Wolfgang Wagner (social psychologist)
Encyclopedia
Wolfgang Wagner is an Austrian social psychologist, currently professor at the Department of Social and Economic Psychology at Johannes Kepler University in Linz
, Austria
, and affiliated with the Department of Social Psychology and Methodology at the University of San Sebastián
, Spain
.
, philosophy
and cultural anthropology
at the University of Vienna
, Austria
, where he received his PhD. He trained in sociology
at the Vienna Institute for Advanced Studies and took the position of Assistant Professor at Johannes Kepler University in Linz
1979 where he also received his habilitation
. Since 2002 he is teaching also in the Masters and Doctoral courses on Organizational and Social Psychology at the University of the Basque Country in San Sebastián
. During his career he taught at various institutions, such as University of California
, Los Angeles, (UCLA) Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales
, Paris, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, London School of Economics and Political Science, Cambridge University, and University of Kyoto, among others. He is founding editor of Papers on Social Representations and presently co-editor and scientific board member of Public Understanding of Science
, Asian Journal of Social Psychology
, Culture & Psychology, Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology
. As a social scientists he has several times been expert consultant to the European Union
’s DG XII. He is renowned for his contribution to the Theory of Social Representations
, Societal psychology
, Public Understanding of Science
and psychological essentialism.
, Social Constructionism
, Discourse Theory, and Social Representations
Theory.
and the collective
in psychology
and the social sciences
. The theory was first presented by Serge Moscovici
in 1961. Wagner took up this thread of ideas and illustrated the theory’s cornerstones in empirical studies. The theory and its development are summarized in Wagner & Hayes’ 2005 monograph.
Wolfgang Wagner and Fran Elejabarrieta showed how the process of objectification, where a community elaborates a social issue into a social fact, can be modeled as a metaphor
ical process. Objectified representations are usually image related and iconic and not propositional by nature and they are promoted by school teaching and media
discourse.
With regard to knowledge systems Wagner theorizes that people have access to others’ representational systems to enable concerted interaction even and particularly in cases of conflict. Hence, he suggested the existence of a system of holomorphic representations that encompass not only an individual’s or a group’s representation of an issue but also bits and pieces of the adversary’s view of the world. Ragini Sen and Wolfgang Wagner show how in violent conflict this interdependency between representations of opposed groups can take the form of „hetero-reference“, where one group’s representation in fact depends on the existence of the opponent group’s ideology or religion.
In terms of representational structure Wolfgang Wagner, José Valencia and Fran Elejabarrieta showed that the existence of a well-structured representation crucially depends on an ongoing debate or discourse. Even though people do have lots of ideas about a vast range of objects, their ideas will not constitute a well-organized representation in the absence of a pressing situation that triggers extended discourse about a particular issue.
A good part of Wolfgang Wagner’s contributions to Social Representation Theory are theoretical: As one of the first scholars he questioned the commonly assumed methodological idea that mental representations can be treated as the causes of behaviour and action. In his view, Representation Theory allows to unite both, thinking and action, in a social representation where neither action can be treated without reference to thinking and thinking cannot rightly be positioned before action in research designs.
Another central tenet of Wagner’s thinking is the constructivist unity of a social representation and the social object it constructs. The object and the thinking and behaviour of a community about it cannot be separated on epistemological grounds. Without a representation, an object would just be a „something“ and it could not take its place in the life world of a community. Once an issue or object is part of a local world, it is intimately linked with the behaviour and ways of thinking of the people sharing in its representation, such that the object, at the end, is the representation.
“, however, does not erase the old stock of thinking, but produces a kind of cognitive polyphasia
, first postulated by Serge Moscovici. The authors show that both, the modern and the traditional ways of thinking and talking co-exist and are being applied in different situations and settings: The traditional terminology and ideas are used primarily in private family contexts and the more modern and scientific stock of ideas primarily in the public
. This split between domains and logically contradictory systems of representations is by no means restricted to traditional or modernizing societies and cultures, but can easily be observed in highly developed and industrialized countries as well.
, Wolfgang Wagner and Nicole Kronberger contributed to the understanding of media and representation interactions. Much of his empirical research is on people’s understanding of biotechnology, genetic engineering and synthetic biology. The data provided evidence for a Theory of Collective Symbolic Coping that describes how media activity and discourse
about technological innovation
intersect. Based on his earlier work on the importance of media discourse for social representations
the theory shows that without ongoing media reporting on a novel technological issue in a country, large portions of the public are free to express their ignorance in the form of „don’t know“ responses in surveys. Once, however, an issue catches the medias’ attention resulting in a hype, large sections of the public adopt and finally share a common understanding that allows them to participate in discourse and conversations. At the same time the frequency of don’t know responses drops sharply, showing that self-ascribed ignorance is no longer an option in a situation of public discourse. The understanding people attained, however, has little to do with a more or less scientifically correct representation, but takes the form of sometimes fantastic images and metaphorical ideas.
