editorial making sense of social reality

8/12/2019 Editorial Making Sense of Social Reality

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Decembrie 2005 Cogniie, Creier, Comportament 599

EDITORIAL MAKING SENSE OF SOCIAL REALITY

Petru Lucian CUREU

Department of Organisation Studies, Tilburg University, The Netherlands

Department of Psychology, Babe-Bolyai University Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Humans are social beings that spend most of their time interacting withothers in various contexts from family to organizational or even larger societal

settings. The way in which they make sense of these interactions, and the way in

which they understand the social reality inspired a considerable amount of research

in the field of Social Psychology. One of the first attempts made by a psychologist

to explain how people make sense of social reality was Carl Gustav Jungs

collective unconscious theory. Using his background in Freudian theory and his

extensive knowledge in mythology, religion and philosophy, he developed the first

psychological theory that tried to explain how people make sense of their social

world. Central in his theory is the concept of collective unconscious: if individual

unconscious reflects the individual experience, the collective unconscious reflects

the experience of the whole species and its contents are the archetypes (primordial

images or tendencies to experience events in a particular way) (Jung, 1981). SinceJungs collective unconscious theory, several theoretical perspectives emerged in

the field of Social Psychology trying to explain how people make sense of their

social world. This special issue tries to illustrate the diversity of approaches that

"hang around" in the academic and research communities, with a special interest in

social cognition theories and constructionist approaches. It is not the aim of this

special issue to integrate or reconcile different theoretical perspectives, but rather

to find the value in the diversity of approaches. The special issue includes

empirical and theoretical studies illustrative for the modern developments in both

social cognition and constructionist approaches.

Social cognition

Based on its prominence in Social Psychology, social cognition is the first

major trend to be discussed. After a quick scan of the Annual Review of


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Editorial: Making sense of social reality600

Psychology, more than 732 papers matches the keyword social cognition. Rooted

in Experimental Social Psychology (Whetherel, McGhee & Stevens, 2003)research in social cognition was initially dominated by the study of attitudes

(Allport, 1935). Based on the assumption that inspired it, namely that social

behavior is objectively describable and measurable (Whetherel, McGhee &

Stevens, 2003), sophisticated quantitative methods have been developed to

evaluate attitudes. Later on, based on the theoretical developments in Cognitive

Psychology, several explanatory models have been put forward to explain their

origins, functions, as well as their relation with behavior and models of attitudes

change (Ajzen, 2001). Currently, the field of attitude research is more or less

divided between a trend focusing on attitude change, persuasion and social

influence (Wood, 2000, Crano & Prislin, 2006) and a trend focusing on attitude

structure, function and origins (Ajzen, 2001). In a general sense, attitudes are

cognitive structures, which guide information processing, and subsequently

behaviors; in this sense they were considered the crown jewel of social

psychology (Crano & Prislin, 2006, p. 360). Due to their relations with behaviors,

attitudes and especially attitude change programs have been proven to have diverse

applications in practical settings from marketing to health education trainings.

A topic in social cognition that received considerable attention is the study

of stereotypes. Initially brought to the attention of psychologists by a journalist

Walter Lippmann (1992) and viewed as images in the brain about social groups,

the stereotypes were then incorporated into the social categorization theory (Hilton

& Hippel, 1996) and fueled by the large antidiscrimination movement in the 60s

and 70s (Hamilton & Sherman, 1995, Ashkanasy, Hrtel & Daus, 2002), they

became soon one of the hottest topics in social cognition. The researchenthusiasm generated around stereotypes, made them emblematic for the social

cognition research (Macrae & Bodenhausen, 2000), determining some critics of the

social cognition perspective (e.g. Moscovici, 1997) to identify it altogether with the

study of stereotypes (even though I find this critique rather extreme and

reductionist). A general view on stereotypes formation and use would suggest that

in their interaction with the social world, people make use of categories to simplify

it and make the best out of their limited representational and computational

(cognitive) resources. Stereotypes are nothing else but common attributes

associated with a particular social category or group (Hilton & Hippel, 1996). As it

is the case with attitudes, stereotypes activation induces biases in the processing of

social information and guides subsequent behavior. Because of their link with

prejudice and discrimination, the study of (negative) stereotypes proved to haveimportant practical applications in designing diversity trainings, aiming at reducing

the negative effects of (negative) stereotypes (Robertson, Kulik and Pepper, 2001).

