Unveiling childfree voices: representation, humor, and resistance on Instagram

Social Representations Theory provides a comprehensive theoretical model for researching translators’ socio-cognitive processes. Developed in social psychology in the 1960s, the theory offers an integrative view of both individual and social processes in the construction and re-construction of knowledge. It draws attention to embodied meaning-making and the effect of material surroundings in perpetuating and disseminating social representations. Importantly, Social Representations Theory does not see representations as individual, solely conscious, or static mental constructions but as dynamic social–psychological phenomena that are enacted in discourse and social interaction. This article discusses Social Representations Theory as an approach to the empirical study of translators’ cognitive processes. Introducing the main concepts of the theory and using translators’ conceptualizations of source-text authors and target-text readers as an example, the article suggests avenues for using the theory in Cognitive Translation Studies.

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how social representation theory (SRT) can be used to understand the concept of resistance to change. SRT is a growing theory in social psychology research. SRT is about how individuals co-construct representations of various objects in different social settings. These social representations govern the attitudes and actions of individuals and groups. In spite of the growing interest in SRT in various fields, no studies have used SRT to understand resistance to organizational change.Design/methodology/approach– This study reviews the relevant literature on resistance to change and SRT to develop a conceptual framework for understanding resistance from the standpoint of SRT.Findings– The authors develop a model that illustrates how three interrelated objects, i.e. the organizational process and the pre-and post-change situation, are co-constructed in social contexts. Also, the authors discuss how representations of these objects can co-exist (cognitive polyphasia). Our study illustrates the complexity of resistance to change by deconstructing the concept.Originality/value– Application of SRT to analyze resistance to organizational change is a novel approach that provides several new insights. For example, where most publications regard advocates of change as sense-givers in the change recipient’s sense-making process, the authors argue for a more constructionist approach. Thus, all actors involved in the change process will affect each other and together co-construct the social representations. These social representations govern attitudes to change.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to study the social representations of polydrug use in the Finnish mainstream media. Social representations are shared ways of talking about socially relevant issues and have ramifications on both individual and socio-political levels.Design/methodology/approachThe social representations theory and the “What’s the problem represented to be?” analysis provided the theoretical framework. In total, 405 newspaper articles were used as data and analysed by content analysis and thematic analysis. The key tenets of the social representations theory, anchoring, objectifying and naturalisation, were used in data analysis.FindingsThe study found that polydrug use was written about differently in articles over the study period from 1990 to 2016. Three social representations were introduced: first, polydrug use as a concept was used to refer to the co-use of alcohol and medical drugs. This was seen as a problem for young people, which could easily lead to illicit drug use. Second, illicit drugs were included in the definitions of polydrug use, which made the social representation more serious than before. The typical polydrug user was portrayed as a person who was addicted to substances, could not quite control his/her use and was a threat to others in society. Third, the concepts were naturalised as parts of common language and even used as prototypes and metaphors.Originality/valueThe study provides a look at how the phenomenon of polydrug use is conceptualised in everyday language as previous research has concentrated on its scientific definitions. It also adds to the research of media representations of different substances.

The concept of social representation (SR) was developed by Serge Moscovici in 1961 as a social psychological approach articulating individual thinking and feeling with collective interaction and communication. SRs are conceived as symbolic forms that come about through interpersonal and media communication. They are the ways individuals think, interact with others, and shape social objects in their interaction with the local world. This text presents an outline of the history of social representation theory (SRT), using a four-period model: first, creation and incubation in France starting with Moscovici’s first book; second, the opening to the English-speaking academe around 1980; third, institutionalization and proliferation with the start of the journal papers on SRs and regular conferences in 1992; and, fourth, normalization, approximately from 2000 onwards. The first period (1961–1984) started with Serge Moscovici’s first presentation of his ideas in a French-language volume on “La psychanalyse son image et son public.” This was republished in an updated version in 1976 and translated into English in 2008. The theory postulates cognitive and social factors in the genesis and structure of SRs. These are accompanied by specific styles of communication that reflect the communicators’ identity and ideology. Together these aspects constitute common sense. The first period was a time of incubation because Moscovici and his first PhD students, Claudine Herzlich, Denise Jodelet, and Jean-Claude Abric, tried the concept in different domains. The second half of this period saw Moscovici and collaborators extend SRT’s theoretical frame to include the idea of consensual vs. reified domains. A consensual domain of communication is characterized by the free interchange of attitudes and opinions, while a reified domain is determined by institutionalized rules. Moscovici also postulated a process of cognitive polyphasia. By cognitive polyphasia he described a phenomenon where individuals use different and even contradictory thoughts about the same issue depending on the social setting they are in. The year 1984 marked the publication of a book for English-speaking scholars edited by Robert Farr and Moscovici that collected papers from an international conference in 1979. It was the first book-length collection of works on SRT and highlighted empirical research by a variety of international scholars. The period following 1979 through to 1992 saw a broadening of the base of scholars becoming interested in SRT. The 1980s brought Willem Doise’s conceptualizing of anchoring as a process of social marking, Abric’s theory of core and peripheral elements of a representation, and Hilde Himmelweit’s founding of a societal psychology. Proliferation was boosted 1992 by the founding of the journal Papers on Social Representations and the beginning of a biannual series of International Conferences on Social Representations, starting in 1992. This increased the international visibility of SRT and helped scholars to organize themselves around topics and form cross-national research groups. The period from 1992 to the first decade of the new century was characterized by an increasing number of empirical and theoretical studies. A series of theoretical branches emerged: there was research on the micro-genesis of SRs on the individual level, an extension of the structural theory of SRs, the discussion of the socially constructive aspects and sociopolitical uses of SRT, the design of a dialogical approach to the mind and social life, and Moscovici’s suggestion to consider large-scale themata as a factor in social thinking. If the period after 1992 was a time of institutionalization, the time after the turn of the century can be called a period of normalization. That is, a period when SRT was presented in chapters for handbooks of social psychology and when dedicated handbooks and monographs were published. From this period onward it becomes virtually impossible to give even a superficial account of the most important contributions to SRT’s burgeoning field of research and theory development.

