiliani
{"title":"Stability and Change in Everyday Knowledge: From Taken for Granted to Social Representation","authors":"F. Emiliani","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197617366.003.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197617366.003.0003","url":null,"abstract":"What do we talk about when we talk about everyday life? This chapter considers everyday life as a “metasystem” in Moscovici’s terms, a normative system that checks and organizes knowledge and thought. Looking at social representations theory, the chapter considers the structuring power of this metasystem, referring to two kinds of research where the absence (for deprived children) or suspension (in the first COVID-19 lockdown in Italy) of everyday life causes delays in children’s development and dismay in adults. The suspension of ordinary life highlights the social representation of “normality.” The structure of the “everyday life” metasystem is largely taken for granted, and this calls into question the relationship between the taken-for-granted and the knowledge that constructs social representations or, in other words, between stability and change in common knowledge.","PeriodicalId":370035,"journal":{"name":"Embracing Change","volume":"53 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121843217","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Embracing ChangePub Date : 2021-12-23DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197617366.003.0002
Valentina Rizzoli, Arjuna Tuzzi, A. Contarello
{"title":"Change Seen Through the Lens of Social Psychology in Europe and the United States","authors":"Valentina Rizzoli, Arjuna Tuzzi, A. Contarello","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197617366.003.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197617366.003.0002","url":null,"abstract":"In this chapter, the authors consider the theme both by browsing through seminal reference books and scholars’ contributions and by using digital methods, probing all the abstracts published in two key journals: the US Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and the European Journal of Social Psychology. The keyword change is explored in its frequency, concordances, and usage contexts and trends over time in the two journals. The results empirically support Marková’s claim that change has mostly been studied in social psychology as perturbation of patterns of stability and has focused on individuals as surrounded and affected by social contexts. To better understand and foster societal changes, a “more social” social psychology would be helpful, particularly adopting study designs and projects oriented by perspectives that can emphasize the mutual and constitutive relations between the individual and the social.","PeriodicalId":370035,"journal":{"name":"Embracing Change","volume":"43 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121859767","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Embracing ChangePub Date : 2021-12-23DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197617366.003.0007
Paula Castro, S. Brondi, A. Contarello
{"title":"Battles of Ideas Between the Legal and the Legitimate","authors":"Paula Castro, S. Brondi, A. Contarello","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197617366.003.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197617366.003.0007","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter discusses how social psychology can offer theoretical contributions for a better understanding of the relations between the institutional and public spheres and how this may impact change in ecological matters. First, it introduces the difference between natural and agreed—or chosen—limits to human action and draws on Sophocles’s Antigone to illustrate this and discuss how legitimacy has roots in the many heterogeneous values of the public sphere/consensual universe, while legality arises from the institutional/reified sphere. Recalling some empirical research in the area of social studies of sustainability, it then shows how a social representations perspective can help us understand the dynamic and interdependent relations between the institutional or reified sphere and the consensual or common sense universe—and their implications for social change and continuity.","PeriodicalId":370035,"journal":{"name":"Embracing Change","volume":"123 15 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134052400","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Embracing ChangePub Date : 2021-12-23DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197617366.003.0008
Antônia Lêda Oliveira Silva, L. F. Tura, Campos Madeira
{"title":"Research of the Health, Aging, and Society Laboratory","authors":"Antônia Lêda Oliveira Silva, L. F. Tura, Campos Madeira","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197617366.003.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197617366.003.0008","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter describes the work being done in North-East Brazil to clarify how social issues are constructed and reconstructed in processes driven by the values, symbols, and patterns that characterize the area’s social and cultural spaces. Aging, but also care, quality of life, and work are studied, analyzing them in the process of their naturalization guided by daily communication and practices. The Lab at the Federal University of Paraiba (UFPB), in Joao Pessoa, also draws on contributions from other areas of Brazil (especially Rio de Janeiro) and focuses mainly on studying the aging process. Its work is guided by principles of interprofessionalization in the field of gerontology, especially in its critical advancements. The Aging Institute founded at the UFPB (the first in the whole country) aims to combine research and a third mission, exploiting the potential of social representations theory for engaged research.","PeriodicalId":370035,"journal":{"name":"Embracing Change","volume":"112 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121883254","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Embracing ChangePub Date : 2021-12-23DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197617366.003.0001