Most of our knowledge about stereotypes comes from laboratory studies, or studies


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carried out on (psychology) students, while the larger social and historical context

is being almost completely ignored.In this special issue, Sandra Schruijer addresses, among others, the use of

historical data in the study of stereotypes formation and stereotypes change,

advocating for a dialog between history and social psychology. The author offers

an insight into the content and valence of stereotypes held by Protestants toward

Roman Catholics in The Netherlands between 1795 and 1830. The incursion is

particularly relevant since it illustrates the way in which the content and especially

the valence of stereotypes changes under the impact of social and historical

contextual factors. According to Judd and Park (1993), these contextual factors are

especially important in understanding the true origins and change of stereotypes

and the proposed dialog between history and psychology could add substance to

this particular aspect of social cognition research. Further on, well-crafted

arguments from psychoanalysis, social constructionismand from social cognition

are combined to advocate the benefits of multidisciplinary approaches in

understanding the way people make sense of their social world.

Modern social cognition theories evolved more or less guided by the

developments in cognitive sciences. First, inspired by the developments on

unconscious information processing developments in cognitive psychology,

modern social cognition theories take into account the implicit nature of attitudes

and stereotypes (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995, Greenwald, et al., 2002). The implicit

social cognition theory argues that attitudes and stereotypes are (partly)

unconscious contents (unavailable to introspection), developed as a result of past

experience; once activated they automatically influence behavior (they are

unconscious traces of previous experience that influence the way in which peoplemake sense of social reality and the way they behave in social situations)

(Greenwald & Banaji, 1995, p. 5). Second, the developments in cognitive

neurosciences encouraged researchers to find brain substrates for attitudes and

stereotypes (Adolphs, 2003), for the Self concept (Klein, Rozendal & Cosmides,

2002) as well as for the recollection of social information (Schacter, Norman &

Koutstaal, 1998). The interest in finding brain correlates for social information

processing was so intense, especially in the last two decades, that according to

Cacioppo et al (2003) a distinct discipline emerged, namely social neuroscience.

Third, the developments in artificial intelligence generated yet another direction of

development for social cognition theories, namely the use of artificial simulations

to test and refine theoretical predictions. Connectionist models were developed to

test and refine cognitive dissonance theory (van Overwalle & Jordens, 2002), aswell as to test proposition of intergroup biases and stereotypes use in group

judgments (van Rooy, van Overwalle, Labiouse & French, 2003). Finally, in

addition to the developments in cognitive sciences, modern social cognition


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theories were also fueled by the developments in social group research. The shared

cognition theories extended the concept of social cognition from the individuallevel to the group level and discuss the implications of shared cognition on group

performance and effectiveness (Cannon-Bowers & Salas, 2001, Mohammed &

Dumville, 2001). The shared cognition approaches argue that the social group

itself is a socio-cognitive system, which as an entity processes information and

tries to make sense of the social world.

The present special issue illustrates some of these modern developments in

social cognition theories, by emphasizing their link with the neurosciences (Oana

Benga) and by commenting on the developments of shared cognition theories

(Petru Cureu & Diana Rus, and Smaranda Boro). Oana Benga reviews the most

relevant findings in social neurosciences with an approach based on stages of

(social) information processing, which offers more transparency in connecting

cognitive aspects with brain correlates. The analysis starts with a first stage of

perception and recognition, where brain correlates are reviewed for (emotional)

face processing, emotional prosody as well as for the perception of biological

movement and intentionality. At a higher level of analysis, the correlates of social

judgments, stereotypes, belief attribution and the theory of mind are discussed. The

author continues with the cognitive appraisal and social interaction levels of

information processing, discussing the brain correlates for social interactions based

on cooperation and competition. Finally, future research directions are put forward,

based on possible connections between social constructivist theoretical

underpinnings (e.g. social reality is not universal, it emerges from social

interactions and is permanently re-construed) and the neurosciences framework.

In a paper that extends the concept of cognitive complexity from theindividual to the group level, Petru Cureu and Diana Rus review the developments

in shared cognition (particularly team cognition) research. The paper acknowledges

the role of social interactions in the development of team cognition and it

advocates the use of holistic elicitation and representations techniques in order to

capture the impact of social interaction in the development of team cognition

(group particularly cognitive complexity). Several ways to operationalize group

cognitive complexity are discussed and possible research directions are identified

based on the developments in social diversity and group composition literature.

Smaranda Borodiscusses the implications of cognitive diversity in groups, using

the concept of organizational identity as a form of shared cognition. In a quasi-

experimental study, the author manipulates the cognitive diversity in groups and

identifies the effects on group conflict and emergent states. The validity of the Q-sort approach to elicit and represent shared cognitions is also discussed and the Q-

sort approach is contrasted to a conceptual mapping technique as elicitation and

representation technique for shared cognitions.


