Social Representations Theory

Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 38:4
0021–8308
Social Representations Theory: A Progressive

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© The Executive Management Committee/Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2008
Research Programme for Social Psychology
MARTIN W. BAUER AND GEORGE GASKELL
In this paper we reflect on how a particular study, Moscovici’s “La Psychanalyse—

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In 1994 when we formulated a research project on “Biotechnology and the
European Public,” it was the study of psychoanalysis in French society of the
1950s that fascinated us. Our project started with a workshop on the Greek island
of Hydra and later found European Commission support. By 2002 our network
included 16 teams across Europe, North America and Japan. In the course of
outlining the theory of social representations to collaborators from a number of
disciplinary backgrounds and implementing it as a framework to guide the research,
we elaborated a generalised account of the theory (Bauer and Gaskell, 1999).
What made “Psychoanalysis” an inspirational model to study genetic engineering
and its publics at the turn of the 21st century? Three elements were important:
its particular conception of common sense as creative resistance, its concern with
science in society, and its methodology. We remain convinced that this continues
to be a fertile programme of research for social psychology even after 40 years.
Let us explain why.
COMMON SENSE AND SCIENCE
Moscovici’s ambition was to study psychoanalysis as a cultural phenomenon, how its

language entered everyday conversation and generated a new form of common sense:
“. . . the birth of a new common sense which cannot be understood in terms of the
vulgarisation, diffusion or distortion of science” (Moscovici, 2008, p. xxix).
Thus, common sense is neither a distorted vulgarisation nor a simple diffusion of

dignified knowledge; what is it then? Social representations theory takes the middle
ground between the Scylla of debunking vulgar distortions and the Charybdis of
diffusion research. Both vulgarisation and diffusion research have become major
© 2008 The Authors

Journal compilation © The Executive Management Committee/Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2008. Published by Blackwell
Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
336 Martin W. Bauer and George Gaskell
fields of activity. However, the third way of social representation continues to offer
a more sophisticated theoretical and empirical heuristic.
Vulgarisation
Vulgarisation is both a polemic and an activity. There is a fixation on an

apparently unbridgeable gap between science and common sense. Distortions and
simplifications inevitably arise when scientists, a social elite, or science writers, the
professional mediators, convey new knowledge to a wider audience, the
lay-people (“vulgus,” the common people). Beyond elite circles “vulgarisation” in
the sense of distortion is taken to be inevitable. Communicating science may be
necessary but in reality it is like “throwing pearls to the swine.” Euphemistic terms
for this type of condescension are popularisation, informal science education,
public relations and science communication as far as they operate with an elitist
attitude and a concept of a “public deficiency.”
The terms “vulgarisation” or “popularisation” serve this elitist stance. Badly
defined, they are flexible resources to fend-off an unwelcome summary of one’s
research as “vulgarisation,” while treating a flattering one as “popularisation” (see
Hilgartner, 1990). “Vulgarisation” and “popularisation” can mean different
things. Vulgarisation suggests an unbridgeable elite-laity gap; popularisation on
the other hands holds that the Republic of Science might in principle be extended
to amateurs (see Bensaude-Vincent and Blondel, 1988, 3ff). The term “vulgariser
la science” also continues to dispense practical advice on how to inform a wider
audiences (see Laszlo, 1993). Generally, in French the term “vulgarisation”
remains in everyday use and refers to science communication (see Schiele and
Jacobi, 1988; Bensaude-Vincent, 2001, 106); the term connotes negatively, but
does not have the insulting connotation of the English “to vulgarise.”1
Using the word “vulgarisation” in the translation of “Psychoanalysis” might be
called into question. However, we take a contrary view; it enables the reader to see
more clearly through the “newspeak.” Whatever the politically correct term currently
might be, the frame of reference is, and stays, scientific orthodoxy, against which any
communication effort is to be judged. Most importantly the term implies a distortion
and decline in “quality.” This issue has since been discussed widely in polemics over
the “deficit concept” of the public (for a recent review see Bauer, Miller and Allum,
2007) and over the standard models of science popularisation (see Bucchi, 1998).
Diffusion
Diffusion became a technical term in rural sociology of the 1940s and 1950s,
during the 1st Green Revolution, and has migrated into many fields of social
innovation research.
© 2008 The Authors

Journal compilation © The Executive Management Committee/Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2008
Social Representations Theory 337
Figure 1. The sigmoid diffusion curve (same speed, delayed start): the X axis is time and the
Y axis the percentage of adopters.
Commonly defined
“diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over
time among the members of a social system” (Valente and Rogers, 1995, p. 243).
Diffusion originally meant the “extension” of scientifically tested farming

