Symbols of Terror: ‘9/11’ as the Word of the Thing and the Thing of the Word

This paper adopts a social representations approach to examine the ‘9/11’ symbol which is argued to be a centrally organising, communication oriented, symbolic resource within contemporary representations of terrorism. Within the context of the events of September 11 2001 as a point of shared history which has come to be understood as a significant world event (Liu et al., 2009 ), the ‘9/11’ symbol is argued to fulfil a triple function in contemporary representations of terrorism. Firstly, the ‘9/11’ symbol provides a central anchor for the events of September 11 2001. Secondly the ‘9/11’ symbol acts as a powerful rhetorical resource for objectifying the abstract concept of terrorism. Lastly, alongside the capacity to objectify the abstract, the ‘9/11’ symbol also enables a counter process of transcendentalisation (Billig, 1988 ) whereby it transforms the object into the abstract. As a result the ‘9/11’ symbol is highly suited to widespread mobilisation of easily apprehended notions defining what terrorism is, which do not readily provoke contest and are widely constructed as mundane forms of ‘truth’ amongst a community of users.     

The Epistemological Significance of the Theory of Social Representations

The theory of social representations must be understood in terms of its proper epistemology so that it can accomplish its full potential in social sciences. This is often difficult to achieve because researchers comprehend it in terms of concepts that are part of static and individualistic Newtonian epistemology rather than in terms of dynamic and relational Einsteinian epistemology. This article considers three signposts that Moscovici identifies and analyses in the theory of relativity, namely the relation between epistemology and science, theory and method, and the argument against the explanation of effects by their causes. The following question is posed: are these signposts also characteristic of the theory of social representations? This question is examined focusing on interactional epistemology, theory and method and the diversity of natural thinking and communication. Moscovici's Psychoanalysis shows that natural thinking appears in a plurality of modes according to the situation in which it takes place and according to social groups towards which it is directed. Natural thinking is controversial and communication‐centred. Different professionals, groups and lay people use different kinds of speaking and different communicative genres when they try to resolve “the same” problem. The article suggests that bringing together dialogicality, dialogical linguistics and the theory of social representations may open up new possibilities for theoretical developments in social psychology.     

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”.     

Blocking the solution: Social representations of threats and (non)dialogue with alternative representations in Greek‐Cypriot newspapers during peace negotiations

This paper first identifies representations of threats in Greek‐Cypriot newspapers related to the negotiations for a Cyprus settlement. Then, it identifies how alternative representations to these core representations of threats are managed through the use of a number of semantic barriers. Therefore, it problematizes the role (function) that such representations of threats play in undermining the potential for transformative dialogue in a post‐conflict and divided country in need of conflict transformation. Focus is on the editorials of two newspapers during a four‐month period before the collapse of the July 2017 Cyprus peace talks. Both were suspicious and polemic vis‐à‐vis the said negotiations but used different strategies to oppose them. Simerini convened recurrently threats such as Turkification, state dissolution and threats against Hellenism. Phileleftheros focused on the issue of security drawing red lines on various dossiers under discussion in the negotiations. The paper contributes to the theoretical debate of the relationship between social representations and identities and the role of threats and historical narratives in undermining transformative dialogue through the use of semantic barriers.     

Urban art as platforms for bodily engagement and social encounters: the Modified Social Benches

Abstract

This paper discusses the role of the Modified Social Benches, a series of urban artworks, as platforms for bodily engagement and social encounters in open, outdoor urban spaces. Special attention is given to a couple of salient aspects involving both the design of the artworks and their social appropriation: (a) the different levels of sensory and kinesthetic engagement afforded by the benches, and (b) how these material qualities reflect in the urban space around the benches, lending the artworks a notorious social character. The social and the bodily dimensions are presented as intertwined characteristics of the Modified Social Benches. In order to explore these relationships, the paper highlights a set of key concepts, such as social encounters and affordances, as well as the notions of performance and engagement.     

