Stanislava Stoyanova, Doctoral student in social psychology at the university "Neofit Rilski" in Bulgaria
Ethnic attitudes like a part of the social representations
Рассматриваются структуры этнических установоки социальных представлений. Делается вывод о подчинённости этнических установок социальным представлениям. Тема будет интересна этнологам, имеющим дело с нерасчленёнными формами этнического сознания.
The theoretical analysis of some conceptions about the ethnic attitudes and social representations permits to be proved that the ethnic attitudes are a part of the social representations:
- The social representation has a common origin, it refers to a collective object, everyone creates it and it is strengthened by the tradition. The representations are created collectively and disparate with the demolition of the society which had created them (Moscovici, 1984). The representation, which is collective, because everyone creates it, is able to become stable by reproducing and transmitting by one generation to another (Moscovici & Vignaux, 1994). Interethnic attitudes are determinated by some national and culture specificies, by the historical traditions of convivities between different ethnic communities (Elchinova, 1997). The members of one ethnic group realize like shared their attitudes towards another ethnic group (Harding, Prohansky, Kutner & Chein, 1969). The social representation also contains shared and collectively made acknowledgences of a group of people about a determinate object. Concerning ethnic attitudes this object is mainly the own or another ethnic group.
- The social representations are specific in a society or in a culture (Moscovici, 1998). The social representations establish the sense about the continuity of the group (Moscovici, 1984). The ethnic attitudes are specific in a determinate ethnic group and they are transmitted by the tradition and by the historical memory of the ethnic group (Elchinova, 1997).
- Every idea, emotion or belief of a community are included in the social representations (Moscovici, 1984). The cognitive component of the ethnic attitudes includes individuals' perceptions, beliefs, expectations towards the other ethnic groups. The affective component of the ethnic attitudes includes different emotions - by friendliness to hostility towards the object of the attitude (Harding, Prohansky, Kutner & Chein, 1969). The social representations like the social attitudes, including ethnic attitudes, contain acknowledgences and emotions towards the object - cognitive and affective components.
- The social representations are systems content some prescriptions, interdictions, tolerances, prejudices (Moscovici & Vignaux, 1994). The prejudices do not express any social or cognitive deficiency, or any individual's limitation, but they express a normal difference between heterogeneous individs' and groups' representations (Moscovici, 1984). In some authors' opinions, every hostile ethnic attitude is able to be called "prejudice" (Harding, Prohansky, Kutner & Chein, 1969). The other think the prejudices correspond to the affective component of the ethnic attitudes (Davis, 1964).
- Our reactions to the events, our responses to the stimuli are connected with a representation which is common about all members of the community. Our representations manage our behaviour and our view of the world (Moscovici, 1984). The conative component of the ethnic attitudes includes a predisposition to some actions towards the members of another ethnic group. According to Cramer's conception the conative component of the ethnic attitudes is the social distance, determined by this author like an accord to be realized some kind of relations with the members of another ethnic group (cf Harding, Prohansky, Kutner & Chein, 1969). The attitude like a predisposition to an action includes individuals' acknowledgences and it is based on them. The social representation is activated and it is expressed by the person in an interaction with the object, and it influences the individual's behaviour which is based on his/her acknowledgences about the object.
- When our social representation is positive, we accept the object; when it is negative, we avoid the object (Moscovici, 1984). The positive attitudes towards the members of another ethnic group are related with a diminuation of the distances in some kind of social contacts (Zografova, 1996). The ethnic attitude is able to be positive or negative towards an ethnic group and it influences the willingness about a contact with its members.
- The categorization of a social object produces the establishment of stereotypes about it (Tajfel & Forgas, 1981). These stereotypes are elements of the social representation (Moscovici, 1984). On the other hand, the stereotypes are a part of the cognitive component of the attitude, and the ethnic stereotypes are cognitive component of the ethnic attitudes (Harding, Prohansky, Kutner & Chein, 1969). Moscovici says that the process of the creation of a representation includes the codification of the stimuli into a specific category. Besides he asserts that the categorization is related to the social attitudes (Moscovici, 1984).
- In regard to the stability of the social representations and attitudes, the new information about the object contributes to their change. According to Moscovici, the representations are mobile and circulating, plastic, dinamic. The excisting representations are able to be changed (Moscovici, 1984). The contains and the meanings of the representations vary in the same society, in the same culture. The social representations are formed by the medias, in the public places, by the process of communication and they often transform. The change can touch emotion, concepts, images or beliefs in the community, but this change is always expressed in the representation (Moscovici, 1998). A lot of social psychologists study the change of the attitude and the role of the convicting communication in it (McGuire, 1969; Harding, Prohansky, Kutner & Chein, 1969).
