There are currently a large number of historical, philosophical, political and judicial studies on human rights. However, a thorough social psychological analysis of their intervention in social relations, extending across national and cultural boundaries, has not been available. This book fills that gap, providing a detailed examination of the foundations of human rights principles, the sources of their universality and their limitations.Using the tools of social representation theory, Willem Doise examines human rights as guiding ideas which can provide institutionalized standards. He then explores how these standards can be used to evaluate the relationship of individuals with authorities and with each other.Essential reading for scholars and students studying social representation theory and human rights, it will also be of great interest to those working more generally in the fields of psychology, sociology and anthropology.

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Product Description: This book presents a bold new theory of the processes of collective decision-making that draws on theoretical influences ranging from group decision theory through to the authors' own social representations theory. Moscovici and Doise offer a novel analysis of group conflict and the construction of consensus to produce a general theory of collective decisions...read more

Product Description: The definition of intelligence has become the object of many controversies - particularly about its nature and the causes of its development - with essential social implications at stake. To get out of this deadlock, the authors of this book propose a social conception of intelligence and of its development: they consider intelligence as resulting from the inter-individual coordinations of actions and judgements...read more

Product Description: Relations between groups of people are determined both by the attitudes and behaviour patterns of the individuals who constitute these groups, and by their social, economic, political and ideological background. Intergroup relations are therefore open to both psychological and sociological explanations, and the study of intergroup relations represents a way in which these two levels of explanation, which so often fail to take account of each other, may be integrated...read more

Product Description: Relations between groups of people are determined both by the attitudes and behaviour patterns of the individuals who constitute these groups, and by their social, economic, political and ideological background. Intergroup relations are therefore open to both psychological and sociological explanations, and the study of intergroup relations represents a way in which these two levels of explanation, which so often fail to take account of each other, may be integrated...read more