The First Social Psychologist

Because both the individual and the state call for simultaneous investigation in social psychology, one could argue that in some sense Serge Moscovici, with the publication of Psychoanalysis, put forward the first systematic large scale empirical study of cognitive representations in, as it happily proved, various blocs of French understandings of psychoanalysis, admitting, characteristically, doubts about the individual, bloc, and the state representations.     

National Identity,Citizenship and Immigration: Putting Identity in Context

In this paper we suggest that there is a need to examine what is meant by “context” in Social Psychology and present an example of how to place identity in its social and institutional context. Taking the case of British naturalisation, the process whereby migrants become citizens, we show that the identity of naturalised citizens is defined by common‐sense ideas about Britishness and by immigration policies. An analysis of policy documents on “earned citizenship” and interviews with naturalised citizens shows that the distinction between “elite” and “non‐elite” migrants is evident in both the “reified” sphere of policy and the “common sense” sphere of everyday identity construction. While social representations embedded in lay experience construct ethno‐cultural similarity and difference, immigration policies engage in an institutionalised positioning process by determining migrants' rights of mobility. These spheres of knowledge and practice are not disconnected as these two levels of “managing otherness” overlap—it is the poorer, less skilled migrants, originating outside the West who epitomise difference (within a consensual sphere) and have less freedom of mobility (within a reified sphere). We show that the context of identity should be understood as simultaneously psychological and political.     

The Judge Specificity of Evaluations of Youth Social Behavior: The Case of Peer Provocation

Increasingly, theorists have suggested that social competence is an evaluative construct that will vary as a function of who is judging behavior. This study examined how two key groups in children's social environments—peers (N = 663, age range = 10.83–15.25 years) and teachers (N = 49)—rated the effectiveness of different behaviors generated by youth in response to physical, verbal, and relational provocation by peers. Results indicated that youth evaluated aggressive responses as more effective than teachers whereas teachers evaluated seeking an explanation as more effective than youth. Both groups judged responses combining assertive and aggressive elements to be more effective than ‘pure’ aggression. Implications for measurement and intervention models of social competence are discussed.     

Representing personal and common futures: Insights and new connections between the theory of social representations and the pragmatic sociology of engagements

To understand social issues and practices such as those related to climate change and technological change that are clearly future-oriented – collectively experienced events that are “not yet” – and co-constructed by different actors, we need nuanced conceptualizations of how people think about, negotiate and co-create futures that allow us to understand not only what people (can) think and do about future-related issues but also how that happens, what for and with which implications. However, so far, one of the key theoretical approaches that has conceptualised how people make meaning in situations of change and uncertainty – the socio-psychological social representations theory (SRT) – has not often engaged with the future or with different forms of temporality. By contrast, the French pragmatic sociology of engagements and critique (PS) has engaged with these notions, conceptualising them in relation to materiality and a plurality of moral orientations – two dimensions often seen as key to how collective futures are made and imagined. To offer a more nuanced and systematic conceptualization of how people represent the future and with what consequences, this paper will present, compare and synthesise SRT and PS, as a first step towards an interdisciplinary research agenda on social change and representations of the future.     

The construction of social reality as a process of representational naturalization. The case of the social representation of drugs

This theoretical paper explores the role of social representations in the construction of social reality. Even though this question has been the subject of many debates, the actual processes and mechanisms through which social representations contribute to the construction of social reality have rarely been explored. Citing key works on the topic, the paper explores the role of the genesis of social representations in this process. Each stage of the objectification of social representations (selective construction, structuring schematization, and naturalization) is examined in detail. A more in‐depth analysis of the naturalization process is provided by dividing it into four phases: (1) recognition; (2) elimination of contradictions; (3) instrumental use; and (4) validation through experience. These phases are illustrated using the example of the construction of the social object of drugs in our contemporary society. The present examination of the naturalization process in relation to drugs reveals the mechanisms through which the reality of drugs as a social problem has been constructed and reproduced in our society.     

