Social representations (Psychology)

Demarque, C., Lo Monaco, G., Apostolidis, T., & Guimelli, C. (in press). Implication personnelle et extension temporelle future : Quelques éléments pour une contextualisation du rapport au temps. Les Cahiers Internationaux de Psychologie Sociale.

by Gregory Lo Monaco

Lo Monaco, G., Guimelli, C., Piermattéo, A., & Abric, J.-C. (in press). Social representations, questionnaire of characterization and correspondence factor analysis: a methodological contribution. The Spanish Journal of Psychology.

by Gregory Lo Monaco

Um instrumento de diagnóstico das representações sociais : o grupo focal

by Nikos Kalampalikis

Kalampalikis, N. (2011). Um instrumento de diagnóstico das representações sociais : o grupo focal (Un outil de diagnostic des représentations sociales : le focus group). Revista Diálogo Educacional, 11(33), 435-467.

Focus groups are spaces of communication that allow us to observe the interactions, the memories and representations... more Focus groups are spaces of communication that allow us to observe the interactions, the memories and representations in the process. They correspond largely to the methodologi- cal requirements of two research fields that have a strong affiliation epistemological: the memory and social representation. Our article is part of this problem and seeks to highlight the fruitfulness of this joint through a field study focused on the symbolic conflict in the Balkans, between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia, “Macedonian case”, putting the history, memory and requirements of this conventional defense in a process of national imaginary meanings.

Representações e conhecimento social: um esforço integrativo por meio de uma perspectiva estrutural normativa (versão em português de artigo originalmente publicado em inglês)

by João Wachelke

Versão em Português de: Wachelke, J. (2012). Representations and social knowledge: an integrative effort through a normative structural perspective. New Ideas in Psychology, 30, 259-269.

Language: Portuguese

A abordagem estrutural das representações sociais é conhecida pelo desenvolvimento da teoria do núcleo central e sua... more A abordagem estrutural das representações sociais é conhecida pelo desenvolvimento da teoria do núcleo central e sua similaridade com perspectivas sociopsicológicas orientadas para a cognição, o que foi alvo de críticas. A abordagem tem dificuldade em lidar com a dimensão social do conhecimento e adota uma noção estática de estrutura. Reconhecendo essas limitações, apresentamos um modelo estrutural conceitual revisado do conhecimento social e representações sociais baseado na consideração de processos normativos e sócio identitários, compatível com contribuições de autores externos à abordagem estrutural clássica, tais como Wagner (holomorfia) e Lahlou (modelo de propagação). Após redefinir os conceitos de cognema e estrutura, abordamos os processos de pensamento e as diferenças entre representações pessoais e sociais, concebendo as últimas como códigos convencionais ligados a grupos. Limitações da perspectiva são discutidas e direções de pesquisa indicadas, baseadas num entendimento de estrutura que é mais amplo que o adotado pela abordagem clássica.

The study of social representation systems: relationships involving representations on aging, AIDS and the body

by João Wachelke

Camargo, B.V. & Wachelke, J. (2010). The study of social representation systems: relationships involving representations on aging, AIDS and the body. Papers on Social Representations, 19(2), 21.1-21.21.

Past studies have pointed out that social representations on AIDS, aging and the body might be connected. The present... more Past studies have pointed out that social representations on AIDS, aging and the body might be connected. The present paper reports an exploratory study that aims at characterizing their relationships. The sample was composed of 1118 secondary school and university undergraduate students, who completed a questionnaire about one of the three objects. The main task was to choose 3 of 12 words extracted from the literature that were more strongly related with the object in question, and then justify their choices. Data analysis consisted of descriptive statistics, correspondence analysis and typical vocabulary analysis. The results from correspondence analysis suggested that the representations on AIDS and the body are associated with the element young, whereas the representations on the body and old age intersect on elements 'health' and 'life'. It is concluded that there is empirical evidence of interaction zones involving the mentioned representations, and the reference to thêmata and recent developments from the structural approach might provide the guidelines to the underlying logic of a representational system.

Peace and war as social representations: a structural exploration with Italian adolescents

by João Wachelke

Sarrica, M. & Wachelke, J. (2010). Peace and war as social representations: a structural exploration with Italian adolescents. Universitas Psychologica, 9(2), 315-330.

The present paper illustrates the potentialities offered by the Social Representations approach to the exploration of... more The present paper illustrates the potentialities offered by the Social Representations approach to the exploration of peace and war concepts. Free associations tasks to the stimuli War and Peace were given to 112 students in order to assess contents and structures. Differences related to gender, age and school grade were investigated. Attention was devoted to the role of peace education activities. Results indicate a dramatic representation of war, based on death and destruction. The representation of peace is based on intimate and positive emotional experiences. It appears weaker and polyphasic, with cues of change. Respondents involved in peace education show greater complexity of contents and more features related to positive approaches to peace, thus underlining the relevance of these activities.

