Provencher, Claudine (2011) Towards a better understanding of cognitive polyphasia. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 41 (4). pp. 377-395. ISSN 0021-8308
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
Despite its intuitive appeal and the empirical evidence for it, the hypothesis of cognitive polyphasia (Moscovici, 1961/1976/2008) remains largely unexplored. This article attempts to clarify some of the ideas behind this concept by examining its operations at the level of individuals and by proposing a conceptual model that includes some elements of social cognition. Indeed, calls for a rapprochement between the theory of social representations and cognitive psychology have been made by Moscovici, in particular, in his 1984 paper on The myth of the lonely paradigm and in his paper on La nouvelle pensée magique (1992) in which he argues that the theory of social representations provides an explanatory framework for the descriptions offered by cognitive psychology and that their combining could translate into a finer understanding of contemporary social phenomena. Building on the results of an empirical examination of the controversy that surrounded the MMR vaccination programme in the UK between 1998 and 2005, different ways of engaging into cognitive polyphasia are proposed, including what can be described as cognitive "monophasia", that is, the exclusive use of one type of knowledge, at least at the level of the individual. A brief discussion about the implications of the proposed conceptual model for our understanding of cognitive polyphasia and of the different ways of making sense of the world around us concludes this article.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Official URL: | http://www.wiley.com/bw/journal.asp?ref=0021-8308 |
| Additional Information: | © 2011 Wiley-Blackwell |
| Divisions: | Psychological and Behavioural Science |
| Subjects: | B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology |
| Date Deposited: | 19 Dec 2011 16:44 |
| Last Modified: | 18 Sep 2024 02:57 |
| URI: | http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/40790 |
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