Serge Moscovici

Serge Moscovici ( Moscovici Srul HERS; born June 14, 1925 in Braila, Romania ) is a French social psychologist Romanian origin. He is director of the Laboratoire Européen de Psychologie Sociale at the Maison des sciences de l' homme in Paris.

Biography

Moscovici comes from a Jewish family. In 1938 he was due to anti-Semitic laws from high school in Bucharest, he visited excluded. After he had survived the pogrom in Bucharest in January 1941, he was until August 23, 1944 ( liberation of Romania by the Red Army ) is obliged to do forced labor. From 1939 to 1947 he was a member of the Communist Party of Romania.

During these four years of the war his preference developed for reading and he learned French, in particular by its contact with Isidor Goldstein, later Isidore Isou and founder of Lettrism. Together they founded the art and literary magazine, since that was released in late 1944. As was quickly banned by the censorship.

In 1947 he left Romania, by, like many others, the camp for ' Displaced Persons' happened. He came through Hungary, Austria and Italy and came a year later to France.

In 1949 he received his Licence in Psychology and in 1950 the diploma of the Institute of Psychology in Paris.

Since 1950, he received a scholarship intended 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. In parallel, he studied with Alexandre Koyré epistemology and history of science. In the 1960s he was invited to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and at Stanford University.

Later he 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 was formed here ( abric, Beauvois, Doise, Ghiglione, warm, Jodelet, Rouquette, to name just a few). Through his anthropological work and his commitment Moscovici has become one of the pioneers of political ecology in France.

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

He was a professor at the Institut Jean -Jacques Rousseau, University of Geneva, at the Université catholique de Louvain and the University of Cambridge and has 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 series of social psychology, PUF (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 exercise with the question of how minorities ( minority ) influence on majorities ( majorities ).

He came to the conclusion that essentially the behavioral style of the minority was important. Moscovici distinguishes the following behavioral styles:

• Investment, that is dedication and personal sacrifice for the cause of the minority.
• Autonomy, this behavioral style conveys independence, determination and objectivity.
• Consistency. Consistent behavior conveys confidence and unwavering determination.
• Rigidity.
• Fairness.

The behavioral styles need not be shown always together and in pure form. In particular, it is difficult for a minority, at the same time to act rigid and fair. The effectiveness of behavioral styles for an enhanced impact on society is also the subject of the minority opinion and the social circumstances dependent.

Test for color perception

Reversal of the Asch experiment, à 6 persons to whom blue slides were shown, however, that varied in intensity. The task of the subjects was to judge the color aloud.

Result: a dissenter in a group always ( Konsistenz! ) has " green " said: He has managed to convince 8.42% of the subjects thereof, whether " green " to say; it was thus still a real change of opinion in the subjects.

If a dissenter on the contrary, is not consistent, it is not possible for him to convince such a large part of the majority of its opinion ( in this experiment, it was 1.25 %).