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Objectification
Explanations > Theories > Objectification
Description | Example | So What? | See also | References
Description
Complex ideas are, almost by definition, difficult to understand. To help us make sense of them, we turn them into concrete images. There are three processes by which objectification is done:
- Ontologizing gives an idea physical properties, for example by using close metaphors like the ‘mind as a computer’.
- Figuration turns the ideas into pictures or images, for example traffic ‘jams’.
- Personification turns the idea into a person. For example, a genius as Einstein.
The term 'objectification' or depersonification is also used to describe the way we treat other people as objects, in particular the way men can treat women as sex 'objects'. By reducing other people to things, it permits us to treat them with less care and human concern, bypassing our values around this subject.
Example
This car is like a thoroughbred race-horse. Just imagine thundering up the roads, with trees and houses flying by. People will think you are Michael Schumacher.
In war, effort is often put into depersonifying the other side, thus legitimizing and even encouraging killing them.
So what?
Using it
Explain your ideas through analogous or metaphorical things, pictures or people.
Defending
Just because the other person can explain their ideas clearly, it does not mean they are good ideas.
See also
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/OBJFIC.html, http://www.psych.ucalgary.ca/thpsyc/abstracts/abstracts_3.1/Smedslund.html
References
Moscovici (1984), Moscovici and Hewstone (1983)
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