practices to ever more farmers, and later it came to mean the spread of ideas from
a source to ever more people in society. The focus is on quantity; more people
are aware, and accepting of an idea, a product, or a service. The concept operates
with an explicit bias in favour of innovation; innovation is better regardless of the
circumstances.
The model embodies a concern with speed of diffusion, and advises on
effective communication and, most importantly, assumes that the object of
diffusion remains qualitatively unchanged in the process. An idea is an idea, it is
either accepted or not, and this has no bearing on the idea itself. What varies is the
speed by which the “package” moves through a system; and this is a function of the
overall size of the diffusion system and the characteristics of the potential adopters.
First the idea moves slowly, then faster, then slower again resulting in the
characteristic sigmoid-curve, the 1st derivative of which is a normal distribution
of the rate of adoption—see Figure 1. The main practical problem is to shorten
the time in which an idea reaches the inflexion point of the curve, i.e. the 50%
adoption rate (Mahajan and Peterson, 1985). And readers might have celebrated
the fact that this has happened faster for the internet than for the PC or the
television; or they might deplore the digital divide, the speed differential between
social subsystems.
The innovation rhetoric implies that speed and closing gaps are the only
options consistent with progress. The US Department of Agriculture models the
adoption of genetically modified (GM) crops on this basis (Fernandez-Cornejo
and McBride, 2002, p38ff). An old critique of this thinking is provided by the
Brazilian educator Paulo Freire (1968/2005). For him, diffusion in rural development
© 2008 The Authors

is “blind imperialist thinking.” Equally actor-network theory (ANT) is constructed
against the idea of diffusion (see Latour, 1987). What diffusion research idealises
in an ex-post account are in reality “translated objects,” sometimes beyond
recognition, that make and break alliances between people as they move on.
Social Representation
In contrast to vulgarisation and diffusion, the study of psychoanalysis in 1950s

France shows conceptually and empirically that the “topic” in communication
undergoes qualitative changes in the process. This no longer sounds revolutionary
as the linear models of communication such as the signal engineering model and
the diffusion model of rural sociology have been widely criticised. Helic models
of dialogue, semiosis, communicative action and translation have now become the
common currency. Indeed, many communication models are constructed against
assumptions of linearity from speaker A to listener B. The contemporary reader
might ask “so what?” when reading an English translation of “La Psychanalyse.”
But we think there are good reasons, and not only historical ones, why the readers
of 2008 and beyond will profit from this study conducted in the 1950s.
First, while linear models of communication transfer have been much criticised,
they have not disappeared. Their currency value continues unabated and is
shored up by institutions of strategic communication and corporate affairs. The
staying power of the “transport” model of communication is a puzzling social
phenomenon in itself. Reddy (1993) suggests that “transport” is the core metaphor
of natural language (at least in English) for talking about communication; it is
difficult to displace by another other way of talking. Language itself is the dragon
that we are riding. Despite all the criticisms, transfer notions are alive in meta-
communications, not least in social psychological models of attitude change and
message design.
Second, “Psychoanalysis” not only showed a third way between distortion
and diffusion, but suggested, by updating Durkheim’s concept of collective
representation, that both distortion and diffusion are special cases of a generic
phenomenon, that of “social representation.” As ideas move in time and space,
they may improve, stay the same or deteriorate in the manner of a Chinese
whisper (Barlett, 1932, Bangerter, 2000). We should keep an open mind and not
always judge the movement of ideas according to their source. The question is:
what happens to ideas as they become part of common sense in particular con-
texts? We learn from “La Psychanalyse” that French society of the 1950s afforded
three versions of psychoanalysis in everyday life: an urban liberal opinion with
sceptical endorsement a Catholic attitude of assimilating interest, and a party
communist stereotype of utter ideological rejection. These differences in resistance
against the ideas of psychoanalysis were framed and empowered by different
representations. The representation was the resistance.
© 2008 The Authors

Thus, the idea of social representation shows two things at the same time, it
highlights the process of transformation as ideas move in society, and it also
provides an integrative theory of communication for social psychology. The
higher level of abstraction subsumes diffusion, vulgarisation, propagation, and
propaganda as special case. This is a social psychological equivalent of relativity
theory in physics which relegated traditional mechanics not to the dustbin of
history, but as a special case of mass with low velocity and medium size.
The New Common Sense
The idea of the “new common sense” intimates that everyday conversations and
beliefs are increasingly displaced, informed, enriched, enhanced, impregnated,
and colonized (the terms have implications for the analysis) by modern science.
To some, the secularisation of society means the substitution of religion, myth and
tradition in everyday life by science; to others it means the pluralisation of common
senses and the requirement for cognitive polyphasia—another concept explored
in la Psychanalyse. How this all plays out is an eminently empirical question that
is moving up the social scientific agenda (Taylor, 2007). The issue of science and
common sense is a daunting problem (see Jovchelovitch in this issue). Let us
review some possible perspectives on the gap issue without any claim to completeness.
English empiricism with its ethos of unprejudiced observation, practical
experiment, and the rejection of idols, traditions, and authority, suggests that
science is purified common sense. Science is common sense by an another name.
There are variations on what “purified” might mean here. For example science is
a human activity that is both rational and empirical; it guides human activity with
predictions and offers choices. What distinguishes science from common sense is
that predictions are made systematically, consciously and rationally, and these are
self-corrective through learning. Thus science is a somewhat more formalised
version of common sense (e.g. Bronowski, 1951).
The new sociology of science since the 1970s defends the position that there is
no substantive difference between everyday activity and scientific practice or
between the minds of the scientist and the citizen (i.e. for a critique of the dual
mind theory, see Wagner and Hayes, 2005).
All purported differences are ex-post accounts, a product of hindsight for the
purpose of out-group demarcation and the dignification of a knowledge authority.
These meta-theories obfuscate the local practices of science, hence the call: “stop
talking about science—go to a laboratory, any lab will do, and hang around . . . do
you see anything beyond ordinary discourse and situated action?” (Lynch, 1993,
p. 315). Thus, ethnomethodologists do not tire of pointing out that in scientific
settings and in ordinary everyday life we do similar things and that scientific
experts have little or no advantage in making choices and passing judgements on
important matters of life and death. Expertise with the advantage of knowledge
© 2008 The Authors