Recent developments in the psychological and social sciences have seen a surge of attention to concepts of embodiment. The burgeoning field of embodied cognition, as well as the long‐standing tradition of phenomenological philosophy, offer valuable insights for theorising how people come to understand the world around them. However, the implications of human embodiment have been largely neglected by one of the key frameworks for conceptualising the development of social knowledge: Social Representations Theory. This article seeks to spark a dialogue between Social Representations Theory and embodiment research. It outlines the position the body occupies in the existing theoretical and empirical social representations literature, and argues that incorporating concepts gleaned from embodiment research may facilitate a more comprehensive account of the aetiology of social representations. The value of analytic attention to embodiment is illustrated with reference to a recent study of social representations of neuroscience, which suggested that embodied experience can shape the extent to which people engage with certain topics, the conditions under which they do so, and the conceptual and affective content of the ensuing representations. The article argues that expanding Social Representations Theory's methodological and conceptual toolkit, in order to illuminate the interplay between embodied experience and social communication in the development of common‐sense knowledge, promises productive directions for empirical and theoretical advancement.

This research investigates the nature by which first- and second-generation Irish young adults of (1) African descent, (2) Asian descent, and (3) Eastern European descent explore their cultural identity(ies) through communicating and interpreting social representations relating to their ethnic and national cultures. Using Social Representation Theory (SRT) and, more widely, Proculturation Theory as the theoretical underpinning, we examine how grown children of migrants construct their cultural identity(ies) by exploring external social representations. We conducted three separate in-depth focus groups for each continental group in virtual rooms on Zoom, lasting between 60 and 90 mins. A thematic analysis was pursued to understand how the participants discussed the representation of their cultural groups both in social and media-driven situations. The results indicated the overarching themes of Anchoring Irishness and Latent Media Representation, whereby participants communicated and dialogically explored their subjective interpretations of the social representations of their cultural groups which, in turn, may have informed their cultural identity(ies). Highlighting the dynamic nature of the cultural reality of Ireland and how it impacts generations after the initial migration period, this research highlights and exemplifies the importance of external social representations that serve to construct the multiple cultural identities of first- and second-generation migrants.

Context: The identification of code smells is one of the most subjective tasks in software engineering. A key reason is the influence of collective aspects of communities working on this task, such as their beliefs regarding the relevance of certain smells. However, collective aspects are often neglected in the context of smell identification. For this purpose, we can use the social representations theory. Social representations comprise the set of values, behaviors and practices of communities associated with a social object, such as the task of identifying smells. Aim: To characterize the social representations behind smell identification. Method: We conducted a preliminary study on the social representations of smell identification by two communities. One community is composed of postgraduate students involved in various investigations related to code smells. The other community is composed of practitioners from industry, with experience in code reviews. We analyzed the associations made by the study participants about smell identification, i.e., what immediately comes to their minds when they think about this task. Results: One of the key findings is that only the community of practitioners strongly associates this task with semantic smells. This finding suggests research directions on code smells may be revisited, as they focus mostly on measurable or structural smells. Considering the novelty of using the social representations theory in software engineering, we also compiled a set of lessons learned. For instance, we observed some key challenges we faced in using the theory. These challenges include: (i) the predominance of associations with technical rather than non-technical concepts, and (ii) the fuzzy definitions of key concepts in our field. Conclusion: We found initial evidence that social representations analysis is a useful instrument to reveal discrepancies and commonalities on how different communities deal with a subjective task. Thus, we expect the experience reported in this paper may encourage and contribute to future studies of social representations in the field.

