The ontogenesis of social representations of justice: a dialogue between social and developmental psychology

BARREIRO, ALICIA

Copenhague

Seminario; Cultural Psychology and Developmental Science: A new Synthesis; 2012

Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Copenhagen

This paper analyzes the relations between the ontogenesis of social representations (SR) of justice and person’s conceptualization activity. It was carried out a research study with 216 children and adolescents, from Buenos Aires, Argentina, (aged between 6 and 17-years), with different socioeconomic backgrounds. The instrument utilized for data collection was an interview, which inquired participant's narratives about justice in their everyday life. In the responses of the interviewees it was possible to distinguish three representations of justice: utilitarian, retributive and distributive. Approximately from 9-10 years old, those basic representations integrated each other by dialectical movement of integration and differentiation, which expresses a developmental process. It is concluded that the conceptualization process, within the ontogenesis of SR of justice, implies construction of novelties with social and cognitive constraints that enable the construction of specific meanings about this social object an disable other possibilities.