Linz
Linz is the third-largest city of Austria and capital of the state of Upper Austria . It is located in the north centre of Austria, approximately south of the Czech border, on both sides of the river Danube. The population of the city is , and that of the Greater Linz conurbation is about...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, and affiliated with the Department of Social Psychology and Methodology at the University of San Sebastián
San Sebastián
Donostia-San Sebastián is a city and municipality located in the north of Spain, in the coast of the Bay of Biscay and 20 km away from the French border. The city is the capital of Gipuzkoa, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. The municipality’s population is 186,122 , and its...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
.
Biography
Wolfgang Wagner studied psychologyPsychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
, philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
and cultural anthropology
Cultural anthropology
Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans, collecting data about the impact of global economic and political processes on local cultural realities. Anthropologists use a variety of methods, including participant observation,...
at the University of Vienna
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, where he received his PhD. He trained in sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
at the Vienna Institute for Advanced Studies and took the position of Assistant Professor at Johannes Kepler University in Linz
Linz
Linz is the third-largest city of Austria and capital of the state of Upper Austria . It is located in the north centre of Austria, approximately south of the Czech border, on both sides of the river Danube. The population of the city is , and that of the Greater Linz conurbation is about...
1979 where he also received his habilitation
Habilitation
Habilitation is the highest academic qualification a scholar can achieve by his or her own pursuit in several European and Asian countries. Earned after obtaining a research doctorate, such as a PhD, habilitation requires the candidate to write a professorial thesis based on independent...
. Since 2002 he is teaching also in the Masters and Doctoral courses on Organizational and Social Psychology at the University of the Basque Country in San Sebastián
San Sebastián
Donostia-San Sebastián is a city and municipality located in the north of Spain, in the coast of the Bay of Biscay and 20 km away from the French border. The city is the capital of Gipuzkoa, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. The municipality’s population is 186,122 , and its...
. During his career he taught at various institutions, such as University of California
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
, Los Angeles, (UCLA) Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales
École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
The École des hautes études en sciences sociales is a leading French institution for research and higher education, a Grand Établissement. Its mission is research and research training in the social sciences, including the relationship these latter maintain with the natural and life sciences...
, Paris, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, London School of Economics and Political Science, Cambridge University, and University of Kyoto, among others. He is founding editor of Papers on Social Representations and presently co-editor and scientific board member of Public Understanding of Science
Public understanding of science
Public understanding of science may refer to:* Public Understanding of Science , an academic journal* Public awareness of science...
, Asian Journal of Social Psychology
Asian Journal of Social Psychology
The Asian Journal of Social Psychology is a monthly psychology journal published by Blackwell Publishing. The journal is published in conjunction with the Asian Association of Social Psychology and the Japanese Group Dynamics Association...
, Culture & Psychology, Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology
Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology
The Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology is an academic journal that publishes papers dealing with social behaviour in the context of community problems and strengths. The journal is international in scope and is aimed at a worldwide readership of community practitioners and...
. As a social scientists he has several times been expert consultant to the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
’s DG XII. He is renowned for his contribution to the Theory of Social Representations
Social representations
A social representation is a stock of values, ideas, beliefs, and practices that are shared among the members of groups and communities. Social Representations Theory is a body of theory within Social Psychology and Sociological social psychology...
, Societal psychology
Societal psychology
Societal psychology is a development within social psychology which emphasizes the all-embracing force of the social, institutional, and cultural environments, and with it the study of social phenomena in their own right as they affect, and are affected by, the members of the particular society...
, Public Understanding of Science
Public understanding of science
Public understanding of science may refer to:* Public Understanding of Science , an academic journal* Public awareness of science...
and psychological essentialism.
Work
In his professional publications, Wolfgang Wagner covers a wide range of social psychological topics that have to do with the interaction of individual and collective processes. Throughout his career Wagner explored the mechanisms involved in the individual vs. cultural vs. social interface in modern and in more traditional societies. In doing so he attempted to integrate Social CognitionSocial cognition
Social cognition is the encoding, storage, retrieval, and processing, in the brain, of information relating to conspecifics, or members of the same species. At one time social cognition referred specifically to an approach to social psychology in which these processes were studied according to the...