This chapter presents the state of studies, research and publications on social representations in Brazil, and especially in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. In order to do this, three objectives are pursued: presenting the research groups and the production areas in social representations in the country; discussing the work that has been taking place in the south of Brazil, especially in social representations, active minorities and politics; and delineating the perspectives and challenges of research into social representations in the country. Qualitative methodology was used, through an exploratory bibliographical, descriptive and interpretative study. First the output of research groups registered in the Directory of Research Groups and Lattes Platform of the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) is presented in order to highlight some descriptive statistics and map the scenario of the groups and production areas in the country. Subsequently, an analysis is made of the relationship between Social Representations Theory and the Psychology of Active Minorities, two fundamental theoretical proposals in Moscovici’s work (a relationship which is still little explored in Brazil) in order to deepen the epistemological discussion about social representations and their importance in sociological social psychology. Finally, the commitments that are made, the possible horizons, and the challenges that must be faced by social representations researchers in Brazil are discussed.

This thesis examines social representations of marketplace immorality in a context of contested legitimacy. In recent years, the legislative context of illicit alcohol in Kenya has changed the status of illicit alcohol from legal to illegal, then back to legal, between June 2015 and February 2016. Using social representations theory, this study explores the dominant social representations in the Kenyan illicit alcohol market during this volatile regulatory period. The study draws on longitudinal data from digital mainstream and social media news sites, as well as interview and observation data. The study seeks to expand understanding on the extent to which social representations convey morality, and the impact of social representations on people’s perceptions and practices, thereby extending knowledge and understanding of social representations and morality. Consumer research has begun to consider issues relating to morality in the marketplace, but this is still a nascent area of research. Most studies on morality have explored only a subset of moral concerns but this study expands the conceptualization of morality in a market context responding to calls from market researchers for a broader definition of consumer morality. The study focuses on plural moral domains with several moral concerns and highlights both individual-centred and other-centred moral concerns. The study also demonstrates that social representations in the alcohol market focus on the harm from illicit consumption practices leading to selective objectification of consumer and alcohol problems and limiting remedial initiatives in the marketplace. The findings also reveal that cognitive polyphasia is a pervasive feature in the social representations of the Kenyan illicit alcohol market. Key aspects of cognitive polyphasia that define some of its functionalities and how it could be operationalised are a nascent area in the study of social representations. This study’s findings contribute to the existing knowledge on cognitive polyphasia by revealing cognitive polyphasia as a means of adapting to change, coping with change, resisting change and inducing change. The study also contributes to knowledge on the delegitimization of market practices by examining the role of cognitive polyphasia in changing practices and perceptions. The study findings also illustrate moral ambiguities in the marketplace as well as the psychological and socio-psychological processes used to navigate the moral ambiguities. The processes illustrated include social representation, moral exclusion, moral rationalization, moral decoupling and moral override. These processes provide insights into the reasoning and justifications behind why consumers would or would not act in an ethical or moral manner. The research further contributes to the literature on morality by highlighting the influence of emotions in moral judgement. These findings confirm previous empirical research in moral psychology on the role of emotion in moral judgement. The study proposes greater emphasis on emotional appeals in efforts to encourage moral consumer behaviour since emotions are revealed as key to moral judgement. The practical implications of this research are mainly in relation to the incorporation of community cultural language when talking about, or implementing illicit alcohol policy, to help make the policies a part of the local culture.

The ever-changing nature of consumers' understanding of local food highlights the need for in-depth research. This study explores how Gen-Z consumers define, perceive and experience local food. Through the analysis, we extend the existing conceptualization of local food by differentiating three aspects of proximity: geographical, value, and relational proximity. We contribute novel insights into the differentiation of proximity to the established understanding for this specific consumer group. Methodologically, we use a free association game played with Gen-Z consumers in Hungary. Theoretical frameworks, including social representation, central core and proximity theories, are used to uncover implicit knowledge about local food. The results reveal a consumer understanding that associates health, freshness, taste, quality and trustworthiness as the central core of the local food concept. Surprisingly, value and relational proximity gain importance, while geographical proximity takes a peripheral role. This study facilitates a re-evaluation of the local food concept in light of evolving consumer understanding, while also establishing a link between proximity theories and social representation theory. The findings provide practical implications that distinguish different aspects of proximity that are relevant to farmers and policy makers in light of evolving consumer understandings.