A. Contarello
{"title":"Introduction: Why a Social Representations Perspective?","authors":"A. Contarello","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197617366.003.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197617366.003.0001","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter introduces the social representations perspective that forms the background of the entire volume, presenting the social-psychological gaze (regard psychosocial): the acknowledgment that the knowledge of a social object necessarily requires the mediation of an Alter, a “thirdness.” From this premise, specific ways of studying change and continuity in meaning-making derive, putting change at the forefront as well as concerns about the role of the researcher along the path. After considering these features, the chapter briefly presents the various parts that compose the book and the single chapters. From a social representations stance or from cognate perspectives, several keywords and topics are encountered, both on a theoretical side and with empirical examples, addressing social issues in domains such as health, aging, inequalities, environment, and community.","PeriodicalId":370035,"journal":{"name":"Embracing Change","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129583711","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Embracing ChangePub Date : 2021-12-23DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197617366.003.0006
B. Camargo, A. Bousfield
{"title":"The Contribution of Social Representations Theory for a Social Psychology of Communication Laboratory","authors":"B. Camargo, A. Bousfield","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197617366.003.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197617366.003.0006","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter describes the mission and research of the Social Psychology of Communication and Cognition Laboratory (Laboratório de Psicologia Social da Comunicação e Cognição) at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (LACCOS–UFSC). After explaining how the lab was set up, the authors illustrate the communication systems model from the social representations perspective. This goes beyond previous communication paradigms that use metaphors like the machine, the organism, or Frankenstein and toward a contextualized conception of social communication. Studies conducted by the Lab exemplify how change and continuity might be experimentally explored. Some of them concern scientific knowledge on HIV/AIDS and show how to tackle the dialogical knowledge generated by the ternary Ego-Alter-Object view proposed by means of experimental designs in the social representation domain. The chapter closes with some considerations on the COVID-19 pandemic and the dynamics of social representations.","PeriodicalId":370035,"journal":{"name":"Embracing Change","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127349770","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Embracing ChangePub Date : 2021-12-23DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197617366.003.0005
B. Mazzara
{"title":"Social Representations, Communication, and the Evolution of Cultures","authors":"B. Mazzara","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197617366.003.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197617366.003.0005","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter suggests that, in order to understand changes in both social representations and culture, we need to focus on their systemic nature and on the role of communication processes. Linking up with a lengthy tradition that enhances the social nature of the human mind, the connections between the Frankfurt School’s legacy, cultural psychology, and the socio-constructionist movement are explored from a mature biological-evolutionary perspective. Considering and extending the idea of complexity from the biological domain to the mental, social, and cultural spheres, the attention shifts from structures to processes. What then becomes relevant is how well living and cultural systems are able to constantly regenerate themselves through structural changes and the establishing of new connections. The author suggests that we consider social representations as “maps” that we need to orient ourselves effectively in the “territory” of knowledge, action, and social relations.","PeriodicalId":370035,"journal":{"name":"Embracing Change","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132851140","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Embracing ChangePub Date : 2021-12-23DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197617366.003.0010
G. Mininni
{"title":"The Discursive Format of “Social Warming”","authors":"G. Mininni","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197617366.003.0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197617366.003.0010","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter deals with human relationships that currently come up against increasingly overheated communication. Combining the perspective of social representations with that of discursive acts, Giuseppe Mininni relaunches his diatextual approach, placing social psychology at the meeting point between the epistemological axes of cultural, discursive, and critical psychology. Studies on mixed families illustrate the issue. Mixed families seem fundamentally diatextual because their texts are embedded within enunciative contexts animated by multifarious dynamics of perennial change. The author’s analysis shows that these families activate three kinds of social-epistemic rhetoric, focusing on distinction, mediation, and integration. The interplay between the Self and the Other is thus explained, acknowledging the vital impulse toward hybridization. The hyphenated identities produced in mixed families show the Self that the best way to save its own identity may be by strewing it in the Other’s, in an ongoing process of change.","PeriodicalId":370035,"journal":{"name":"Embracing Change","volume":"14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124512690","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}