A reappraisal of the social security-fertility hypothesis: A bidirectional approach

There has been considerable debate in the literature regarding the social security-fertility hypothesis. By analyzing 81 countries for which data was available, numerous econometric models were developed to test both the relative importance of social security as a causal factor affecting fertility and the subsequent effect of lower fertility levels on social security expenditures. By controlling for economic development and testing the model at different points in time, the social security variable was found to be causally linked to subsequent fertility levels as well as fertility levels being causally linked to subsequent social security expenditures. Furthermore, the appropriate response lag was identified and various nonlinear functional forms were utilized to control for economic development. Finally, a Chow test was employed to show the existence of structural change between the developed and less developed nations.     

The Processual Origins of Social Representations

Referring to some perceived difficulties in social representation theory, this paper offers an account of the genesis of social representations in a theory of valuing. Drawing on influential but previously largely unconnected ideas from interactionist theory, personal construct theory, and Rokeach's theory of values, it is suggested that a process of valuing can be presented as a crucial link between the individual and social levels of analysis, a present theoretical disjuncture that has been of concern to some commentators in social representations and widespread beliefs.     

社会资本与地位获得——简单与复杂的因果机制和因果联结

传统观点强调所动员的社会资本独立于行动者个人资本带来地位回报的因果机制,是一种基于简单因果关系类型的理论建构。基于复杂因果关系视角,本文强调总体社会对社会位置的社会必要性效率约束,所动员的社会资本带来地位回报的过程,是以行动者自身人力资本为条件的复杂因果机制。观察社会资本与地位获得复杂因果关系的研究假设,应着重审视社会资本与人力资本复合结果与地位获得之间的正向关联性。
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For Emergence: Refining Archer's Account of Social Structure

The question of social structure and its relationship to human agency remains one of the central problems of social theory. One of the most promising attempts to provide a solution has been Margaret Archer's morphogenetic approach, which invokes emergence to justify treating social structure as causally effective. Archer's argument, however, has been criticised by a number of authors who suggest that the examples she cites can be explained in reductionist terms and thus that they fail to sustain her claim for the independent causal effectiveness of social structure. This paper offers an alternative argument to support the emergentist claim for the causal effectiveness of social structure, and shows how this argument refutes a representative critique of social emergence.     

Messiahs, Pariahs, and Donors: The Development of Social Representations of Organ Transplants

This longitudinal, qualitative study investigated the genesis and transformation of the social representations of organ transplants. A search of the West Australian newspaper, from 1954 to 1995 found 672 articles pertaining to organ transplants. Two distinct, but conflicting, representations emerged in the analyses. In the first representation, found from 1967/68, the surgeon was paramount and organ transplants were iconised as 'spare part surgery'. In the second representation, found from 1984/85, the role of the donor was emphasised and transplants iconised as a 'gift of life'. Both representations were discernible in 1994/95. We consider the question whether there are now two conflicting representations or one representation with two conflicting sets of beliefs at its core. The results are discussed in terms of anchoring, objectification, transformation, and structure, as well as Moscovici's (1993) notion of canonic themata.     

The Causal Power of Discourse

This paper outlines a realist approach to the social ontology of discourse. It seeks to synthesise some elements of the approach to discourse found in the early work of Michel Foucault with a critical realist understanding of the causal power of social structures. It will argue that discursive structures can be causally significant when they are normatively endorsed and enforced by specific groups of people; that it is not discourse as such but these groups—discursive circles—that are causally effective; and that such an account allows us to reconcile the role of discourse with that of the subject.     

The Breakdown of the Hegemonic Representation of Madness in Africa

Social science has recently examined the dramatic increase of witchcraft and magic in everyday contemporary African. A study, which took place in the 1970's, on the representation of madness in postcolonial Congo, contributes to the elucidation of such an outgrowth. In line with the first version of La Psychoanalyse, it aimed at identifying variations in the images, beliefs, and attitudes associated with groups whose social positioning differed in relation to modernity. Sixty old men were interviewed. The respondents provided a representation in the making that neither reflected Western knowledge nor faithfully echoed local patterns. The Western elements were anchored in a strongly objectified local belief system. For “traditional” informants the meaning attributed to madness testifies to the transformation of a hegemonic representation into a polemical one since it addressed the question of their identity shaken by modernity. An emancipated representation emerged within the most educated group. A secondary analysis of the data contributes to current theoretical debates within social representations theory in focusing on tolerance/intolerance to alternative representations through semantic barriers. It brings more evidence to the fragmentation of the hegemonic system of belief and confirms how social—identity content and relations mediate knowledge construction.     