is a social construction whose credibility, for example to judge the safety of
genetically modified food, of the meat of cloned animals or hybrid embryos, is a
cultural and historical variable ( Jasanoff, 2005).
Phenomenology (Husserl, 1934) equally stresses the continuity of science and
common sense, but as an unhappy state of affairs. Science, Husserl argues, has
betrayed its aspirations and become trapped in the “natural attitude” of common
sense; this attitude is an obstacle to real understanding. Scientific activity is
grounded in the life world of practical concerns, as is common sense. The
mathematical world of science obfuscates the practical concerns with a sense of
detachment that is full of practical prejudices. The sciences mistake the successful
managing of the world with the understanding the world. It is important to recover
the scientific impetus for purpose-free realism against the constructed worlds-for-
a-purpose of empiricism, rationalism, constructivism, positivism, or systems theory.
We need to bracket the practical concerns of the “natural attitude” that intervene
between the manager and the world-in-itself (Zurueck zu den Sachen selbst!, back
to the things themselves). The world-for-us is blind like flying with instrument
landing, we operate in an actual space (a selective “Wirklichkeit” in relation to
our plans) that is mapped out for a purpose and we are only obliquely concerned
with the real world (reality or “Wirklichkeit des Wirklichen”). Heidegger (1951/52)
continues to irritate people with his remark that “science does not think”
(“Wissenschaft denkt nicht” p8); it operates in a given framework (das Gestell).
Similarly the Zen monk reminds us to sit upright in lotus position or to make tea,
and to let go of all cognitions in order to open our eyes and ears to what there is
to be seen, smelled and heard and to recover the pre-conceptual reality. If we still
have questions he asks us to make more tea.2
The phenomenologist’s suspicion that we cannot live comfortably in the ideal
worlds of scientific assumptions is echoed by Ryle (1954). He sees a dilemma: how
to vote against science without taking sides with the anti-scientific. Compare the
librarian and the reader. The former keeps a check on acquisitions, borrowings
and readership, and will have a very different account of the library than the
occasional reader. Neither is right nor wrong, nor necessarily in error over the
facts. There are no two rival libraries at stake, but complementary ways of giving
valid evidence. He also argues that the elopement of his sister can be truly
described as a matter of romantic entanglement or an economic transaction on
a marriage market. These are two descriptions for very different purposes. The
one is an account of a very particular event (his sister), the other maybe to
account for a large number of such events (for all sisters in the world). Ryle thus
stresses that science (elopement as market transaction) cannot substitute common
sense (the romantic entanglement), only complement it.
Finally, there is the view of an unbridgeable superiority of science over common
sense, captured in a polemic entitled the “unnatural nature of science” (Wolpert,
1992). The notion of a radical gap echoes the ancient distinction between
doxa (opinion and belief) and episteme (founded knowledge). It has been a major
© 2008 The Authors

preoccupation of philosophy to demarcate scientific and other knowledge claims.
Famously, Popper attempted to distinguish science from Astrology, Marxism and
Psychoanalysis by requiring that scientific ideas had to be falsifiable in principle.
The idea of a gap regained credibility with the revolution in modern physics.
Here many of the problems are entirely counter-intuitive (e.g. n-dimensional and
curved space, quantum leaps, irregularities at small and large scale). Such problems
can only be defined through higher mathematics and are thus no longer amenable
to naive imagination. It has thus become less convincing to see science as an
extension of common sense; common sense is increasingly on the receiving end
of scientific knowledge claims. The historian Bensaude-Vincent observes:
“. . . the notion of an increasing gap between science and the public is heavily dependent on
20th century physics . . . Hopefully, the current decline of the prestige of physics that has been
noted in various countries over the past 10 years, and the consequent increase of the prestige of
biological and environmental sciences could bring about a deep transformation in the relations
between science and the public” (2001, 109).
The 20th century attention was focused on the vector from science to common
sense, but this may be changing. Farr (1993) in his response to Wolpert, argues
that while there may be a gap between science and common sense, the key is to
suspend judgement and to study the processes of re-presentations as exemplified
in the study of psychoanalysis in France (albeit not a prototypical 20th century
natural science). And we might add: not only to suspend judgement, but also to
observe how re-presentations feed back to science.
This vector bias from a dignified context to less dignified contexts situates
social representations theory in relation to post-Mertonian sociology of knowledge,
the social constructivist Science & Technology Studies (STS). For the latter the
processes by which knowledge claims are dignified are the key—the machinations
by which the world is “reified” in data, mathematical models, and visualisations;
the rhetorical work of metaphors and analogies in theory building; the settling of
epistemic conflicts by boundary work and normalisation; and the management of
innovation and scientific expertise in policy making, and the rhetoric of authority.
A social representations analysis might show how all this build-up might be
resisted by common sense through the differentiation of reception in different
contexts.
In this regard the slightly ironic title of a paper we presented at a conference
in Aix-en-Provence in 1996 “la tomate genetique—son image et son public” makes sense.
The tomato, this most familiar Mediterranean vegetable, became in the 1980s
a promising target of genetic engineering—the genetically modified tomato. To
understand what is going on requires us to take a rather unfamiliar gaze on this
everyday vegetable. First, is it a fruit or a vegetable? But a fruit hardly fits with
the idea of salad or pasta sauce; and then, neither fruit nor vegetable are scientific
categories. Second, we need to understand the basics of gene technology—is it an
© 2008 The Authors

