Human Rights in Sociopsychological Perspective

Abstract From the standpoint of sociopsychology, we attempt to isolate those aspects of human rights that are distinctly sociopsychological in nature, to later identify them as interindividual segments of social system dynamics. In social perspective, human rights may be viewed as social events and, in a sociopsychological perspective, all social events are conceptualized as social formations of interacting contingencies. Such social formations are constituted of interindividual relations set in a complex of institutional practices. The interindividual relation is conceptualized as a set of contingencies directly affecting individual behavior and has three dimensions: exchange, power, and sanction. Institutions are conceptualized as sociohistorical circumstances having their origins as informal or formal practices. Human rights are addressed in terms of interindividual dimensions and institutional practices constituting specific social formations.