Serge Moscovici

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Serge Moscovici

Serge Moscovici ( Srul Herș Moscovici ; born June 14, 1925 in Brăila , Romania ; † November 16, 2014 in Paris ) was a French social psychologist of Romanian origin. He was director of the Laboratoire Européen de Psychologie Sociale at the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme in Paris. The EU commissioner and former French finance minister Pierre Moscovici is his son.

biography

Moscovici came from a Jewish family. In 1938 he was expelled from the high school in Bucharest , which he attended, due to anti-Semitic laws . After he had survived the pogrom in Bucharest in January 1941, he was obliged to do forced labor until August 23, 1944 (Romania's liberation by the Red Army ). From 1939 to 1947 he was a member of the Communist Party of Romania . During these four years of the war his love for reading developed and he learned French, in particular through his contact with Isidor Goldstein, the later Isidore Isou and founder of Lettrism . Together they founded the art and literary magazine Da , which appeared in late 1944. It was quickly banned by the censors .

In 1947 he left Romania, like many others, passing through the displaced people camps . He came through Hungary , Austria and Italy and came to France a year later. In 1949 he received his license in psychology and in 1950 his diploma from the Institut de Psychologie in Paris.

Since 1950 he received a grant for refugees and was able to continue his studies at the Sorbonne . In 1961 he received his doctorate with a thesis on the social representation of psychoanalysis . The work was supervised by Daniel Lagache . At the same time, he studied epistemology and the history of science with Alexandre Koyré . In the 1960s, he was invited to the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton and Stanford University .

He later taught at the New School for Social Research in New York and at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, where he founded the Laboratoire de psychologie sociale . A whole generation of French social psychologists were trained here (Abric, Beauvois, Doise, Ghiglione, Herzlich, Jodelet, Rouquette, to name but a few). Through his anthropological work and commitment, Moscovici has become one of the pioneers of political ecology in France.

In 1975 he founded the Laboratoire Européen de Psychologie Sociale at the Maison des sciences de l'homme , one of the first European research associations.

He was a professor at the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Institute at the University of Geneva , at the Université catholique de Louvain and at the University of Cambridge and received numerous awards, including the 2003 Balzan Prize for Social Psychology.

He was co-editor of the European Journal of Social Psychology (1969–1974), the Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior (1985) and the Psychologie Sociale series , PUF (from 1991) and editor (1982) of European Studies in Social Psychology , CUP and Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, Paris.

research

Serge Moscovici dealt with the question of how minorities (minorities) influence majorities (majorities). He came to the conclusion that essentially the behavioral style of the minority is important. Moscovici distinguishes the following behavioral styles:

  • Investment means commitment and personal sacrifice for the cause of the minority.
  • Autonomy, this style of behavior conveys independence, determination and objectivity.
  • Consistency. Consistent behavior instills confidence and unwavering determination.
  • Rigidity.
  • Fairness.

The behavioral styles do not always have to be shown together and in pure form. In particular, it is difficult for a minority to act rigidly and fairly at the same time. The effectiveness of the behavioral styles for increased influence on society also depends on the subject of the minority opinion and the social circumstances.

Attempt at color perception

Reversal of the Asch experiment , each with 6 people, who were shown blue slides, which, however, varied in intensity. The test subjects' task was to judge the color aloud.

Result: In one group, a deviator always (consistency!) Said "green": He succeeded in convincing 8.42% of the test persons to also say "green"; there was thus a real change of opinion among the test subjects.

On the contrary, if a deviator is inconsistent, he will not be able to convince so large a part of the majority of his opinion (in this experiment it was 1.25%).

See also

Minority influence , majority influence , conformity

Works (selection)

  • La psychanalyse, son image et son public , PUF, 1961/1976
  • Reconversion industrial et changements sociaux. Un exemple: la chapellerie dans l'Aude , Armand Colin, 1961
  • L'expérience du mouvement. Jean-Baptiste Baliani, disciple et critique de Galilée , Hermann, 1967
  • Essai sur l'histoire humaine de la nature , Flammarion, 1968/1977; German: Experiment on the human history of nature , Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, ​​1982
  • La société contre nature , Union Générale d'éditions, 1972 / Seuil, 1994
  • Hommes domestiques et hommes sauvages , Union Générale d'éditions, 1974
  • Social influence and social change , London: Academic Press, 1976; German: Social change through minorities , Munich Vienna Baltimore: Urban & Schwarzenberg, 1979 (reissued udT, Munich: Urban u. Fischer, 1991)
  • Research Areas in Social Psychology 1 + 2 (Ed.), Frankfurt a. M .: Athenaeum / Fischer, 1975–1976
  • Psychologie des minorités actives , PUF, 1979
  • L'Age des foules: un traité historique de psychologie des masses , Fayard, 1981; dt .: The Age of the Masses: e. histor. Depending on d. Mass psychology , Frankfurt am Main: Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, 1986
  • La Machine à faire les dieux , Fayard, 1988
  • Chronique des années égarées: récit autobiographique , Stock, 1997
  • Social Representations: Explorations in Social Psychology , Polity Press, 2000
  • De la Nature. Pour penser l'écologie , Métailié, 2002
  • «Réenchanter la nature. Entretiens avec Pascal Dibie  », Aube, 2002

A complete bibliography can be found in Penser la vie, le social, la nature. Mélanges en l'honneur de Serge Moscovici , ed. by Fabrice Buschini and Nikos Kalampalikis, Paris, Editions de la Maison des sciences de l'homme, 2001

Secondary literature

  • Le Journal des Psychologies , hors-série, «Serge Moscovici. Le père des représentations sociales. Make contributions pour mieux comprendre », October 2003.
  • Penser la vie, le social, la nature. Mélanges en l'honneur de Serge Moscovici , sous la direction de Fabrice Buschini et Nikos Kalampalikis, Paris, Editions de la Maison des sciences de l'homme, 2001.
  • Moscovici. La Vita, il percorso intellettuale, i temi, le opere , sous la direction de Mirilia Bonnes, Milano, Franco Angeli, 1999.
  • Zimbardo / Gerrig Psychologie 7th edition, Springerverlag ISBN 978-3-540-20011-6

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Serge Moscovici's 1958 refugee document , Prodan Romanian Cultural Foundation (English)
  2. ^ Julie Clarini: Serge Moscovici, figure de la psychologie sociale, est mort. In: Le Monde , November 16, 2014 (French).
  3. ^ Moscovici 1979: Social change through minorities. P. 135 ff
personal data
SURNAME Moscovici, Serge
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French social psychologist
DATE OF BIRTH June 14, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Brăila , Romania
DATE OF DEATH November 16, 2014
Place of death Paris , France