Towards A Better Understanding of Cognitive Polyphasia

Despite its intuitive appeal and the empirical evidence for it, the hypothesis of cognitive polyphasia (Moscovici, 1961/1976/2008) remains largely unexplored. This article 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. Indeed, calls for a rapprochement between the theory of social representations and cognitive psychology have been made by Moscovici, in particular, in his 1984 paper on The myth of the lonely paradigm and in his paper on La nouvelle pensee magique (1992) in which he argues that the theory of social representations provides an explanatory framework for the descriptions offered by cognitive psychology and that their combining could translate into a finer understanding of contemporary social phenomena.