It has parallels in sociological theorizing such as social constructionism and symbolic interactionism, and is similar in some ways to mass consensus and discursive psychology.
The term social representation was originally coined by Serge Moscovici in 1961,[2] in his study on the reception and circulation of psychoanalysis in France.
[3] They are further referred to as "system of values, ideas and practices with a twofold function; first, to establish an order which will enable individuals to orient themselves in their material and social world and to master it; and secondly to enable communication to take place among the members of a community by providing them with a code for social exchange and a code for naming and classifying unambiguously the various aspects of their world and their individual and group history".
Moscovici's pioneering study described how three segments of French society in the 1950s, i.e. the urban-liberal, the Catholic, and the communist milieus, responded to the challenge of psychoanalytic ideas.
Propagation was the typical form of the Catholic segment, identified as didactic and well-ordered but with the intention to make limited concessions to a subgroup of Catholics with affinities to psychoanalysis, and simultaneously, to set limits to the acceptance within the established orthodoxy of the Church.
Diffusion was typical of urban-liberal milieus, whereby communication was merely intended to inform people about new opportunities, with little resistance to psychoanalysis.
[22] However, the theory is far from being a settled doctrine as it attracts ongoing debate and controversy from both social representationists and other theorists.