extension of beer, bread and cheese making, or is it a scientific revolution, the
technology of the 21st century? Third is the question as to whether this
genetically modified fruit/vegetable is part of the industrial agriculture (2nd
Green revolution) with its concerns for yield and productivity; or as an issue of
food safety and public health (the modified tomato could be allergenic or have
enhanced vitamin content); or an issue of global food security (it will feed the
world); or as militating against the use of fertilisers and herbicides (an environ-
mental benefit), or finally as a metonymic symbol for all other staple agricultural
produce such as rice, cotton, maize, wheat, coffee which may undergo similar
treatments. Potentially, the “scientific tomato” has many identities and possible
representations and, as such, becomes an issue of re-entering and gaining a new
public image, an eminently empirical matter as it unfolds in history.
What happens when the “scientific tomato” re-enters the public conversation?
It becomes political when controversy arises over whose “future salad” is being
served, who owns the patent, who might take the risks, and who might be liable
to shoulder the burden of the unknown consequences. This is what we set out to
investigate in our project “Biotechnology and the Public” in the mid 1990s,
when what was widely seen as a merely scientific debate, blew up in 1997 with
controversies over genetically modified crops and Dolly the Sheep.
Excursion: Biotechnology across Europe
During the 1990s we co-ordinated three waves of European funded projects

(additional funds came from national projects in the network). As we led a
multi-disciplinary team with colleagues from social psychology, sociology, science
and technology studies, communication scientists and political science, a pragmatic
version of social representations led to a research design involving multiple-
longitudinal data streams (policy making, media coverage and public perceptions)
as the perspectives though which we observed and mapped “biotechnology in
public.”
With our gaze directed towards informal communication—public conversations—
we conducted qualitative focus group interviews in ten European countries in a
comparative study of Europe’s hopes and fears of modern biotechnology. This
study complemented a series of Eurobarometer national sample surveys mapping
the contours of public perceptions. A collaboration with North American
colleagues extended the analyses to address the vexed question of transatlantic
differences in the reception of GM foods and stem cell research. With a focus on
formal communication we conducted a systematic analysis of biotechnology
in Europe and North America’s elite newspapers between 1973 and 2002 with a
common coding frame. Finally, we collated a comparative chronology of political
events and regulatory decisions on biotechnology in each country from 1973 to
2000.
© 2008 The Authors

These three perspective created probably the most elaborate database of public
opinion on any new technology and led to many reports, papers and books in
which representation and elements of our toblerone model are to be seen (for
example Gaskell and Bauer 2001 and Bauer and Gaskell, 2002).
The research questions and the methodology of this project were informed by
our original reading of “la Psychanalyse.” In particular, it led us to a working
definition of social representations and how they stand in relation to common
sense. Essentially, common sense is the phenomenon in which we are interested—
the rich and varied ways in which objects are understood in public domain. Social
representations are the concept with which we, as social scientists, map the
phenomenon of common sense and elucidate key underlying processes—the origins,
structures and functions of common sense understanding of, for example the GM
tomato or embryonic stem cell cloning.
THE “TOBLERONE” MODEL OF SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS
In a previous paper in this journal (Bauer and Gaskell, 1999), we presented our
reflections on social representations. We defined a “paradigm” in the sense of an
ideal-typical formulation of basic concepts and methodological implications for
studying “biotechnology in public conversations” as social representation. Let us
briefly revisit the main ideas.
First we defined a “social representation” as a logical triplet of subject, object
and project.
Representation = f (subject, object, project)
We proposed that subject-object relations are not a matter of individual

