Communication engageante et représentations sociales : une application en faveur de la protection de l’environnement et du recyclage

The aim of this study is to compare the effectiveness of several communication strategies, by articulating the binding communication paradigm and the social representation theory, in order to encourage young sportsmen to act for environmental protection. A pilot study made it possible to identify central and peripheral elements of the social representation of environmental protection. An experiment was conducted and the results conform to our expectations. On one hand, the participants in the binding communication situation express attitudes and behavioral intentions more favorable towards recycling and environmental protection than those who only read the persuasive message. On the other hand, the activation of central elements involves more important changes in attitudes and behavioral intentions than the activation of peripheral elements.     

La représentation du but dans le contrôle exécutif chez l’enfant

Implementation of executive control over thought and action can only be guided by the goals that one desires to reach. Over the last decade, research has pointed out the central role of goal representation in executive control both during childhood and adulthood. The present paper reviews these findings, emphasizing the developmental dynamics observed during childhood. More precisely, it addresses the role of active goal maintenance in working memory, as it has been stressed by developmental and neurocognitive theoretical models. Beyond goal maintenance, the question as to how goal representations are formed in working memory has attracted research efforts lately. With age, children successfully process increasingly subtle environmental cues to infer the current task goal and when task goals need to be updated, as evidenced by the effect of cue transparency on switching and inhibition performance. In addition, the paper addresses how goal representation sheds light on the interplay between executive skills and conceptual knowledge, through the presentation of research in such domains as analogical reasoning, categorical flexibility, and class inclusion quantification. Taken together, these lines of research show that executive control development does not rely exclusively on a growing ability to implement appropriate actions, but it also depends largely on increasingly efficient identification of what such actions should be.     

Le rôle de l’implication et des systèmes de croyances au sein des représentations sociales

The study presented in this article concerns the functioning of representational mechanisms in social thought. More specifically, its objective is to identify the role of variables covering psychosocial involvement and systems of belief within social representations. At the interface between the individual and the group, these variables are considered here because of their status as explanatory variables of social thought. By analyzing the representation of human rights, we hypothesize that the level of involvement and the type of beliefs developed toward the state (concepts of a democratic state versus a safe state) impact on the expression of this representation and the standpoints it creates. The survey was conducted by questionnaire with a student population (315 participants). The main results, which are consistent with our hypotheses, provide evidence of an influence of the variables tested on the expressiveness of the representation of human rights. On the one hand, they reveal how an involvement developed in this subject and the social beliefs attached to the role of the state come to particularize the meaning of this representation, especially concerning its principles of equality. On the other hand, the results demonstrate the activity of ideological processes – political in content – which intervene in the realization of the representation. Through these processes, the results show a stronger influence of social beliefs than of psychosocial involvement on the representation studied.     

Effets comportementaux et cognitifs de l'engagement dans un acte préparatoire activant un élément central versus périphérique de la représentation du don d'organes

We render an account of a research programme that links two fields of study usually unconnected: the field of the freely agreed submission and the field of social representations. Two hypothesis are tested in the foot-in-the door paradigm: participants that agree to perform an initial request (to sign a petition) that selects a core element of the representation of organ donation: a) will be more inclined to agree to perform the target request (to sign a donor card); and b) will have an attitude more favourable about organ donation than participants that agree to perform an initial request that selects a peripheral element. The two experiments presented confirm these hypotheses.     

La construction sociale de la ressource en eau

This study deals with the way in which users represent water, how they perceive it, how they evaluate it (in terms of problem, in the space, and in the individuals–water relationship) and how they consume it according to the place where they live (Brittany vs. Paris Region; France), their attachment to this place and their level of personal involvement in relation to this resource. One hundred and ten semi-directive questionnaires, from both regions, were analyzed. The results show a social representation of the water based on two conceptions: the water is thought as vital natural resource or of consumption good. The study tends then to show the way in which these conceptions influence the evaluation of water quality and concerned practices.     

Implication de la gestuelle dans la transmission d’informations

The present paper reports the results of an experimentation that explores the cognitive dimension of gesture involved in many situations of social communication. The method is based on a protocol structured in four experimental modalities, with video sequences. The results from 82 subjects suggest that the role of this component of nonverbal behavior exceeds the apparent transmission of information. It clarifies the verbal speech of the locutor, and also allows to share his own representations, and to direct those of the interlocutor. This impact is all the more effective as the visual-spatial aptitudes of the later are high.     

