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By Lic. Cira Y Alvarez Silva. February 28, 2018
Social representations are expressions of the social fabric interrelated with attitudes, stereotypes, prejudices, customs, traditions and values, as dimensions of everyday subjectivity (Martin, 1986). Feelings, emotions, experiences and symbolisms converge in them that promote effective cognitive unity; This determines the great regulatory potential of the behavior that this category has.
To address social representations as collective constructions that articulate the psychological with the social, with a symbolic and peculiar character in each context, psychology is accompanied by the contributions made from other social sciences such as Philosophy and Sociology. This analysis, without pretending to be conclusive, assesses some theoretical positions that due to their relevance are considered necessary to take into account in the study of social representations.
Approach to social representations from some 'theorists of the spirit'
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The object of psychology is the study of subjectivity at the level of individual experience, but also of the collective fact. Both in the academic research programs that gave rise to it, as well as in some of the paradigms that allowed it to emerge from the crisis, tendencies can be observed to propose the experiment and other qualitative procedures as an alternative in the search for the subjective.
They highlight positivism with reflexology and behaviorism; while within phenomenology, Gestalt also opted for the sufficiency of "hard" sciences as the only way to access the subjective.
Psychoanalysis and Humanism, on the other hand, were born within phenomenology, but already further away from positivist tendencies, however they maintained the attachment to individuality as the main limitation. Would these paradigms be enough to plausibly approach psychosocial dynamics as subjective group elements? - Obviously not.
Much could be said about Freud and the shift that his transgressive theory implied in understanding the human. But although this psychoanalyst has the merit of inaugurating a trend that highlighted and seriously justified the value of the symbolic in collective behavior; it had the limitation of reducing social behavior to projections of the individual psychodynamic.
Some of his less orthodox successors advanced in the understanding of the social. In this sense, Carl Jung, who introduced the concept of the collective unconscious, stands out. In his opinion, the individual carries within him the experiences accumulated by previous generations. This collective unconscious is shared by all human beings and an important part of it is the universal images or symbols.
In the author's criteria, these positions are of interest, especially for clinical psychology, but they fail to adequately assess the bilateral relationship that the individual establishes with society.
Although it is true that authors such as Vigotsly, Rubinstein and Petrosky, supported by the dialectical-materialist understanding of history, were able to explain in a coherent and dynamic way the role of the historical and the social in the constitution of the subjective phenomenon, it should not be ignored other valuable contributions made from the social sciences.
Complete analysis- Notions of Kant, Durkheim and Weber
To achieve an unbiased analysis of psychological representations as a category, it is not appropriate to conceive the social sciences in isolation from each other, since they have been complementing each other through the historical development of humanity. Each of them has used its theoretical-methodological framework to respond to the demands and phenomena that appear in social consciousness, in its complex interaction with the social being; and this own task has generated knowledge, sometimes from different perspectives, but with equal scientific value in understanding the psychosocial.
In the first place, it is necessary to address the Kantian notion (taken up in the 19th century by Sociology) and think about social phenomena from the legitimation of the existence of a “reality in itself” and a reality for the subject who experiences it. This suggests since what has been called the mother of all sciences, that reality, before being a psychologically significant content, passes through the filter of perception as a cognitive phenomenon; to then go through the sieve of representations and personality as a peculiar system in each case.
This being the case, the cause of this plurality of realities suggested by Kant could probably be found in psychological representations, both individual and social (since they are categories that intertwine) and this explanatory possibility highlights the importance of their study as a category..
At the same time, Kant raises a notion of subjectivity, and according to this author's criteria, also of social construction of meanings and representations, when he argues that a man abandoned on a desert island would not decorate his cabin for himself, nor would he look for flowers; and he refers that the same meaningless flowers in the previous situation, can end up acquiring social importance, being of great interest, but only in the bond with the other (cited by Hoyos, Vargas, 2002).
Such ideas refer above all to the role of the social in the formation of representations from the constitution and legitimation of meanings, meanings and values; All categories that make up the referential framework from which people perceive a certain element of reality as valuable or useless, beautiful, accepted or questionable.
Therefore, the criterion expressed by Hoyos and Vargas in 2002 is shared, when they express that for Kant aesthetics is expressed to the extent that levels of coexistence are wanted, in agreement, of sedimentation of the communal, communicative experience; and that it is revealed as a space for the understanding of meaning and the constitution of agreements.
It can be seen that when addressing the issue of aesthetics, Kant makes, perhaps without intending to, a clear description of the interpsychological and of the importance of the social bond in the formation of the subjective. Such proposals were later reaffirmed by Pichón Riviére, an important exponent of psychology in Argentina, who highlighted the leading role of the bond in the constitution of the subjective.
Within Sociology we can find two fundamental pillars for the understanding of the group psychological. The first is Emile Durkheim, when he highlights the need to study the social fact, which he defines as ways of acting, thinking and feeling, endowed with the power of coercion (Durkheim, 1956). Undoubtedly, he is referring to social constructions that are culturally consolidated and internalized at the individual level, functioning as a driving force and guide of social and individual behavior.
For him, the social fact can have a positive or negative contribution to the maintenance or change of the social structure. In this direction, one could point to the existence of some coincidence between this analysis and Marx's approach regarding the existence of a dialectical and bidirectional relationship between social being and social consciousness. It is valid to highlight in Durkheim's thought, which locates the possibility of social action in all spheres of constitution and manifestation of the psychic (Cognitive, affective, behavioral).
In convergence with the previous author, we can quote Max Weber, who also places social action as the objective of the interpretation of Sociology, and thinks of it as a behavior loaded with meaning.
For Weber, social action is all social attitude and behavior, which can be explicit or subjective; whether it is an active or passive intervention, or an aptitude to abstain from the different situations and contexts in which individuals develop in their social actions. However, it is considered that their ultimate interest is in the subjective component of social action, as a determinant of it.
From his point of view, man is embedded in webs of meaning that he himself constructs. This construction is clearly social, since it is not only about the individual meanings that mobilize social action, but also about the internationalizations of collective meanings crystallized from historical experience and transmitted transgenerationally through culture.
The elements raised above make us reflect on the study of social representations and the need to think about it free of scientific inflexibilities, deterministic thoughts and generalizations; since by their nature, the representations are given by the articulation of the individual senses and the shared meanings, peculiar in each context.
Even when delving into the particularities of this category implies noticing great complexity in its understanding, it is essential to challenge the "sciences of the spirit" to try to get as close as possible to their essences. Because as previous authors have suspected for a long time, in their understanding goes the possibility of explaining and even modifying collective behavior and social functioning.
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