information processing. The minimal unit of analysis is a communicative unit,
Subject-Subject paying attention to and jointly referencing an object. The unit of
analysis of social representations is not an isolated organism, but the Ego-
Alter unit of communicating people, taking each other into account, and being
co-ordinated by we-intentions. The subject of social representations is thus a “we.”
But this leaves open the specification of how this “we” is constituted, and how it
allows for various forms of social integration, cohesion and alignment of intentions.
Relatively new in the discussions was our highlighting of a project of
representation. We found it useful to stress that subject-object relations are relative
to a project, a “future-for-us,” an ongoing movement, an anticipation “not-yet”
which defines both the object as well as the people’s experience. Our suggestion
was inspired by Merleau-Ponty (1962): moving bodies are the matrix of
perception and self-experience. Movement is oriented by a project, a plan or a goal,
a task, a quest, or just a vague hunch of some common destiny, or it might even
be secular mission or meta-narratives. Indeed, in “la Psychanalyse” very large
© 2008 The Authors

projects were at stake, the world revolution according to the Communist Party,
spiritual salvation under conditions of apocalypse according to the Holy Catholic
Church, or the competitive pursuit of discipline self-interest in the Liberal moral
universe. The French took a perspective on things psychoanalytic in the context
of these particular futures, an orientation that might be more or less conscious
and explicit. On this issue of the project of representation more conceptual work
is necessary, although a good start is to be found in Foster (2003).
We captured this idea of a communicative triangle that is sucked into a particular
future with the schema of an elongated triangle that takes the shape of a famous
Swiss chocolate, hence the “toblerone model.”
From this basic logical formalism we derived seven methodological implications.
Research should consider process, structure and functions of representations;
compare “natural” social milieus and not statistical strata; trace the evolution of
ideas within each milieu; consider multiple data streams to map conversations as
well as mass media coverage; consider longitudinal data steaming to do justice to
process, and finally to adopt the “melancholic attitude”—to observe without
judgement and intervention, and thus to avoid the “iconoclastic” impetus that
immediately seeks to debunk common sense. In this way, social representation
theory offers a coherent framework to study and to understand the mobilisation
of knowledge in everyday life which draws on various sources, has multiple con-
cerns and makes clear that no one thinks alone.
A PROGRESSIVE PROGRAMME FOR SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
In an attempt to answer the epistemological question—how does knowledge grow?—

Lakatos (1970) distinguishes between progressive and degenerating programmes
of scientific research. A progressive programme is characterised by an expanding
theoretical dispositive providing a fertile stream of hypotheses for empirical
research. This contrasts with a degenerating programme that merely makes ad
hoc adjustments to the theory in response to anomalous empirical findings in the
struggle to keep up with the facts. On a number of criteria the social represen-
tations research programme qualifies as progressive—let us offer some examples.
An Expanding Theory
Our specification of the toblerone model—subject, object and project (Bauer and
Gaskell, 1999) was found to be insufficient. Empirical evidence suggested various
extensions to the model. We now conceive of a representation as a function of
several arguments:
Representation = f (subject, object, project, time, medium, intergroup context)
© 2008 The Authors

The subject is always a collective of conscious selves and others, who come together
for a project of common intentionality. This finds expression in a particular
medium of communication. The notion of medium is consistent with Goodman’s
(1976, 31) analytic account of “representation-as” which poses two questions. What
is being labelled and what sort of label is it?—the label is the medium or the genre.
For example, Winston Churchill is often depicted as a soldier, thus the picture is
one of the genre of soldier-pictures. As such, aspects of Churchill will be determined
by this genre. Genre analysis is a major development in social representation
research (see Marková, 2003; Luckmann, 1995). Propagation, propaganda and
diffusion are the genres of communication identified in relation to psychoanalysis,
which invites the question as to whether there might be others: what about
rumour, gossip, education, or marketing?
Our triangle of mediation needed to be extended to the intergroup context.
Representations are formed in relation to other communities, in order to resist or
dominate. Thus, the “toblerone” model is extended into a “wind rose,” similar to
an image used by Latour (1987). What for Latour are the centrifugal multi-lateral
communication efforts of techno-sciences, a battle at many frontiers, is for social
representations the centripetal intentionality of different communities towards the
common referent, that “obscure object of desire, the shock, curiosity, ambivalence or
disgust.” In our particular case this was “modern biotechnology and genetic engineer-
ing.” The petals of the wind rose are social milieus, schematised as triangles of
mediation, the particular milieus of communication making reference to biotechnology.
We developed our toblerone model into the multiple toblerone model, which,
as a slice, looks like a “wind rose,” see Figure 2. Clearly, geometric shapes are
highly idealised pictures. The petals of our wind rose are of irregular size, relating
for example to minorities and the majority, or to competing minorities of unequal
power. The future shape of the centre, the common reference point, depends on
the interaction between these milieus and their paramount pragmatic realities.
Representations are practically real and make sense because people act accord-
ingly. The difference between representations and Reality respects the distinction
in German between “Wirklichkeit” (whatever works) and “Realitaet” (Reality, or
“Wirklichkeit der Wirklichkeit”). Representations are consistent with pragmatic
notions of knowledge and the symbolic interactionist axiom: the “real” is what
people believe to be real in their actions—their paramount reality.
An object (O) is defined relative to a community (S-S), a milieu and triangle of
mediation perceives the reality relative to a project (P). Reality itself, the final
reference, is recalcitrant vis-a-vis these representations; different representations
constitute an inter-group context which can be more or less conflictual. Further-
more, we need to recognise that the neat separation of milieus of representations
without overlap is too idealistic and would constitute a cultural segmentation into
milieus without much contact. Historically this might do justice to the reality of
what political science calls “columnised societies”: communities living apart in
cultural ghettos with contacts only at the level of elites; in everyday life there is
© 2008 The Authors