Children's Attention to Others' Beliefs during Persuasion: Improvised and Selected Arguments to Puppets and People

Until now children's attention to the beliefs of people they wish to persuade has been examined experimentally via tasks that were artificial in important respects. To determine whether such research has underestimated children's psychological perspective taking, two studies that manipulated task elements pertinent to ecological validity were conducted. Children in three age groups (3, 4/5, and 6/7 years) were asked (forced‐choice and open‐ended formats) how best to persuade puppets and people, with differing beliefs, to pet and play with various toy animals. Children offered as many or more belief‐relevant arguments in response to forced‐choice as to open‐ended questions. Only the oldest group attended to beliefs more when persuading a person compared with a puppet. Even on more realistic tasks, significant improvement with age across task formats confirmed a developmental trajectory in line with extant reports of children's belief reasoning. The findings support the idea that enhanced social competence corresponds specifically to children's increasing attention to beliefs in social interactions such as persuasion.     

Social Representations,Alternative Representations and Semantic Barriers

Social representations research has tended to focus upon the representations that groups have in relation to some object. The present article elaborates the concept of social representations by pointing to the existence of “alternative representations” as sub‐components within social representations. Alternative representations are the ideas and images the group has about how other groups represent the given object. Alternative representations are thus representations of other people's representations. The present article uses data from Moscovici's (1976/2008 ) analysis of the diffusion of psychoanalysis to examine how people engage with alternative representations. It is demonstrated that there can be more or less dialogical relations with alternative representations. The analysis concludes by considering seven “semiotic barriers” which work to neutralise the dialogical potential of alternative representations, thus on the one hand enabling groups to talk about the views of others, while, on the other hand, remaining unchallenged by those views.     

Social Representations Theory: A Progressive Research Programme for Social Psychology

The study “Psychoanalysis—its image and its public” intimates that common sense is increasingly informed by science. But common sense asserts its autonomy and, in turn, may affect the trajectory of science. This is a process that leads to many differentiations—in common sense, in scientific innovation and in political and regulatory structures. Bauer and Gaskell's toblerone model of triangles of mediation provided a distillation of their reading of “La Psychanalyse.” Here it was argued that representations are multi‐modal phenomena necessitating the use of multiple methodologies (comparative and longitudinal; qualitative and quantitative). In this paper we briefly summarise these arguments and elaborate ways in which social representation theory can be considered a progressive research programme. “Progressive” because as the theory has developed it has extended the range and depth of its conceptual basis; it provides a new synthesis for the social scientific understanding of the phenomena of common sense and of representation; it acts as an antidote to the reductionism of public opinion and, finally, it is a stimulus to depart from disciplinary silos. However, there remain unresolved issues: how to segment the relevant social milieus and how to close the feedback loop from common sense to science?     

Social ontology,practical reasonableness,and collective reasons for action

I argue that the ontology of human social institutions and collective intentionality could be anchored in the normative notion of ‘practical reasonableness’ as collective reason for action. This involves the deontic idea of mutuality, accepted rules, and shared attitudes of other‐regardedness. I examine John Searle's three primitive notions of social ontology: collective intentionality, assignment of social functions, and constitutive rules and procedures. I use these notions to provide a plausible basis for understanding how people reason, in order to arrive at practically reasonable decisions and collective agency. Searle argues that social reality, institutions, processes, and facts are grounded in collective intentionality and the acceptance of social rules, procedures, and functions. I argue that collective intentionality and socially accepted rules are anchored in the need for human interdependence that engenders the social rules and norms or attitudes of ‘practical reasonableness’. I analyze the concept of ‘practical reasonableness’ as a representation of human mode of reasoning that involves collective intentionality.     

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.     