- Moscovici determinates that the anchoring is a process which generates some social representations. The anchor makes from the ideas some categories and representations. The classification and the nomination or the categorization are two aspects of the anchoring of the representations (Moscovici, 1984). M. Sherif and C. Sherif relate the process of the anchoring with the social attitudes and their change. An anchoring stimulus or a determinate standard consolidates the attitudes which differ from it in a certain degree. The moving of the attitude towards an object in the direction of the anchor is an effect of assimilation. Its moving far from the anchor is an effect of contrast. Such anchor is able to be the own person's attitude. The extreme attitudes do not change, but some moderate attitudes change (Sherif & Sherif, 1964). The ethnic attitudes in their quality of shared attitudes between the members of the ethnic group serve as a standard, which is assimilated, which intensifies the individuals' attitudes, accorded with it, and which changes the attitudes which differ from it. The moderate ethnic attitudes change more easily than the most polarized ethnic attitudes.
- Some trends of the study of the structure of the attitude are a contunity of the researshes of the representations. A kind of analysis of the attitudes exists, called by McGuire "base-periphery"and this analysis admits the existence of their basic component which is resisting of the social influence and the existence of a peripheral component which is able to be easily changed. McGuire calls the social attitude social representation, too (McGuire, 1986). According to the concept about the central nucleus (Abric, Flament, Guimelli) the social representation is composed by some stable elements and around them the peripheral elements are ranged. The stable elements are more resisting to the change after the process of communication than the peripheral elements (Moscovici & Vignaux, 1994; Moliner & Tafani, 1996). We can assume the existance of more stable elements of the ethnic attitudes like the ethnic stereotypes and their affective trend, and the existance of another, more changeable component like the related with them behaviour. That is why an accord between the attitude and the behaviour does not always exist.
- Each object of representation is able to be an object of attitude (Moliner & Tafani, 1996).
In its development the theory about the social representations has the tendency to be converted into a common theory of the social phenomena (Moscovici, 1998). Moscovici says that he attitudes are a dimension of the shared representations (Moscovici & Markova, 1998). From the theory about the information and the theory about the communication Moscovici arrives to the idea about the representation. He tries to apply the theory about the information to Gutman's scales about the measuring of the attitude. He thinks that the items from a scale about the measuring of the attitude are summed together and ranged on the scale by such a mental and shared structure, expressed by an abundance of the individuals' responses, as the representaion is. The errors (or the noise in the terms of the theory about the information) express the responses which divert by the normal mental structure and this structure is the social representation.
Markova notices some social psychologists are interested in the relation between the attitudes and the social representations. Jaspars and Fraser (1984) consider that the most distinctive characterization of the social representations is the following: they are shared by many individuals and they compose the individuals' social reality, and the concept of the attitudes is individualized (Moscovici & Markova, 1998). Jaspars and Fraser (1984) introduce the term "social attitude" (cf Moliner & Tafani, 1996). According to R. Far in 1920 in W.Tomas' and F. Znaniecki's paper (1918-1920) about the Polish peasant in America the idea about the attitudes is that they are social and hence they are similar to the concept about the social representation. Later, the attitudes are individualized, they are considered like some individuals' predispositions towards response. If someone has an attitude towards an object, he/she will have a representation which is a part of one's cultural and national acknowledgence. The attitude and the representation about the object are depemdent each on other. S. Moscovici notices that he does not know how someone could do any choice between two concepts - attitude and social representation, and that he does not know why the attitude is opposed to the social representation, the attitude is one of its dimensions. Some social representations are more abstract, more impersonal, other social representations are more concrete, more personal (Moscovici & Markova, 1998). This partition corresponds to the partition between group's social attitudes (including the ethnic attitudes) and individuals' social attitudes.
We can make the conclusion that the content of the social representations is related to some behaviours and the attitudes like a part of the social representations moderate the behaviour. The behaviour does not always correspond to the existing attitude because a lot of social representations influence each other and some social representations change - not only about the objects and their relations, but also about the social situations and the models of behaviour accepted in these situations. The shared group's and ethnic attitudes correspond to a great degree to the model of the attitude like a part of the social representations, than the individuals' attitudes. The ethnic attitudes are collective phenomena. The specificity of the individuals' attitudes is determinated to a great extent by personal characteristics, but they are also influenced by the social representations about the object of the attitude, diffused in the society.
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