Making Sense of "Absence": Towards a Typology of Absence in Social Representations Theory and Research

Identifying, locating and interpreting both what is present and what is not present in theory and data lies at the core of scientific practice. Most experienced researchers know that social reality and psychological phenomena cannot always be apprehended directly, and that the forces that shape them must often be inferred rather than positively demonstrated. Yet, the important analytical problems raised by "absence" have rarely occupied the centre stage in professional journals. The aim of this paper is to sensitise researchers to the problem of absence. It considers the various guises in which absences may appear, their repercussions in the research process, and the solutions that researchers have used to render absences visible. The paper focuses on the issue of absence as it appears in theory and research on social representations. A typology of absence, structured in terms of the research process, is proposed. The typology is intended purely as a heuristic tool. It identifies and discusses forms of theoretical, methodological, empirical and analytical/interpretive absences. This typology is used to explore forms of absence and their interrelationships throughout the research process in three studies on social representations. The discussion as a whole contributes to reaffirming the radical character of the theory of social representations by stressing how the latter locates the space of explanation at the interface between individual and collective representations, between social and cognitive processes, between intentional and non-conscious dynamics, and between material and symbolic realities.     

Causality in the logic of decision

In recent years there has been an active debate between proponents of two different models of rational decision. One model is evidential decision theory, which is characterized by the fact that it holds the principle of maximizing expected utility to be appropriate whenever the states are probabilistically independent of the acts. The other model, causal decision theory, holds that the principle of maximizing expected utility is appropriate whenever the states are causally independent of the acts. The proponents of evidential decision theory include Richard Jeffrey and Ellery Eells, who claim that evidential decision theory has significant advantages over causal decision theory. In this paper I discuss the two main advantages which have been claimed for evidential decision theory, and show that in fact evidential decision theory does not possess either of these advantages.     

Sensory experiences and social representation – Embodied multimodality of common-sense thinking

Discussions on the body frequently foreground in empirical studies of social representations. However, there is scarce theoretical literature within social representations theory focusing on embodied social representation. This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of embodied, sensory experiences as part of social representation. More precisely, it attempts to elaborate how individual, social, bodily, and material layers work together in embodied social representation. This paper approaches the topic from four viewpoints: (1) social representation as action, (2) phenomenology, (3) embodied and socially situated cognition, and (4) sensory epistemologies and sensescapes. These approaches are used to provide insight into the conscious and unconscious processes of social representation and the multimodality of social representation. The paper contributes to the understanding of the role of sensory experiences and embodiment in the theory of social representations.     

Critical Realism and Causality: Tracing the Aristotelian Legacy

Rom Harré's generative account of causality has been drawn on heavily by advocates of critical realism. Yet Harré argues that critical realists often exaggerate the extent to which powerful causal explanations of social phenomena can be developed. Certain proponents of critical realism have responded to Harré's criticisms by suggesting that it is useful to consider the relevant issues in relation to the familiar Aristotelian classification of four causes. In this paper I contribute to this debate and pursue a similar strategy. The paper adds to existing contributions in two ways. Firstly, I outline how Harré sees his generative account of causality as linking up with Aristotelian themes. It emerges that Harré at times conceives of his generative theory as part of an alternative to the Aristotelian system while at other times he draws connections between it and a reformulated account of formal causality. Secondly, I argue that when we consider the positions of Harré and proponents of critical realism on the scope of causal explanation in the social realm in relation to the interpretation of final causes offered by another philosopher profoundly influenced by the Aristotelian tradition, namely Charles Peirce, we can see both as limited in certain respects.     

