An article by Dr Claudine Provencher, an LSE Fellow within the Psychology@LSE department, has been accepted for publication by the journal 'Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour'.
Recognising the intuitive appeal and empirical evidence for the hypothesis of cognitive polyphasia proposed by Moscovici (1961/1976/2008), Towards a better understanding of cognitive polyphasia attempts to clarify some of the ideas behind this concept by examining its operations at the level of individuals and by proposing a conceptual model that includes some elements of social cognition.
Building on the results of an empirical examination of the controversy that surrounded the MMR vaccination programme in the UK between 1998 and 2005, different ways of engaging into cognitive polyphasia are proposed, including what can be described as cognitive 'monophasia', that is the exclusive use of one type of knowledge, at least at the level of the individual. A brief discussion about the implications of the proposed conceptual model for our understanding of cognitive polyphasia and of the different ways of making sense of the world around us concludes this article.
For more information, email Dr Provencher.