The Social Psychology of Change Management

4  Understanding, Organizational Behaviour and ChangeUnderstanding

A First Short Story of Understanding and Change

Understanding is about understanding as the social need for shared meaning and prediction. A social representation is the ensemble of thoughts and feelings being expressed in verbal and overt behaviour of actors that constitutes an object for a social group. Social representations frame objects or issues in socially recognizable ways, in socially shared schemas. People are motivated to explain and understand the causes of events and behaviours. As a form of sense-making they assign causes to behaviour of themselves and others. Judgments are grounded in and based on people’s attitudes; in order to understand or to make sense, people ...