Figure 2. The “wind rose” model of social representation.
little to no contact between people across the community. In contemporary times

milieus have more or less contact and the representations are overlapping and
give rise to “cognitive polyphasia” (see Jovchelovitch, 2007), another idea found
in the study of psychoanalysis. People are “at home” in several cognitive systems
without too much confusion, just as they can be fluent in several languages.
This suggests that the progress of techno-science is an interlocking movement
of several milieus. We need to understand how different movements interlock and
create a future of no one’s particular design, as the outcome of interaction
or co-construction (the term used in STS). A new technology is thus a swarm of
inter-locking movements. The notion of “social movement” opens a rich field of
study that has much to offer. The notions of mobilisation and issue framing have
affinity to social representation analysis. Thus, we suggested that a new technology
might be a quasi-social movement in conflict, a particular sector of moral entre-
preneurship searching for support and legitimacy in the public sphere (Bauer and
Gaskell, 2002). And this inevitably unfolds in the context of inter-group relations
that includes identity management, and boundary work of in-group favouritism
and out-group stereotypes.
A Synthetic Theory
The success of the sciences relies on analytic power. The virtues of synthetic
positions are sometimes underrated. Synthesis makes demands on time and effort.
© 2008 The Authors

Why should we care that things belong together, if they happily live in conceptual
separation? To some, synthesis is either a luxury or the aesthetic pursuit of
simplicity and elegance. Yet, the greater theoretical breadth that accompanies
synthesis can increase the range of possible explanation and generate new
hypotheses. The extension of the original toblerone model into the wind rose
model points to the value of borrowing from other theories—in this case, inter-group
behaviour and social movements—and demonstrates the synthetic power of this
theory.
The synthetic power of theory is demonstrated when hitherto unrelated
concepts can be linked and thus enhance our understanding of the world. There
is nothing so practical as good theory. Star and Griesemer (1989) coined the term
“boundary object” while studying the exhibition “Zoology in the early 20th
Century” at Berkeley Museum. The exhibition depended on different professional
groups referring to the exhibit without an agreed definition.
“Boundary objects are both plastic enough to adapt to local needs and the constraints of the
several parties . . . , yet robust enough to maintain a common identity across the site” (ibidem,
p. 393).
The boundary object provides a “common currency”—an analogy to money

which suggests that it is supported by trust in an existing institution. This is
procedural, the common protocol for collecting and preparing a Museum specimen.
Procedures keep the “wind rose” of the different museum professionals together
and on track. The boundary is the linkage. It is a bond of convenience by which
activity can proceed.
“Boundary work” is a term attributed to historian Thomas Gieryn (1999).3 In
case studies Gieryn shows that the demarcation between science and non-science
changes from context to context. He shows how the demarcation work of early
19th century excludes Phrenology from the canon because of its popular support
(popularity disqualifies). In the late 19th Century, Tyndall operates a dual boundary-
work against religion and technology to secure the autonomy of science, and the
post-war US Congress demarcates the natural from social sciences for the purpose
of funding distribution. Such boundary work continues in the recent “science
wars.” Boundary work defines boundaries and thus separates communities, but in
so doing it creates identities, favouritism and bias of the insider; not necessarily
for bad reasons.
Riesch (2008) has convincingly shown how scientists’ view of the nature of science,
expressed in popular science writing and conversation. They mobilise “boundary
objects’ (Popper, Kuhn, Occam’s razor, reductionism) to define good practice
across different contexts but also to demarcate an out-group and thus create the
identities of “us” and “them.” The representation of science among researchers
functions in an inter-group context. It creates group coherence and demarcations,
gives rise to in-group bias and out-group homogenisation and denigration.
© 2008 The Authors