Índice de centralidade de representações sociais a partir de evocações (INCEV): exemplo de aplicação no estudo da representação social sobre envelhecimento

by João Wachelke

Wachelke, J.F.R. (2009). Índice de centralidade de representações sociais a partir de evocações (INCEV): exemplo de aplicação no estudo da representação social sobre envelhecimento. Psicologia Reflexão e Crítica, 22(1), 102-110.

Language: Portuguese.

The article proposes a technique to describe social representations structure from free evocation data, the INCEV, an... more The article proposes a technique to describe social representations structure from free evocation data, the INCEV, an index which evaluates representational element centralities taking into account their frequencies, unconditionality and importance. An empiric study was carried out concerning the social representation on aging, comparing INCEV results to those of Vergès' prototypical analysis and questioning (MEC) techniques. The main data collection took place with a sample of 218 undergraduate students, who answered to an evocation questionnaire about the word aging and evaluated each response concerning importance and the possibility of the object keeping his/her identity without the provided word. INCEV results were closer to MEC's than those derived from prototypical analysis. It is concluded that the INCEV presents evidences of validity and pertinence, having as an advantage the inclusion of central core theory principles on the first representation description.

Representações sociais sobre política segundo posicionamento político na campanha eleitoral de 2006

by João Wachelke

Wachelke, J.F.R. & Hammes, I.C. (2009). Representações sociais sobre política segundo posicionamento político na campanha eleitoral de 2006. Psicologia em Estudo, 14(3), 519-528.

Language: Portuguese

The present study aimed at describing Brazilian political space during 2006 presidential and state elections. The... more The present study aimed at describing Brazilian political space during 2006 presidential and state elections. The organizing principles from political positioning groups' representations on politics were investigated. A total of 1051 participants answered to a questionnaire that was available on the internet, which contained items about electoral participation and political positioning and wrote up to 7 words or expressions inducted by the word politics. Correspondence analyses were carried out, comparing the representations of participants without political positions or aligned with left-wing, right-wing and center positions. Two factors were retained. The first organizing principle opposed effective politics to corrupt and broken politics. The second organizing principle consisted of the classical opposition between left-wing and right-wing. Results illustrate the determination of representations' anchoring by political positions and indicate the possibility of conceiving the political space as a representational field.

Relationship between response evocation rank in social representations associative tasks and personal symbolic value

by João Wachelke

Wachelke, J. (2008). Relationship between response evocation rank in social representation associative tasks and personal symbolic value. International Review of Social Psychology, 21(3), 113-126 .

The present study aims at verifying the relationship between Vergès prototypical analysis’evocation rank criterion in... more The present study aims at verifying the relationship between Vergès prototypical analysis’evocation rank criterion in associative tasks and the personal symbolic value associated to responses. A total of 314 university undergraduates answered to an open-ended associative task involving either the social representation on aging or football. They also evaluated each response’s importance and unconditionality to determine the social object of interest. Responses with high importance and evaluated as unconditional were classified as having high personal symbolic value. Chi square tests for the association between response rank and symbolic value showed significant departures from independence, but only a pattern involving responses ranked 1 was clearly found for both objects. Results indicate that the relationship between evocation rank and symbolic value does not follow a linear trend. The adoption of a cut-off point based on the proportion of evocations ranked 1 is suggested.

Changing masks: a masking effect on young people's social representations on aging?

by João Wachelke

Wachelke, J.F.R. & Lins, S.L.B. (2008). Changing masks: a masking effect on young people's social representations on aging. Current Research in Social Psychology, 13(19), 232-242.

The study is focused with the structure of social representations, common sense theories about relevant themes. It... more The study is focused with the structure of social representations, common sense theories about relevant themes. It aims at investigating how central the ‘wisdom’ element is for young people’s representations on aging and also if the results provided by social representation questionnaires could be under the influence of normative pressures favoring politically correct responses, the so-called masking effect. The experimental design involved a within-subjects independent variable which was called representation interaction context, with two modalities: normal and substitution (with participants answering ‘as a typical young person’). Dependent variables were the scores of ‘calling-into-question’ items that assessed the symbolic value of elements related to aging. The sample was composed by Brazilian undergraduates. Results of paired t-tests indicated that on the substitution condition elements with a negative connotation (such as ‘death’ and ‘isolation’) had higher symbolic value scores, while the main positive element (wisdom)’s score decreased, indicating that there is a strong effect on the answers associated to interaction context manipulation with the substitution technique. Discussion addresses alternative explanations for the findings, dealing with the influence of sociopsychological biases and group identification as well as the identification criteria of social representations.