The Rehabilitation of Common Sense: Social Representations,Science and Cognitive Polyphasia

In Psychoanalysis, its image and its public (PIP) Moscovici introduced the theory of social representations and took further the project of rehabilitating common sense. In this paper I examine this project through a consideration of the problem of cognitive polyphasia, and the continuity and discontinuity between different systems of knowing. Focusing on the relations between science and common sense. I ask why, despite considerable evidence to the contrary, the scientific imagination tends to deny its relation to common sense and believe that can displace it. I argue that the psychosocial dynamic between common sense and science is revealing of how heavily they are entangled in, and indeed indebted to each other. Even more, this dynamic allows for a full appreciation of what the theory of social representations calls states of cognitive polyphasia. Different systems of thinking and knowing do not displace each other but live side by side, co‐existing in a variety of ways, fulfilling different functions and answering different needs in social life.     

A Model for Implementing an Evidence-Based Practice in Student Fieldwork Placements: Barriers and Facilitators to the Use of “SBIRT”

ABSTRACT

This article reports on focus group data analysis that was used to understand initial, largely positive outcomes from a university-based initiative to disseminate and implement an evidence-based practice (EBP)—Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment for Substance Use (SBIRT)—into student fieldwork placements, which are usual care social work settings. Focus groups were conducted with three groups of stakeholders involved in the ongoing project: social work department faculty (n = 10), bachelor- and master-level social work students (n = 8), and social work fieldwork instructors (n = 6). Dimensional analysis of the focus group data yielded results indicating that dissemination and implementation of SBIRT was influenced by agency- and school-level factors and perceived fit between the EBP and individual professional identity, intrapersonal characteristics, and timing. The resulting model, developed through the focus group analysis, is offered and shows how these factors interacted and affected training, supervision, and use of the EBP. The model provides social work educational programs and agencies a working tool for diagnosing and proactively addressing barriers and breakdowns in the EBP implementation process. Future research that tests the model as a diagnostic tool and generates knowledge about its influence in developing competent evidence-based practitioners is indicated. Future focus groups in relation to this initiative are needed to better understand these barriers and facilitators in the EBP implementation process and their critical roles in the process of translating SBIRT into standard social work practice.     

Putting the parity into service‐user participation: An integrated model of social justice

Models of service‐user participation have derived from citizenship or consumerist agendas, neither of which has achieved the structural reforms important for the most marginalised social work clients. This article proposes Fraser's model of ‘parity of participation’ as an appropriately multifaceted frame for capturing the social justice aspirations of service‐user participation. A qualitative case study compared the experiences and expectations of people who had used Australian mental health services with a sample who had used Australian homelessness services to examine their expectations of participation at individual and representative levels. The findings reinforce concerns from Fraser's research about the tendency for identity‐based consumerist notions of participation to reify group identity. This leads to tokenistic service‐user involvement strategies that have little impact on participation at a structural level. Fraser's parity of participation is shown to have untested potential to reshape service‐user participation to meet the social justice aspirations of social work clients. Key Practitioner Message: ● Innovative, service‐user driven strategies for collaboration will be those which challenge existing power structures; ● Service users want their contributions to decision making to generate identifiable change in the system of social services; ● The success of service‐user participation strategies might be the extent to which political, economic and cultural opportunities are enhanced.     

Individual- and Contextual-Level Factors Affecting the Use of Social Support Services among Older Adults

ABSTRACT

By 2060, the number of Americans aged 65 and older is expected to more than double, while the number of Americans aged 85 and older is expected to nearly triple. As the nation's aging population grows, older adults will need to rely on social support services, such as transportation and housing services, in order to remain active and lead independent lives. In this study we use data collected from the elderly supplement of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Household Health Survey (SPHHS) (n = 3,042) to explore the relationship between the availability of elderly specific social service providers and utilization of social support services among older adults. We find that while the number of elderly specific social service providers can increase use of social support services among older adults, its impact is relatively minimal. We find that individual factors, instead, are stronger predictors of service use. This is a finding that should be particularly encouraging for elder care providers who may not have the resources needed to undertake large structural changes (like building new facilities). Still, future research should explore how the availability of a broader range of elderly specific social services (than explored in this study) impacts use.