Rôle du contrôle exécutif dans le raisonnement par analogie chez l’enfant et le primate non humain

Analogical reasoning (AR) is a cornerstone of human cognition. Two main theories have historically been proposed to account for the ontogeny of AR. They propose that analogical skills are constrained by children's logical skills or limited knowledge of the relations to be considered. We adopt an alternative perspective in this review paper suggesting that AR abilities depend on the efficiency of executive control. We present convergent data collected in children and monkeys highlighting the role of three main executive functions: inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility and working memory updating. The analysis of children's reasoning suggests that the contribution of relational knowledge and executive control to analogical reasoning cannot be considered independently.     

Individu dangereux et situations dangereuses : les représentations sociales de la dangerosité chez les citoyens, les magistrats et les surveillants de prison

The notion of “dangerousness” takes an increasing importance currently at the level of the Justice, magistrates and supervisors of jail being brought thus to assess it frequently. A question arises then, that of the significance assigned by these professionals to dangerousness. Results of the interviews achieved close to these two groups as well as with citizens reveal homogeneous representations as for the dangerous individual but greatly heterogeneous representations with respect to the dangerous situations. While confirming the existence of several dangerousness (social, penal and prison), these results also show that all dangerousness assessment can be satisfactory on condition that it is done in an both clinical and social approach.     

La professionnalité des psychologues : acquisition de compétences et processus de professionnalisation

The aim of this work is to study professions from a psychosocial perspective. As such, a semi-structured questionnaire was used to detect the “specific” and “transversal” competences of two professional groups: psychologists and educators. The results show the job seniority and the intervention area are the two elements, linked to the professional context, more involved into the development of the perception of oneself competence and consequently into professionalisation process. The psychologic dimensions, we supposed implied into the development of competence process - for example Self efficacy and Professional commitment - were competence premonitory elements, implied in the professionalisation process, too.     

Influence de la composition de la fratrie sur les pratiques éducatives parentales déclarées et sur la représentation de l'éducation chez les préadolescents

The aim of our study is to analyze the influence of the make up of the siblings on the parents' educational practices and also on the meaning of education to preadolescents. The results gathered from a sample of 88 preadolescents and their mothers show a difference of parental educational practices according to the make up of the siblings (relaxation of the practices with the youngest). The study of the meaning of education to preadolescents shows that only children are the most in accordance with their mothers. Children from large families imagine a future education further from mothers' educational practices.     

Le développement de la mémoire de travail : perspectives dans le cadre du modèle de partage temporel des ressources

Working memory has a central role in cognitive development and its capacity is among the best predictors of high-level cognition and school achievement. Within the Time-Based Resource Sharing (TBRS) model, three main factors account for the development of working memory capacity. In this paper, we will review the main empirical evidence sustaining the impact of two of these factors on cognitive development. First, the amount of attention available for cognitive functioning might increase during childhood. Thus, for the same activities, older children would be able to process information faster than younger children. Within working memory span tasks, because the level of activation of memory traces decreases during the processing steps, any reduction of the duration of these steps directly diminishes the time during which the traces decay, and consequently increases the time available for reactivation or refreshing before the next processing step. These two effects jointly induce a stronger activation of the memory traces and a better recall of the to-be-maintained items. Second, because the main hypothesis of the TBRS model is that attention switches to refresh memory traces from processing to maintenance during the processing episodes, the efficiency of the refreshing mechanism should have a direct and strong impact on working memory functioning. An increase in the efficiency of this refreshing during childhood means that older children should take a greater advantage from the short pauses left free between each processing step. The level of activation of the memory traces would be then higher for older than for younger children, resulting in the classically observed increase in span. As a consequence, age-related changes in the efficiency of the refreshing could play a central role in working memory development.     

Le rôle de la mémoire de travail dans la production écrite de textes

Integration of capacity (Just and Carpenter, 1992) and componentiel (Baddeley, 1986) conceptions of working memory in models of text composition (Hayes, 1996 ; Kellogg, 1996 ; McCutchen, 1996) has allowed studying several facets of the role of working memory in writing acquisition and in expert management of the writing processes. This article presents these two conceptions and examines their respective contribution in the field of writing research from two perspectives: The demands of the writing processes (in terms of processing and transient storage) and the influence of working memory capacity on the control of production. The conclusion underlines the importance of investigating the on-line management of text production, the role of the visuo-spatial sketchpad, and to link strategies for allocating the working memory resources with text quality.     