La crisis economica actual ha sido un fenomeno nuevo e inesperado; es parte del sistema capitalista, bancario y economico que ha sido conocido hasta el ano 2008. La crisis ha llevado a los bancos, los Estados, las instituciones internacionales, asi como a las personas del comun, a ver profundos cambios en sus representaciones sobre la economia. En este escenario, se plantea la pregunta: ?como los hombres y las mujeres de estratos sociales diferentes afrontan el fenomeno complejo y desconocido de la crisis economica? ?El genero y el estatus social justifican diferentes significados atribuidos a la crisis, sus causas y consecuencias? En el presente articulo se elige la teoria de las representaciones sociales para estudiar el papel del genero y el nivel educativo en la produccion de las representaciones de la crisis. Se presentan resultados de encuestas realizadas en el sur de Italia (N = 120), los cuales revelan que tanto el genero como el nivel educativo de las personas marcan diferencias en la forma de definir y afrontar la crisis. Por un lado, los participantes de alto nivel definen la crisis en terminos mas abstractos que los participantes de bajo nivel. Por otra parte, los hombres de alto nivel mantienen un estado de coping mas proactivo con la crisis que los otros participantes, especialmente mujeres. La discusion se enfoca en el papel de la teoria de la representacion social entendiendo la relacion entre genero, estatus y comportamiento economico, aportando ideas sobre como la igualdad de genero puede ser mejorada.

Abstract: In this work, we identify and characterize the Brazilian research groups that develop the social representation theory (SRT). We collected data from the CNPq’s Research Groups Directory submitting terms like “social representation” and “social representations”, without time period. Then, we analyzed of the page groups, organized and analyzed of results. We identified 172 research groups studding SRT, the most part of them from the Southeastern region of Brazil. We concluded that SRT is a theoretical and methodological framework, active and in constant production in Brazil. SRT is an interdisciplinary theory, being present in different knowledge areas and fields, and it helps the comprehension of phenomena in distinct contexts. Keywords: social representation theory; research groups; bibliographical research; social psychology; social cognition.

Research on social representations (SRs) has often focused more on categorical than narrative-based representations. However, narratives are considered to play a key role in the organization of social representations. This paper describes an empirical study of some 2,000 creative narratives about HIV written by young Africans from five countries between 1997 and 2014 and examines the theoretical, methodological and applied relevance of SRT for this study and the implications of the study for the intersection between narrative and SRT. The study is unusual within the SR paradigm: it is temporal and cross-national; addresses a subject whose science has evolved over time; and uses creative narratives as its data source. A narrative perspective foregrounds holistic understandings of SRs as systems of thought. Creative narratives fit well within an SR framework. Our triangulating methodologies foreground categorical or narrative dimensions depending on the objectives of specific sub-studies. Central Core Theory provides a framework to articulate stability and change within narrative representations. In creative narrative, objectification also happens at the level of plot and characters, such that dominant cultural narratives can be viewed as a form of hegemonic SR. We link with health communication and embrace more critical streams within SR research.

This article aims to bring a reflection on the theory of Social Representations from the perspective of Social Psychology. From the bibliographic review, an analogy is made between the theories of social representations, to a concrete society, in this case, the Mozambican society. Social representations have been a topic widely discussed by several and categorized authors, many of them addressing the relationship between cognition-knowledge, individual and society. For this purpose, three Mozambican ethnicities were analyzed, namely, Macuas-Lomués, Ndaus and Tsongas, in which, based on the bibliographic verification of their cultures, beliefs and values, a real analogy can be drawn between the theories on social and cultural representations. the behaviors of these ethnic groups, which make clear the different social representations in the different regions that form the country called Mozambique.The basis of the research was the bibliographic review, both to address the theoretical supports, as well as to address the Mozambican reality.

Context: The identification of code smells is one of the most subjective tasks in software engineering. A key reason is the influence of collective aspects of communities working on this task, such as their beliefs regarding the relevance of certain smells. However, collective aspects are often neglected in the context of smell identification. For this purpose, we can use the social representations theory. Social representations comprise the set of values, behaviors, and practices of communities associated with a social object, such as the task of identifying smells. Aim: To characterize the social representations behind smell identification. Method: We conducted an empirical study on the social representations of smell identification by two communities. One community is composed of postgraduate students from different Brazilian universities. The other community is composed of practitioners located in Brazilian companies, having different levels of experience in code reviews. We analyzed the associations made by the study participants about smell identification, i.e., what immediately comes to their minds when they think about this task. Results: One of the key findings is that the community of students and practitioners have stronger associations with different types of code smells. Students share a strong belief that smell identification is a matter of measurement, while practitioners focus on the structure of the source code and its semantics. Besides, we found that only practitioners frequently associate the task with individual skills. This finding suggests research directions on code smells may be revisited. Conclusion: We found evidence that social representations theory allows identifying research gaps and opportunities by looking beyond the borders of formal knowledge and individual opinions. Therefore, this theory can be considered an important resource for conducting qualitative studies in software engineering.