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EASP – European Association of Social Psychology

Report on EASP Small Group Meeting in Honour of Serge Moscovici

11.03.2017, by Jean-Claude Croizet in meeting report

November 17th-18th, 2016 in Paris, France; Organisers: Juan A. Pérez (University of Valencia), Saadi Lahlou (London School of Economics), Denise Jodelet (EHESS), Nikos Kalampalikis (University of Lyon), Thémis Apostolidis (University of Aix-Marseille)

EASP Small Group Meeting in Honour of Serge Moscovici Paris 2016
EASP Small Group Meeting in Honour of Serge Moscovici Paris 2016

Rationale

This meeting was held in honor of Serge Moscovici (1925-2014) and his lifelong achievements in social sciences in general and social psychology in particular. Moscovici played a founding role in the creation of the European Association of Experimental Social Psychology, and was its first president. Throughout his multi-faceted work, Moscovici paid special attention to the examination of the epistemological foundations of social psychology and its position at the crossroads of the social sciences. In many writings he argues that the originality of the psychosocial perspective resides in articulating of the collective with the individual, science with common sense, social thought with individual thought, minorities with majorities. Moscovici developed new theories (collective polarization, social representations, influence of minorities, social innovation) and applied his critical talent to many other articulating theories of social psychology (attribution, reactance, altruism, social cognition, mass psychology, etc.) His work on political ecology, less known by social psychologists, adds a further dimension to a multifaceted intellectual opus, involved in the present and the future of our societies. Today, maintaining the epistemological identity of social psychology within the overall dynamics of the social sciences has become a major challenge. Our current practices of scientific writing, focused almost exclusively on the publication of short articles, often tend to make our discipline solitary and ahistorical. Moreover, the current debates around the neural and the social sometimes make us forget that social psychology, according to Moscovici, must consider «what men think determines how they think» and not the opposite. The goal of the meeting was to bring together junior and senior researchers to discuss theoretical aspects of Moscovici’s work, his conceptual contributions and the impact of his findings that grounded an essential part of social psychology, and how they can inform the future of the discipline. In a short, we wanted to examine how his contributions can help facing the contemporary challenges of our discipline.

Process

The meeting was held over two days. They were structured by the themes of Moscovici's psychological research, with an introduction by the Director of Paris Institute of Advanced Studies, Professor Mirdal. The first day was devoted to the themes of social influence and minority innovation, explored through eight interventions by senior and younger researchers. These included theoretical as well as empirical papers, mostly experimental. A large space was provided for discussion, with the selected public who followed the interventions. The second day, again in samll group, was mostly devoted to papers inspired by the theory of social representations. We opened the last session, discussing the future orientations of Serge Moscovici's ideas in social psychology, to a wider audience. Indeed the call for that meeting had generated considerable demand.

We also organised some social events in order to foster networking and continued discussion, especially since the participants came from 12 countries and many had never met each other.

Broadcasting

Both days were recorded. All the videos are currently online on the website of the Institute of Advanced Studies of Paris : http://www.paris-iea.fr/en/videos-list/hommage-a-serge-moscovici-8118
We will make an edited selection available on the Remosco website.

Dissemination

All the participants have written and sent the text of their intervention. A set of more than 130 pages (70,000 words) was distributed in advance of the meeting and will be the matter of a future publication project. We are working on that currently.

Participants: 41 participants from 12 countries (49% women, 51% men) : France (13), USA (7), Portugal (5), Germany (3), UK (3), Switzerland (3), Finland (3), Spain (1), Netherlands (1), Greece (1), Israel (1), Tunisia (1)

APOSTOLIDIS Thémis, Aix-Marseille University, France
BEN ALAYA Dorra, Université de Tunis El Manar, Tunisia
BUSCHINI Fabrice, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3, France
CAILLAUD Sabine, Paris-Descartes University, France
CRANO William D., Claremont Graduate University, USA DROZDA-SENKOWSKA Ewa, Paris-Descartes University, France ERNST-VINTILA, Andreea, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, France FALOMIR-PICHASTOR Juan Manuel, University of Geneva, Switzerland FOSTER Juliet, University of Cambridge, UK
FRIEDERICI Kathrin, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany
GAFFNEY Amber M., Humboldt State University, USA
GALLI Ida, Université de Naples « Federico II », Italy
GASKELL George, London School of Economics, UK
GEKELER Babette, Institute for Medical Psychology, Charité Berlin, Germany GUIMOND Serge, Blaise Pascal University, France
HAKOKÖNGÄS Eemeli, University of Helsinki, Finland
HAYES Tim, University of Southern California, USA
HOGG Michael A., Claremont Graduate University, USA
JESUINO Jorge Correia, ISCTE.IUL, Lisbon, Portugal
JODELET Denise, Ehess, Paris, France
JUNG Jiin, Claremont Graduate University, USA
KALAMPALIKIS Nikos, University of Lyon, France
KHAMZINA Kamilla, Blaise Pascal University, France
KLAR Yechiel, Tel Aviv University, Israel
LAHLOU Saadi, London School of Economics, UK
LALOT Fanny, University of Geneva, Switzerland
LOPEZ Diniz, ISCTE-IUL, CIS-IUL, Lisbon, Portugal
MENARD Rusten, University of Helsinki, Finland
NEMETH Charlan University of Berkeley, USA
OBERLÉ, Dominique, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, France
PAPASTAMOU Stamos, University Panteion, Athens, Greece
PEREZ Juan A., University of Valencia, Spain
PERSONNAZ Bernard, Ehess, Paris, France
PERSONNAZ Marie, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, France QUIAMZADE Alain, University of Geneva, Switzerland
RIJSMAN John, University of Tilburg, Netherlands
ROEBROECK Elodie, Blaise Pascal University, France
SAKKI Inari, University of Helsinki, Finland
SOMMER Carlo Michael, University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt, Germany VALA Jorge, University of Lisbon, Portugal
WOOD Wendy, University of Southern California, USA

Sponsors: European Association of Social Psychology (EASP), Paris Institute of Advanced Studies, REMOSCO-FMSH