图形的逻辑力量：因果图的概念及其应用

本文旨在系统性地引介因果图方法,一种社会科学领域新近发展起来的探究因果推断的非参数估计工具。首先对因果图的基本概念和构型进行介绍,讨论变量之间不同“通路”对应的开启和阻断规则及因果推断中的三种偏差来源,即混淆偏差、过度控制偏差、内生性选择偏差。在此基础上,本文将因果图框架与现有定量社会科学研究中基于回归模型的因果推断方法思路进行融合,结合实际案例使用因果图阐释包括遗漏变量、样本选择、自选择及联立性在内的四种内生性问题,并对多元回归与匹配、代理变量、实验、工具变量、面板模型等因果推断方法的运行机制进行了图形化。最后,本文使用因果图厘清一些关于因果推断的不准确理解。     

The Theory of Conditionality: An Illustration of the Place of Norms in the Field of Social Thinking

In the field of the central core theory of social representations, research which has focused on the normative aspects is relatively recent as it dates back little more than ten years. The theory of conditionality which developed from research into the periphery of representation results from this. It is a particularly fruitful theory to explain “normative latitudes” and the behaviour accruing to them. One of the particularities of these works stresses the importance of linking the normative aspects with specific methods and/or analyses. In this paper, we will illustrate it via a specific tool developed in the field of traffic psychology: the Conditional Script Questionnaire (CSQ). This approach makes it possible to highlight the interactions between two systems of norms: the legal system and the social system. The implication of norms is fundamental in different processes already studied such as social influence or identity processes, and this article can be considered as an illustration of the place of norms in the field of social thinking.     

Methods for Studying the Structure of Social Representations: A Critical Review and Agenda for Future Research

This article deals with the methodologies commonly used in the framework of the structural approach to social representations. It concerns free and hierarchical evocations, the characterization questionnaire, the similarity analysis, the basic cognitive schemes model, the attribute‐challenge technique and the test of context independence. More than a simple review of these methodologies, it offers a critical approach concerning the problems encountered and related to: thresholds or “cutoff points” used to diagnose the structure (core vs. periphery) and the accuracy of the structural diagnosis, grouping methods employed to reduce the corpus of verbal associations, the dilemma between reliability and feasibility, especially in field research, the adequacy and number of modalities of response in the framework of the structural diagnosis. Following this evaluation, this article suggests potential solutions to overcome these methodological limitations. Moreover, as methodological issues are closely related to theoretical questions, the link between social representation theory and identity approaches is discussed.     

Disentangling the Social and the Pedagogical in Infants' Learning about Tool‐Use

We investigated infants' response to pedagogy in the domain of tool use. In experiment 1, infants viewed a causally relevant tool‐use demonstration presented identically in either a social/pedagogical or social/non‐pedagogical context. Infants exposed to pedagogical cues displayed superior production of the tool‐use sequence. This was so despite infants displaying equivalent attention to the demonstration across conditions. In contrast, pedagogical cues had no systematic impact on infants' discrimination between causally possible vs. impossible tool‐use sequences in a looking‐time task. Interestingly, however, older infants across both conditions displayed a preference for looking toward the causally possible display. Experiment 2 documented that social cues of any sort (regardless of pedagogy) accompanying the demonstration triggered older infants to discriminate the causally possible vs. impossible events whereas a non‐social demonstration did not. Together, the two experiments implicate ‘social gating’ as well as a pedagogical stance in infants' processing and execution of causal action.     

Towards a Paradigm for Research on Social Representations

Based on Moscovici's (1961) classical study on the cultivation of psychoanalytic ideas in France in the 1950's and our own research on modern biotechnology, we propose a paradigm for researching social representations. Following a consideration of the nature of representations and of the 'iconoclastic suspicion' that haunts them, we propose a model of the emergence of meaning relating three elements: subjects, objects, and projects. The basic unit of analysis is the elongated triangle of mediation (SOPS): subject 1, object, project, and subject 2, captured in the image of a 'Toblerone'. Such social units cultivate, that is produce, circulate and receive representation which may be embodied in four modes–habitual behaviour, individual cognition, informal communication and formal communication–and in three mediums–words, visual images or non-linguistic sounds. We propose an operational definition of a 'social representation' as the comparison of four characteristics of communication systems: the content structures (anchorings and objectifications; core and peripheral elements), the typified processes (diffusion, propagation, propaganda etc.), and their functions (identity, attitude, opinion, resistance, ideology etc.), within the context of segmented social milieus. Seven implications for research on social representations are outlined: (1) content and process; (2) segmentation by social milieus rather than taxonomies; (3) cultivation studies within social milieus; (4) multi-method (mode and medium) analysis; (5) time structures and longitudinal data; (6) the crossover of cultural projects and trajectories; (7) the disinterested research attitude. This ideal type paradigm leads to an operational clarification to identify new research questions, and to guide the design and evaluation of studies on social representations.     