, Social Constructionism
Social constructionism
Social constructionism and social constructivism are sociological theories of knowledge that consider how social phenomena or objects of consciousness develop in social contexts. A social construction is a concept or practice that is the construct of a particular group...
, Discourse Theory, and Social Representations
Social representations
A social representation is a stock of values, ideas, beliefs, and practices that are shared among the members of groups and communities. Social Representations Theory is a body of theory within Social Psychology and Sociological social psychology...
Theory.
Social Representation Theory
Social Representation Theory is an approach that bridges the traditional divide between the individualIndividual
An individual is a person or any specific object or thing in a collection. Individuality is the state or quality of being an individual; a person separate from other persons and possessing his or her own needs, goals, and desires. Being self expressive...
and the collective
Collective
A collective is a group of entities that share or are motivated by at least one common issue or interest, or work together on a specific project to achieve a common objective...
in psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
and the social sciences
Social sciences
Social science is the field of study concerned with society. "Social science" is commonly used as an umbrella term to refer to a plurality of fields outside of the natural sciences usually exclusive of the administrative or managerial sciences...
. The theory was first presented by Serge Moscovici
Serge Moscovici
Serge Moscovici is a Romanian-born French social psychologist, currently the director of the Laboratoire Européen de Psychologie Sociale , which he co-founded in 1974 at the Maison des sciences de l'homme in Paris...
in 1961. Wagner took up this thread of ideas and illustrated the theory’s cornerstones in empirical studies. The theory and its development are summarized in Wagner & Hayes’ 2005 monograph.
Wolfgang Wagner and Fran Elejabarrieta showed how the process of objectification, where a community elaborates a social issue into a social fact, can be modeled as a metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
ical process. Objectified representations are usually image related and iconic and not propositional by nature and they are promoted by school teaching and media
Media (communication)
In communications, media are the storage and transmission channels or tools used to store and deliver information or data...
discourse.
With regard to knowledge systems Wagner theorizes that people have access to others’ representational systems to enable concerted interaction even and particularly in cases of conflict. Hence, he suggested the existence of a system of holomorphic representations that encompass not only an individual’s or a group’s representation of an issue but also bits and pieces of the adversary’s view of the world. Ragini Sen and Wolfgang Wagner show how in violent conflict this interdependency between representations of opposed groups can take the form of „hetero-reference“, where one group’s representation in fact depends on the existence of the opponent group’s ideology or religion.
In terms of representational structure Wolfgang Wagner, José Valencia and Fran Elejabarrieta showed that the existence of a well-structured representation crucially depends on an ongoing debate or discourse. Even though people do have lots of ideas about a vast range of objects, their ideas will not constitute a well-organized representation in the absence of a pressing situation that triggers extended discourse about a particular issue.
A good part of Wolfgang Wagner’s contributions to Social Representation Theory are theoretical: As one of the first scholars he questioned the commonly assumed methodological idea that mental representations can be treated as the causes of behaviour and action. In his view, Representation Theory allows to unite both, thinking and action, in a social representation where neither action can be treated without reference to thinking and thinking cannot rightly be positioned before action in research designs.
Another central tenet of Wagner’s thinking is the constructivist unity of a social representation and the social object it constructs. The object and the thinking and behaviour of a community about it cannot be separated on epistemological grounds. Without a representation, an object would just be a „something“ and it could not take its place in the life world of a community. Once an issue or object is part of a local world, it is intimately linked with the behaviour and ways of thinking of the people sharing in its representation, such that the object, at the end, is the representation.
Culture Change and Cognitive Polyphasia
Together with Gerard Duveen, Matthias Themel and Jyoti Verma, Wagner showed how modern scientific knowledge ever so slowly penetrates traditional and culture-bound knowledge in developing societies. This „modernizationModernization
In the social sciences, modernization or modernisation refers to a model of an evolutionary transition from a 'pre-modern' or 'traditional' to a 'modern' society. The teleology of modernization is described in social evolutionism theories, existing as a template that has been generally followed by...
“, however, does not erase the old stock of thinking, but produces a kind of cognitive polyphasia
Cognitive polyphasia
The concept of cognitive polyphasia refers to the ability of people to think about the same issue in contradictory terms in different situations...
, first postulated by Serge Moscovici. The authors show that both, the modern and the traditional ways of thinking and talking co-exist and are being applied in different situations and settings: The traditional terminology and ideas are used primarily in private family contexts and the more modern and scientific stock of ideas primarily in the public
Public
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individuals, and the public is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the Öffentlichkeit or public sphere. The concept of a public has also been defined in political science,...
