Concept Creation , Coherence , and Cohesion

This paper explores why actors may develop different interpretations of a new concept. It leverages work from cognitive science to define this interpretive process in terms of creating coherence: fitting the new concept into the existing conceptual schema. We argue that variation in conceptualization results in part from cognitively cohering the concept in different ways. We appeal to the social structure of the group to explain this variance. Cohesive groups favor establishing similarities between the new concept and something familiar in the existing schema. Diffuse groups lack a clear, agreed-upon schema to hook a new concept into, and therefore favor making sense of the new concept without directly integrating it into the schema. We illustrate the relationship between social cohesion and cognitive practices by analyzing the different conceptualizations of the computer during its introduction in the insurance industry from 19401960.