The synthetic power of social representations theory is evidenced in other
areas. For example, in the contemporary literature there are two more or less
autonomous fields of study—attitudes and risk perception—each with separate
journals and conferences. A researcher might select either one for a conceptual and
empirical study of the public’s response to new technologies and do so without
any need to reference the other approach. However, social representations theory
invites us, on occasions, to think at a higher level of abstraction. From such a
vantage point “attitude” and “risk perception” (along with other concepts such
opinion, schemas, ideologies etc) can be seen as different functions of representa-
tions in organising collective action.—specific aspects of the generic concept.
What is the generic concept? Social representations as a theory of common
sense—its origins, structure and processes and functions. Indeed, it might be
argued that were attitude and risk perception theorists to recognise this, then
possible solutions to a number of the conceptual limitations of attitudes and risk
perception would be apparent. For example, writing on the challenges facing
attitude theory Eagly and Chaiken (1993) identify some “serious omissions and
limitations” in the social psychology of the attitude. Amongst these are the lack
of understanding of developmental issues; insufficient consideration of the social
context, and a rudimentary understanding of conceptual issues. Much the same
can be said of risk perception research which is almost exclusively individualistic,
cognitivist and a-historical. For some decades these “limitations” have featured in
theorising and empirical research in the social representations programme.
Viewed from this perspective, risk perceptions and attitudes become group specific
assessments in relation to a common project. They function to understand and
order the world in terms of personal or societal dangers, and preferences respectively.
And if that is accepted then understanding their origins, structure and change, can
draw upon the concepts and findings from the literature on social representations.
The concept of “social representation” has potential applications across many
of the social sciences where common sense is an object of enquiry—politics, health,
behavioural economics, technology and society, environmental studies, history
etc. It functions as an umbrella term for notions like opinion, perceptions, attitudes,
values, stereotypes and risks and links them to formats of communication such as
diffusion, vulgarisation, propaganda, and propagation. Indeed this link was one
of its original theoretical motives; it continues to be a challenge. Social represen-
tation theory fuels the aspiration to see linkages within social psychology and,
crucially, with other social sciences. Would it be too bold to suggest that the theory
might even put social psychology at the heart of the social sciences?
A Social Psychology of Public Opinion
Working internationally with the “gold standard” of social research, the nationally
representative sample survey is an experience in itself. The reception of survey
© 2008 The Authors

data is wide and vivid. What frequently occurs in the reception is the reification
of public opinion in the data: public opinion is what the survey says, and researchers
are sucked into this confusion of phenomenon, concept and measurement. It is
too easily forgotten that public opinion is a process and no cross-sectional measure
does justice to this fact (fever is not to be confused with the thermometer reading).
And it is too easily forgotten that the questionnaire is only one among many
possible indicators of public opinion. Social representation’s methodological
imperative of multiple data streams serves as a bulwark against reductionism and
reification of public opinion. The researcher is forced to consider survey data in
the context of other data on public attitudes, convergent or divergent, without
being able to dismiss these immediately on purely reputational grounds, which
the “gold standard” might suggest.
It is a matter of theoretical import that the medium of communication
structures the “object,” the medium is part of the message, and hence variance in
representation reflects both the logic of the medium (questionnaire, conversation, or
news media) and those of the reference (e.g. genetic engineering, GM tomato).
This puts the sample survey and its reputational advantage into perspective, and
opens the relevance of conversation and mass media monitoring as data streams.
The moral of the story is that public opinion is a communication process that
should not be reified in survey responses, what Habermas bemoaned in 1961 as
the social psychological liquidation of public opinion (Habermas, 1989).
To paraphrase Dewey, there is no public opinion without an issue. From the
perspective of social representations theory this statement might be revisited along
the lines of “there is no public opinion without different representations.” Take
the stem cell debate. For some (scientists) “stem cells” are merely a collection of
pluri-potent cells, capable of developing into different bodily organs. For others,
the cells are humans in the making with the “soul” of a moral being.
Just as psychoanalysis was understood differently in different milieus in France of
the 1950s, so are the GM tomato, stem cells and other developments in the life sciences
in contemporary times. The way in which issues are represented in different
groups is not random or arbitrary. They are anchored and elaborated in relation
to the varying projects of different societal groups or milieus. Interestingly, this
raises questions of whether consensus on contested issues in science and technology
is possible (pace “consensus conferences”). Few approach the life sciences and their
impacts on society with a Rawlsian veil of ignorance. Thus the challenge for the
modern republic is not “how to achieve consensus” but rather how to manage techno-
logical developments in the context of diverse values and differing representations.
SOME UNRESOLVED ISSUES
In our work on biotechnology we frequently confronted two conceptual issues

without finding a satisfactory solution. On these two issues the original study of
© 2008 The Authors

psychoanalysis in France cannot be the model on account of the changing histor-
ical contexts.
The Segmentation of Relevant Social Milieus
How can we demarcate the relevant social milieus? Or the historical question;
on what basis was it possible to consider the milieus of Catholics, Communists
and Liberals as relevant to the study of la Psychanalyse in the 1950s? This points
to the problem of identifying relevant social groupings, each with a sense of self-
identity and of self-reference more or less explicitly related to a common
project.
In this regard social science is confronted by a powerful machinery of socio-
demographic and psychological profiling. The methodology is based on co-variance
analysis and statistical classifications. Cluster analysts are hyperactive in creating
“market segmentations” for any possible product or idea. But such classifica-
tion systems are functional orderings in the “battle for the hearts and minds,”
observer categories without any bearing on how people refer to themselves. Every
marketer segments the market for a purpose, to optimise outreach and market
shares.
Should we seek guidance on segmentation in the recent sociology of consumption,
cultural capital and life-styles (e.g. Schulze, 2005; Bourdieu, 1979)? In this out-
look, modern society is separated into milieus according to the experiential
imperative: what counts is the experience of work, family, and leisure. Using the
basic markers of age and education, Schulze distinguishes five milieus: Niveau
(high education, older), Harmony (medium education, older), Integration (low
education, older), Self-actualisation (young, educated), Entertainment (young, less
educated). At least in Germany, these “Weltanschungsmilieus” can be typified by
what people seek pleasure in, their confidence and outlook in life, inward or
outward orientation, future perspectives and existential problems. But they still
are observer categories. It remains open to what extent these are self-referential
groups with a collective project for the future. Here, we might look again at Kurt
Lewin’s field theory, and at one of his students, Morton Deutsch, on group structure
and belief systems (Deutsch, 1990).
The Feedback Loop from Common Sense Back to Science
A further question remains unanswered: how did the psychoanalytic movement

