The Comparative Analysis of Scientific and Social Representations of Consciousness and the Unconscious

Abstract

The article deals with the research into social notions of such integral psychic phe­nomena as consciousness and the unconscious.The concept of social notions, pro­posed by S. Moscovici in 1961, was used. This research was carried out in several stages. Firstly, scientific definitions of consciousness and the unconscious were analyzed. Secondly, dictionaries of the Russian language were studied. Then an empirical study of social notions of consciousness and the unconscious was con­ducted. As many as 240 students of Perm State University took part in the study as subjects. The core-periphery structure of scientific and social representations of consciousness and the unconscious that is typical of modern Russian culture and common to such of its carriers as active researchers in psychology and stu­dents was reconstructed. Finally, notions of consciousness were compared to the notions of the unconscious. Studying the notions of psychic phenomena makes it possible to reconstruct the idea of the psychic that is typical of non-professionals. The process of constructing social notions can be explained by the"dynamic mod­el" proposed in the study by S. Moscovici and M. Hewstone (1984).