Approche dynamique et temporalité en psychologie sociale

The purpose was to specify the advantages and limits of the dynamical perspective proposed by Nowak et Vallacher (1998) for social psychology studies. This perspective contributes massively to new knowledge in economy, biology and motor control. Theoretical models, methods, self-assessment tools, and time series analyses are now available for addressing hypotheses that nomothetical approach has let unanswered, and to determine the impact of daily events on self-perception.     

Le renversement de préférence… renversé !

Preference reversal (PR) occurs when pairs of lottery gambles are evaluated under two different conditions: to choose the gamble preferred to play and assign minimum selling price to each gamble. The preference order is then reversed from one condition to another: while it receives the lowest selling price, the gamble less risked is preferred in condition of play. Many times replicated, this result is considered as a cognitive bias. Recent research suggests that it could be related only to the procedure used to present the gambles (i.e., the evaluation mode): either by pair (joint evaluation or JE) in condition of play, or one by one (separate evaluation or SE) in the pricing task. Then, by reversing the evaluation mode in each condition, PR should be reversed, as it is shown in this study: although the phenomenon still occurs when subjects evaluate gambles in the classical paradigm, we observe an inversion of PR when they have, on the one hand, to play in SE, and on the other hand, to sell in JE. Furthermore, an analysis not often used in this literature provides new elements, which can attest to the cognitive mechanisms underlying the phenomenon: by recording the online information (self-paced display time paradigm) we show the effect of an anchoring and adjustment process when riskiest gambles are preferred.     

Inférences émotionnelles et compréhension de textes narratifs : lorsque la perspective du lecteur diverge de celle du protagoniste

This study deals with the emotional inferences readers generate during the reading of narrative texts. The objective was to show that the accessibility of the representation of the emotional state of the protagonist depends on the reader's and the protagonist's knowledge of the situation. In the texts we used, the reader and the protagonist either shared the same amount of knowledge of the situation, or the protagonist was described as being ignorant of relevant situational information. The main result indicated that, in the presence of a difference between the protagonist and the reader, regarding their situational knowledge, the accessibility of the representation of the protagonist's emotion slowed down. In other words, the protagonist's emotion was more accessible when it was coherent with the situational knowledge of both the reader and the protagonist.     

Évolution des idées en psychologie de la santé dans le monde anglo-saxon. De la psychologie de la santé (health psychology) à la psychologie critique de la santé (critical health psychology)

The authors adopt a historical perspective and exhibit the debates held within Health Psychology in the Anglo-Saxon universe since the 1980s. They show how the development of the North-American mainstream approach has aroused several objections. These objections were firstly methodological (qualitative methods) then, theoretical and epistemological. This evolution has allowed the creation of two main approaches: Qualitative Health Psychology and Critical Health Psychology. While this course is not yet well-known in France, it illustrates, however, the present developments and the richness of the discussion within Anglo-Saxon Psychology. The conclusion shows that these debates should be known and accepted if we intend to improve our models in Psychology, so that they take into account the situated nature of the human being, its dynamics, its temporality as well and its complexity. Hence, Health Psychology perspectives as a whole will gain in pertinence in the fields of research and intervention.     

Conséquences et corrélats associés au soutien de l’autonomie dans divers domaines de vie

Self-determination theory (0160 and 0170) suggests that autonomy-supportive environments, where one's perspective is considered, feelings are recognized, meaningful informations are given, and opportunities for choice are provided, promote optimal functioning. Many studies show that autonomy support leads to positive affective, cognitive, and behavioral consequences. However, this body of research is little known because studies are scattered throughout various research fields and no review of the overall positive impact of autonomy support in various life domains is available. This literature review presents studies on this interpersonal style in five life domains.     

Étude des stratégies d’adultes présentant un retard mental dans la résolution de la Twenty Questions Task

A Twenty Questions problem solving Task was given to 30 mentally retarded adults, 30 mentally nonretarded adults matched on chronological age, and 12 mentally nonretarded children matched on cognitive efficiency. Four strategies were identified on the basis of a subject-by-subject analysis. Results showed group differences of frequency in the use of the strategies. Moreover, results indicated that the more frequent strategy used by the mentally retarded adults is the one which consists in identifying the categories without using them to efficiently reduce the problem space. The interpretation of the results as reflecting a conceptual deficit or a chronicle cognitive sub-functioning of the mentally retarded adults depicted in the literature is discussed.