[research]
[major areas]
- Social Psychology of Work
- Clinics of work
[focus]
- Develop studies on psychosocial mechanisms involved in the production of sense and meaning in work (meaning-making processes), including their nature, dimensions, determinants, and consequences.
[guiding assumptions]
- Work as action mediated semiotically, combining symbolic and material aspects, and oriented toward the transformation of reality and of the subject him or herself (subject-activity-real) (reference).
- Meaning-making in work consists of three dimensions: sense, meaning, and activity, the latter understood as a system composed of subject, object, tools, rules and norms, division of labor, and culture (reference).
- Sense and meaning are supported by two essential psychological processes: the individual appropriation of a collective genre and the externalization of repertoires, contents, and genres through stylization within socially instituted systems of meaning (reference 1; reference 2).
- Sense and meaning function as resources for action, performance, and the constitution of the subject, in connection with the psychological function of work (reference).
- The senses and meanings of work are polysemic; work itself takes multiple historical and social forms, generating a plurality of signification arrangements (reference).
[core issues]
- Investigate the psychosocial implications of work deprived of meaningfulness, work that becomes emptied or impeded, and situations of non-work such as unemployment and retirement, while developing appropriate psychosocial intervention strategies (reference 1; reference 2).
- Analyze the mechanisms underlying the production of sense and meaning in activities that occur outside contexts of formal employment, such as artistic and cultural work and dirty work (reference 1; reference 2).
- Investigate situations that require subjective reinterpretation of work as work activity changes, exploring both individual and collective consequences and supporting interventions related to identity, performance, and impeded activity (reference 1; reference 2).
[methodological orientation]
- Multimethod research designs.