Critérios de construção e relato da análise prototípica para representações sociais

by João Wachelke

Wachelke, J. & Wolter, R. (2011). Critérios de construção e relato da análise prototípica para representações sociais. Psicologia Teoria e Pesquisa, 27(4), 521-526.

Language: Portuguese

Prototypical analysis is a largely diffused convention of presentation to characterize the structure of a social... more Prototypical analysis is a largely diffused convention of presentation to characterize the structure of a social representation based on free association data. However, occasionaly the results of that analysis do not contain the essential information to guarantee its transparency. The present text aims at systematizing and indicating some of the information that should be present in the description of prototypical analysis results, briefly discussing the pros and cons of some analysis options. For that purpose, a brief introduction of the analysis is made, then moving on to technical considerations and closing the text with an example of an report.

Representações sociais: uma revisão teórica e de pesquisas da abordagem estrutural (versão em português de artigo originalmente aceito para publicação em inglês)

by João Wachelke

Versão em português de: Wachelke, J. (in press). Social representations: a review of theory and research from the structural approach. Universitas Psychologica.

Language: Portuguese

O presente artigo é uma revisão dos avanços teóricos e achados empíricos relacionados a representações sociais... more O presente artigo é uma revisão dos avanços teóricos e achados empíricos relacionados a representações sociais conforme a abordagem estrutural, uma corrente de pesquisa que visa estudar a influência de fatores sociais nos processos de pensamento por meio da identificação e caracterização de estruturas de relações. A apresentação da abordagem inicia pelas definições de base de representações sociais de acordo com a abordagem estrutural, passando para um panorama sobre a natureza dos elementos representacionais, as relações entre representações e práticas, dimensões de esquemas cognitivos, teoria do núcleo central, transformações representacionais e efeitos de contextos de interação. Além de nos posicionarmos acerca de tópicos polêmicos na revisão, na seção final avaliamos brevemente o estado atual e perspectivas futuras da pesquisa estrutural em representações sociais, tratando principalmente do problema de definição de consenso, da dificuldade de caracterizar um construto coletivo a partir de dados individuais e da importância secundária do conteúdo nas leis estruturais.

Criteria for construction and report of prototypical analysis for social representations (English version of paper originally published in Portuguese)

by João Wachelke

English version of: Wachelke, J. & Wolter, R.P. (2011). Critérios de construção e relato da análise prototípica para representações sociais. Psicologia Teoria e Pesquisa, 27(4), 521-526.

Prototypical analysis is a largely diffused presentation convention to present to characterize the structure of a... more Prototypical analysis is a largely diffused presentation convention to present to characterize the structure of a social representation from evocation data. However, occasionally the results of that analysis do not contain essential indications to guarantee its transparency. The present text aims at systematizing and organizing some of the information that should be present in the description of prototypical analysis results, briefly discussing the pros and cons of some analysis options. For that purpose, a brief introduction of the analysis is made, then moving on to technical consideration and closing the text with a report example.

Representação social do psicólogo em uma clínica-escola do município de Taquara/RS

by Mariana Gonçalves-Boeckel

Contesting science by appealing to its norms: Readers discuss climate science in The Daily Mail

by Rusi Jaspal

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Jaspal, R., Nerlich, B. & Koteyko, N. (under review). Contesting science by appealing to its norms: Readers discuss climate science in The Daily Mail. Submitted to Science Communication.

Debates around climate science are embedded within a contested social representational field, characterised by... more Debates around climate science are embedded within a contested social representational field, characterised by multiple images and interpretations. This study examines the discourse of climate change in reader comments published in The Daily Mail following ‘Climategate’. The following discursive themes are reported: (i) “Denigration of climate scientists to contest hegemonic representations”; (ii) “Delegitimisation of pro-climate individuals by disassociation from ‘science’”; (iii) “Outright denial: rejecting hegemonic social representations of climate change”. The paper shows how ‘Climategate’ is deployed in order to challenge dominant representations of climate change with wide-ranging implications for public understanding of climate change and science communication, more generally.

Effet de la saillance de l’appartenance à un groupe et du format de réponse sur l’activation des contenus de représentations sociales

by João Wachelke

Wachelke, J. & Camargo, B.V. (2011). Effet de la saillance de l’appartenance à un groupe et du format de réponse sur l’activation des contenus de représentations sociales, Bulletin de psychologie, 64 (2), 169-185.

