THE PROBLEM OF SOCIAL REPRESENTATION OBJECT: CONCERNS AND SOLUTIONS

Abstract

The process of social representation designates a form of specific knowledge which, “acting simultaneously on the stimulus and the response”, links a subject to an object. In its circumstance, we are in fact dealing with a “way of communicating with the outside”, with an “adjustment to the world of phenomena and deeds”, with an “articulation of the personality to the social context”, with a “mechanism with which theories about the social environment are built”, with a “style of conduct towards the outside”, or eventually, with a “restoration, a reconstruction of the environment through the perspective of our life philosophy”. By saying “social representation,” we actually mean a “modeling of an object into and through behavioral and material linguistic relations”. With this object, the representation type continue to be “in a relation of symbolization (maintaining it place) and “interpretation” (giving it meanings), being in a frame of expression or in a form of construction of the real”. What prerequisites must there exist for a certain element of the social environment (a person, a situation, an event, a deed, a phenomenon or an idea) to trigger the emer¬gence of a social representation, of a sui generis collective science capable of building «a common vision of the world», a «system of understanding and interpretation of reality», a «strategy of community agreement between individuals or groups»?