respond to the very different reception in the three milieus? This question leads
back into the history of psychoanalysis in France, and the history of science in
general. The question is about reversing the vector: how does common sense
challenge the source of dignified knowledge?
© 2008 The Authors

Here we need to elaborate social representation to a theory of collective learning
by incorporating concepts like Piaget’s assimilation and accommodation at the
level of discourse and communities practice, and consider the feedback that
arises from the various challenges which diverse common sense poses to the
sciences (Duveen, 2001). However, caution needs to be applied in order not to
fall into the trap of notions of development with a fixed teleology like
“Progress,” “towards maturity” etc. Collective learning processes have to be
conceptualised outside the residues of a telos, such as the positivist vision of
history which sees the dominance of science as the necessary culmination of
a secular struggle against myth and religion. Many arguments of this kind
can be found in the global controversies, on which our research has focused in
recent years.
Social representation is a theory of the dynamics and differentiation of com-
mon senses, not least in relation to science as a source of knowledge. The theory
is thus a part of the diverse tradition of conceptualising the relations between
common sense and science. The way the theory develops, gives guidance on the
conduct of empirical research, and unfolds synthetic powers both within social
psychology and across to other disciplines satisfies the criteria which demarcate a
“progressive” programme of research.
For us four elements of social representations theory stand out; its framing of
diversified common sense as creative resistance; its analysis of communication
processes; its concern with science in society, and its methodology implications.
We are convinced that this continues to be a progressive programme of research
for social psychology.
M.W. Bauer and George Gaskell

Institute of Social Psychology & Methodology Institute
London School of Economics and Political Science
Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE. UK
m.bauer@lse.ac.uk
NOTES
1
This state of affairs was confirmed at a recent meeting on science communication
research attended by one of the authors in Paris ( July 2008). Speakers and discussants freely
used the term “vulgarisation de la science” exchangeable with science communication
even in the context of a dialogical model. When pressed colleagues admit a negative
connotation, but refer to the continued common use of the term.
2
A famous Zen story goes something like this: the novice asked the monk “what is the
Budda?.” The monk: “have you made tea today?. The novice is confused, and asks “what
does tea have to do with my question?.” The monk: if you make tea correctly, there is no
such question anymore.
3
Here we acknowledge our colleague Jane Gregory, a historian of science, who over the
years variously drew our attention to this historical work on “boundary work.”
© 2008 The Authors

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Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 38:4

Social Representations Theory: A Progressive

Research Programme for Social Psychology

MARTIN W. BAUER AND GEORGE GASKELL

In this paper we reflect on how a particular study, Moscovici’s “La Psychanalyse—

COMMON SENSE AND SCIENCE

Moscovici’s ambition was to study psychoanalysis as a cultural phenomenon, how its

Thus, common sense is neither a distorted vulgarisation nor a simple diffusion of

© 2008 The Authors

Vulgarisation is both a polemic and an activity. There is a fixation on an

© 2008 The Authors

Diffusion originally meant the “extension” of scientifically tested farming

© 2008 The Authors

In contrast to vulgarisation and diffusion, the study of psychoanalysis in 1950s

© 2008 The Authors

The New Common Sense

© 2008 The Authors

© 2008 The Authors

© 2008 The Authors

Excursion: Biotechnology across Europe

During the 1990s we co-ordinated three waves of European funded projects

© 2008 The Authors

THE “TOBLERONE” MODEL OF SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS

Representation = f (subject, object, project)

We proposed that subject-object relations are not a matter of individual

© 2008 The Authors

A PROGRESSIVE PROGRAMME FOR SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

In an attempt to answer the epistemological question—how does knowledge grow?—

Representation = f (subject, object, project, time, medium, intergroup context)

© 2008 The Authors

© 2008 The Authors

Figure 2. The “wind rose” model of social representation.

little to no contact between people across the community. In contemporary times

© 2008 The Authors

The boundary object provides a “common currency”—an analogy to money

© 2008 The Authors

A Social Psychology of Public Opinion

© 2008 The Authors

SOME UNRESOLVED ISSUES

In our work on biotechnology we frequently confronted two conceptual issues

© 2008 The Authors

The Segmentation of Relevant Social Milieus

The Feedback Loop from Common Sense Back to Science

A further question remains unanswered: how did the psychoanalytic movement

© 2008 The Authors

M.W. Bauer and George Gaskell

© 2008 The Authors

Bangerter, A. 2000. Transformations between Scientific and Social Representation of

© 2008 The Authors

© 2008 The Authors

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