Language: French

This study aimed at verifying the effect of variations in the instructions of open-ended questions on the activation... more This study aimed at verifying the effect of variations in the instructions of open-ended questions on the activation of social representations contents. An experiment with independent groups (2x2 design) has been carried out, with the manipulation of group salience (with and without group salience in instructions) and response format (discourse tasks or free associations). A total of 384 Brasilian female nursing students participated in the study, answering open-ended questions about aging. Responses were categorized according to content analysis, and their frequencies were compared through non-parametric tests. Results indicate that group salience favored the expression of representational contents linked to the nursing function, whereas the associations favored responses about consequences and events related to aging, and the discourse modality required that participants defined aging. Consequences of interaction context effects for social representations studies are discussed.

Correspondence of the subjective proximity of social representations and inter-representation activation.

by João Wachelke

Wachelke, J. (in press). Correspondence of the subjective proximity of social representations and inter-representation activation. Liberabit.

Forced association tasks based on the basic cognitive schemes (SCB) model might be a very useful resource to qualify... more Forced association tasks based on the basic cognitive schemes (SCB) model might be a very useful resource to qualify the relationships between concepts – potential social representation objects - by means of differential activation, whether related or not to a social representations theoretical framework. However, it is important to find some empirical support showing that the activation results provided by such tasks are backed up by alternative activation measures. The present paper aimed at verifying if the activation proportions of the relationships of some concepts with the social representation on aging are compatible with direct perceived proximity evaluations rated by a similar population. A sample of 102 undergraduate students from an Italian university completed forced association SCB tasks that measured the activation of 28 relationships. The effects of a log-linear saturated model indicated partial correspondence of the magnitude of the assessed relationships, pointing out to the validity of employing SCB tasks as an activation measure. Some considerations are made concerning the possibility to refine the empirical measurement of SCB-based relationships.

Representations and social knowledge: an integrative effort through a normative structural perspective

by João Wachelke

Wachelke, J. (2012). Representations and social knowledge: an integrative effort through a normative structural perspective. New Ideas in Psychology, 30, 259-269.

The structural approach on social representations is known for the development of central core theory and its... more The structural approach on social representations is known for the development of central core theory and its similarity with cognition-oriented sociopsychological perspectives, which has been a target of criticism. The approach has difficulty in dealing with the social dimension of knowledge and adopts a static notion of structure. Acknowledging those shortcomings, we present a revised structural conceptual model of social knowledge and social representations based on the consideration of normative and social identity processes, compatible with contributions of authors external to the classical structural approach, such as Wagner (holomorphy) and Lahlou (propagation model). After redefining the concepts of cognem and structure, we tackle thinking processes and the differences between personal and social representations, conceiving the latter as conventional codes linked to groups. Limitations of the perspective are discussed and research directions are indicated based on an understanding of structure that is broader than the one adopted by the classical approach.

Black and white or shades of grey? A comparison of social representations centrality models

by João Wachelke

Wachelke, J. (in press). Black and white or shades of grey? A comparison of social representations centrality models. Spanish Journal of Psychology.

The present study, aligned with the structural approach on social representations (SR), aimed at comparing dichotomous... more The present study, aligned with the structural approach on social representations (SR), aimed at comparing dichotomous (central vs. peripheral) and continuous models of structural status of SR elements. The sample was formed by 114 undergraduate students who completed context independence tasks and resistance to change evaluations related to 30 elements from 3 SR objects. Non-nested regression models having resistance to change as the criterion variable and dichotomous and continuous operationalizations of symbolic value as predictors were compared. Statistical results complemented by follow-up t-tests challenge the dichotomous model and support a continuous quadratic one. The curve is interpreted as being related to different evaluations when elements are attributed to a majority or a minority and point out to the need to employ within subjects designs in future research assessing more properties with composite measures.

Anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism in Iran: the role of identity processes.

by Rusi Jaspal

Jaspal, R. (in press). Anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism in Iran: the role of identity processes. Israel Affairs

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Anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism constitute two important ideological building blocks of the Islamic Republic of Iran.... more Anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism constitute two important ideological building blocks of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Yet, there is no existing research into the psychosocial motives underlying the manifestation of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism at the institutional level in Iran. Here it is argued that there is much heuristic and predictive value in applying tenets of identity process theory (IPT), a socio-psychological model of identity threat and action, to the primarily socio-historical literature on anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism in Iran. The paper provides a summary of anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism and ‘new anti-Semitism’ and IPT. The substantive section of the paper explores (i) how anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism may restore feelings of belonging in the Muslim world and beyond; (ii) the inter-relations between ingroup and outgroup self-efficacy; (iii) the psychosocial motivation to maintain Shiite ideology and Khomeini’s legacy; and (iv) the construction of Jews and Israel in terms of a threat to group continuity. It is suggested that insights into the motivational principles underlying anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism at the institutional level may inform empirical research into social representations of Jews and Israel in Iran. More broadly, this paper highlights the potential contribution of social psychology to existing work on anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism in the humanities.