. This split between domains and logically contradictory systems of representations is by no means restricted to traditional or modernizing societies and cultures, but can easily be observed in highly developed and industrialized countries as well.
Cultural Metrics
Wagner’s work on culture change and representational systems brought him to appreciate the complexities of cross-cultural methodology. He suggested a Theory of Cultural Metrics that presupposes that neither words and concepts nor entire questionnaire items, even if properly translated, can be directly compared in statistical terms, e.g. by calculating the mean. Before doing the statistics it is necessary to show that an items that are supposed to measure the same issue across cultures take a similar position within the structure of all assessed questionnaire items in each of the cultural samples. This test can usually be done with non-parametric structural statistics.Theory of Collective Symbolic Coping in Popularizing Science and Technology
In the field of public understanding of sciencePublic understanding of science
Public understanding of science may refer to:* Public Understanding of Science , an academic journal* Public awareness of science...
, Wolfgang Wagner and Nicole Kronberger contributed to the understanding of media and representation interactions. Much of his empirical research is on people’s understanding of biotechnology, genetic engineering and synthetic biology. The data provided evidence for a Theory of Collective Symbolic Coping that describes how media activity and discourse
Discourse
Discourse generally refers to "written or spoken communication". The following are three more specific definitions:...
about technological innovation
Innovation
Innovation is the creation of better or more effective products, processes, technologies, or ideas that are accepted by markets, governments, and society...
intersect. Based on his earlier work on the importance of media discourse for social representations
Social representations
A social representation is a stock of values, ideas, beliefs, and practices that are shared among the members of groups and communities. Social Representations Theory is a body of theory within Social Psychology and Sociological social psychology...
the theory shows that without ongoing media reporting on a novel technological issue in a country, large portions of the public are free to express their ignorance in the form of „don’t know“ responses in surveys. Once, however, an issue catches the medias’ attention resulting in a hype, large sections of the public adopt and finally share a common understanding that allows them to participate in discourse and conversations. At the same time the frequency of don’t know responses drops sharply, showing that self-ascribed ignorance is no longer an option in a situation of public discourse. The understanding people attained, however, has little to do with a more or less scientifically correct representation, but takes the form of sometimes fantastic images and metaphorical ideas.
Psychological Essentialism and a Theory of Hybrids in the natural domain
Wolfgang Wagner, together with Nicole Kronberger and Peter Holtz, extended the framework of Social Representation Theory by including Psychological Essentialism as a hitherto overlooked representational tool in thinking about natural organisms and social groups. As an outcome of their research on genetic engineering, the authors showed that thinking in terms of essence, that is by attributing animals a species-specific essence, has the curious consequence that genetic hybrids are perceived as lacking identity and a clear belonging to a natural kind. The hybrid’s lack of belonging makes respondents judge them as close to being monsters; a straight continuation of the cultural interpretation of monsters signalling a category confusion. Their Essentialist Theory of Hybrids gives an easy explanation of the frequently observed „yuk-factor“ with regard to genetically modified organisms.Racism, Prejudice, Social Identity and Essence Politics
Wagner and Holtz extended this essentialist theory to intra- and inter-group processes by showing that ethnically and racially mixed mating is more often than not perceived as producing hybrids that are met with disgust by extreme right-wing individuals and high essentializers. A further insight is that essentialized identities are not an unchangeable given but subject to discursive negotiation and identity politics in history. While the feminist movement engages in de-essentializing the biological sexes making them more or less „arbitrary“ gender categories in public discourse, the largely defunct European nobility is interested in preserving and strengthening their essentialized “blue blood” identity that makes them different from the common man and woman.Responses to Wagner’s Work
Wolfgang Wagner’s unorthodox but integrative approach to the theories of Social Cognition, Social Constructivism, Discourse and Social Representations brought about critical as well as supportive responses. Partial critique met his discussion of the mental-action causality. Katsuya Yamori discussed Wagner’s constructivist approach in the Japanese social psychological community. Verheggen and Baerveldt criticised his approach on the grounds that representations cannot be shared but only enacted in the view of Radical Constructivism, which was rejected by a group of authors in a highly elaborated discussion of the theoretical underpinnings of Social Representation Theory.External links
- Interview 2007
- http://www.helsinki.fi/sosiaalipsykologia/opiskelu/opiskelun_tueksi/wagner.htm