Housing and the business cycle in South Africa

This paper examines the housing-output growth nexus in South Africa by accounting for the time variation in the causal link with a bootstrapped rolling Granger non-causality test. We use quarterly data on real gross domestic product, real house prices, real gross fixed capital formation and number of building plans passed. Our data span 1971Q2–2012Q2. Using full sample bootstrap Granger causality tests, we find a uni-directional causality from output to number of building plans passed; a uni-directional causality from real house price to output and a bi-directional causal link between residential investment and output. However, using parameter stability tests, we show that estimated VARs are unstable, thus full-sample Granger causality inference may be invalid. Hence, we use a bootstrap rolling window estimation to evaluate Granger causality between the housing variables and the growth rate. In general, we find that the causality from housing to output and, vice versa, differ across different sample periods due to structural changes. Specifically speaking, house price is found to have the strongest causal relationship with output compared to residential investment and number of building plans passed, with real house price showing predictive ability in all but one downward phase of the business cycle during this period.     

Social Representations and Repression: Examining the First Formulations of Freud and Moscovici

The English edition of Moscovici's classic work on the social representation of psychoanalysis enables us to reflect on the historical origins of psychoanalytic ideas and of social representation theory itself. Moscovici claimed that science was both univocal and abstract and, in these respects, it differs from the social representations of commonsense. This paper explores these notions, especially in relation to Moscovici's claim that psychoanalytic theory is to be found in Freud's first formulations. It is suggested that some of the processes, which Moscovici attributes to the passage of psychoanalytic ideas to commonsense, can be found occur in the early history of psychoanalysis. This can be seen in Freud's criticisms of the way Jung used the concept of “complex”. Moreover, psychoanalytic theory could never be univocal for it incorporated the voices of patients and their representations of the world. An examination of Studies on Hysteria reveals further multivocality as Freud uses both the “action” language of ordinary life and the reified, nominalized language of science. Examples are given in relation to the first formulations of the key psychoanalytic concept of “repression”. Some comparisons are made between Freud's first formulations of “repression” and Moscovici's first formulations of “social representation”.     

Sensitising Concept, Themata and Shareness: A Dialogical Perspective of Social Representations

This article aims at clarifying some critical, yet under-explored, conceptual issues of social representations from a dialogical perspective. The article recasts the notion of social representations as a sensitising, rather than a definitive, concept, based on the distinction between dialogical and monological epistemologies. It is argued that the introduction of the concept of themata into the theory suggests the dialogical interdependence between common thinking and social morphology, between the genesis and structure of social representations, and between implicit underlying themata and their pragmatic manifestations in structuring social representations. At the same time, the concept of themata implies that a social representation may be, at one and the same time, shared and communicated in hegemonic, emancipated and polemical ways in a complementary manner. These three ways of "sharing" are dialogically interrelated to each other.     

Ageing Populations and Housing Needs: Comparing Strategic Policy Discourses in France and England

Set against a broad European policy agenda which promotes ‘ageing in place’ and representations of older people as active, independent citizens, this article compares recent English and French policy discourses on population ageing and its implications for the housing needs of increasingly large numbers of older citizens. Through analysis of six recent strategic policy statements representing each government's official responses to population ageing and its social policy implications for the 21st century, we demonstrate how differences in the social representation of the ageing process and of older peoples themselves permeate policy discourse, influencing the perceptions of the housing needs of older citizens and the role that housing itself may play in promoting independent living. In England, demographic ageing, housing and its role in facilitating independent living and active ageing are explicitly articulated, whilst in France, the housing environment has until recently, been portrayed as one which must accommodate the illness, incapacity and dependency of later life. Our article offers explanations for these differences in terms of cultural variations in the social representations or ‘constructions’ of later life, divergences in political philosophies and welfare principles.