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Constructionist approaches andsocial representations theory

First used by the sociologist Emile Durkheim to define products or results

of collective actions, the concept of social representations was consecrated by

Serge Moscovici (1961). He defined social representations as a special category of

knowledge and beliefs (situated in between perception and concepts) that emerge

from communication and used to make sense of reality and guide social behavior

(Moscovici, 1984). Even though the theory of social representations was criticized

as being vague and ill defined (Potter & Edwards, 1999), it is presently one of the

most important developments in European Social Psychology (Huguet & Latane,

1996). In his initial theory, Moscovici (1961) described two functions that social

representations have: first, they represent conventions for social actors and social

events and second, they prescribe individual behavior in social settings. Further

research investigated the structure of social representations distinguishing between

a central core of a social representation which is stable, coherent, consensual and

historically marked and the peripheral system which is flexible, sensitive to

immediate social context and has as principal function: the concretization of the

central social representation core (Abric, 1993, p. 76). In addition to the functions

described by Moscovici (representational and prescriptive), Abric (1993) describes

separate functions for the central core (to generate the significance and determines

the organization of social representation) and the peripheral system (to allow the

social representation to adapt to the changing social context, to allow its content

related differentiation and to protect the central core of the social representation)

(Abric, 1993).

As Moscovici (1997, 1998) repeatedly stated, social representations theoryshould be clearly distinguished both from the social cognition, and from discursive

psychology. The main difference from social cognition would be that social

representations theory does not emphasize a clear subject-object distinction, while

the later stresses this distinction (an illustration of the social representations as a

source and product of social context is presented in Figure 1). In social cognition

representation is only an epiphenomenon (belongs to an individual), while in social

representations theory the representation is the result of a collective sense-making

effort (and in this sense is shared within a community).

The essential difference from the constructionist approaches (e.g.

discursive psychology) will be that social representations stress the role of

representations in making sense of social reality and social constructionist

approaches focuses on language as a fundamental way of making sense of and inthe same time constructing the social context. However, to some extent it is agreed

that both approaches are constructionist in nature (Potter & Edwards, 1999) and

to ask the question if language or representation is the most important element in


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the way people make sense of their social reality can be misleading (Moscovici,

1998, Potter & Edwards, 1999).

Figure 1.A scheme of social representations in relation with the social context

From a constructionist perspective, reality does not exist, but it is

construed through social interactions by individuals and groups. Language is anessential tool in making sense of and creating social reality. An individual (or

group) does not exist independently of the social context, which instead does not

make sense in the absence of a storyteller (a person to describe it through

narratives). As opposed to social cognition (i.e. cognitivism), which de-

contextualizes the social actors in order to study their internal cognitive states,

social constructionist perspectives study the social actors in their natural social

context. In a metaphoric sense, for social cognition, the social actor is a nave

scientist or economizer of cognitive resources trying to make sense of the social

reality, while for social constructionist approaches, the social actor is an un-

separable part of the social context.

It is not one of the aims of this special issue to address these theoretical

disputes, but rather to illustrate the added value of each of these approaches to thescientific understanding of how people make sense of social reality. In an

intellectually challenging paper, Dian Marie Hosking addresses the distinction

between constructivism and critical relational constructionism based on the

SOCIAL CONTEXT

SOCIAL STIMULI(social objects, people, groups,

social events)

SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS(symbolic categories)

Person 1 Person 2

Behavior 2Behavior 1


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subject-object relation, emphasizing the dialogical conception of Self as relational

(re)construction. The author starts with a discussion of entitative and post entitativethinking emphasizing the fact that both assume or even prescribes subject-object

relations. The role of language in providing a nave reflection of the social world is

central in this discussion and it is argued that in a third discourse of critical

relational constructionism discourse, action and language are interwove and any

subject-object relations are set aside, opening a radically changed agenda for

inquiry.

Further on, Adrian Neculau addresses the way in which the political

context influences the development of social representations, illustrating their

prescriptive role in specific social contexts. First of all, the author discusses the

role of social context in the development of social representations and emphasizes

the fact that social behavior is guided by the social representations developed in a

particular context. Two aspects of social context are especially important in the

development of social representations: first the global social context (a set of

norms, beliefs or ideologies shared in a particular social group) and then the

immediate social context (defined by the direct interaction of the individual with

the social world). Further on, the author argues that once formed, social

representations prescribe social behavior in specific social context; in this sense

they are mechanisms of social conditioning. In order to support the above-

mentioned theoretical arguments Adrian Neculau discusses in a meticulously

designed case study the effects of the global social context (communist ideologies)

on social representations and social practices.

Finally, in the last paper of this special issue, Maurice Scheepens reports

the results of an empirical study, investigating the way in which managers perceiveand create representations about an institutional change. The author uses a

cognitive mapping technique to elicit and represent managerial cognitions relative

to the phasing-out of the Multifiber Agreement (a situation of institutional change

that affects the Indian textile industry). The study identifies the most relevant

factors related to managerial cognitive complexity, and it provides insight into the

possible outcomes of this concept (e.g. managerial decision-making effectiveness),

drawing from the way in which it was conceptualized by Calori, Johnson and

Sarnin (1994).


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