Applying social psychology to the study of environmental concern and environmental worldviews: contributions from the social representations approach

Recently some social psychological approaches have intensified their contributions to research in the environmental domain, helping it to focus more consistently on the shared aspects of all environment related experiences. The goal of this paper is that of joining these efforts, exploring the contributions of the social representations approach to research on environmental concern and environmental thought, as another area for applying social psychological knowledge. The paper first sketches how the environmental concern of the publics emerged in the 70s as a problem for the social sciences and proceeds to summarizing the main characteristics of this research, focusing on three problematic areas: (1) incipient theoretical integration among the frameworks dominating research; (2) insufficient reflection about the assumptions and measurement of the concepts employed; (3) a need for new research questions that push studies beyond the analysis of the socio‐demographical correlates of beliefs. Afterwards a presentation of social representations theory will be undertaken and the usefulness of the approach to deal with some aspects of the problematic areas identified will be explored, with examples from recent research, and highlighting the importance of focusing on contradiction, polyphasia, and the articulation of the local and the global. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Young children's comprehension of English SVO word order revisited: Testing the same children in act-out and intermodal preferential looking tasks

Act-out and intermodal preferential looking (IPL) tasks were administered to 67 English children aged 2–0, 2–9 and 3–5 to assess their comprehension of canonical SVO transitive word order with both familiar and novel verbs. Children at 3–5 and at 2–9 showed evidence of comprehending word order in both verb conditions and both tasks, although children at 2–9 performed better with familiar than with novel verbs in the act-out task. Children at 2–0 showed no evidence of comprehending word order in either task with novel verbs; with familiar verbs they showed competence in the IPL task but not in the act-out task. The difference in performance for familiar and novel verbs from the same children at 2–0, on the IPL task, and at 2–9, on the act-out task, is consistent with the hypothesis that early linguistic/cognitive representations are graded in strength, with early representations still weak and very task dependent. However, these representations also become more abstract with development, as indicated by the familiarity effect even in the more sensitive IPL task.     

Keeping the vermin out: Perceived disease threat and ideological orientations as predictors of exclusionary immigration attitudes

Integrating evolutionary and social representations theories, the current study examines the relationship between perceived disease threat and exclusionary immigration attitudes in the context of a potential avian influenza pandemic. This large‐scale disease provides a realistic context for investigating the link between disease threat and immigration attitudes. The main aim of this cross‐sectional study (N = 412) was to explore mechanisms through which perceived chronic and contextual disease threats operate on immigration attitudes. Structural equation models show that the relationship between chronic disease threat (germ aversion) and exclusionary immigration attitudes (assimilationist immigration criteria, health‐based immigration criteria and desire to reduce the proportion of foreigners) was mediated by ideological and normative beliefs (social dominance orientation, belief in a dangerous world), but not by contextual disease threat (appraisal of avian influenza pandemic threat). Contextual disease threat only predicted support for health‐based immigration criteria. The conditions under which real‐life disease threats influence intergroup attitudes are scrutinized. Convergence and dissimilarity of evolutionary and social representational approaches in accounting for the link between disease threat and immigration attitudes are discussed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

When competition merges people's behavior: Interdependency activates shared action representations

Previous research suggests that friendly, cooperative situations cause one to integrate a co-actor's actions into one's own action system. Departing from an interdependency perspective, we predict the activation of shared action representations even in hostile, competitive situations as a result of attending to the intentions of the co-actor. To test this, in Experiment 1 we manipulated the interdependency between actor and co-actor in a joint Simon task and observed a stronger activation of shared action representations in a cooperative as well as competitive context compared to an independent context. Experiment 2 replicated the competitive context effect on activation of shared action representations and provided additional evidence for the mediating role of attending to others’ intentions by taking into account the individual tendency to attend to others’ intentions. Together, our findings suggest that interdependency merges people's behavior even in competitive contexts, which we argue encourage actors to attend to others’ intentions.     

L’espoir dans la maladie chronique : représentations sociales de l’espoir chez les patients et soignants

Hope has a significant place in many literatures and most recently in health context. Nevertheless, there is still little research describing the distinct concepts and representations of hope in patients’ population. Hope is defined as perceived capability to derive pathways to desired goals, and motivate oneself via agency thinking to use those pathways. The main objective of this study is to explore the representation of hope, in the context of chronic disease, for both patients and health providers. For that purpose, we conducted the present study considering the social representation approach. The sample consisted of 67 chronic disease patients (mean age = 51.13 years; SD = 19.05; 68.70% female), 83 health care professionals (mean age = 35.32 years; SD = 11.49; 74.70% female) and 103 individuals from the general population (mean age = 30.41 years; SD = 13.85; 64.10% female). They completed two free associations task: write “everything that comes into your mind when you think about hope”, one in general and one in disease context. Free associations allowed us to identify shared conceptions of hope as well as intergroup variations in these representations. Associations with the word of hope produced by our respondents were depending on (a) the context (hope in disease or hope in general), and (b) the type of participant (patient, healthcare professionals or individuals from the general population). The results first indicate that hope, for all participants and whatever the context, refers to the beliefs of positive issues and perspectives. Moreover, dealing with a chronic disease seems to create, for the patients, a very specific representation of hope. It appears that when disease becomes serious and persistent, and when patients need to deal with uncertainty, hope is mainly described as a coping strategy, determined by specific objectives and resources.     

Linguistic and Perceptual Mapping in Spatial Representations: An Attentional Account

Building on evidence for embodied representations, we investigated whether Spanish spatial terms map onto the NEAR/FAR perceptual division of space. Using a long horizontal display, we measured congruency effects during the processing of spatial terms presented in NEAR or FAR space. Across three experiments, we manipulated the task demands in order to investigate the role of endogenous attention in linguistic and perceptual space mapping. We predicted congruency effects only when spatial properties were relevant for the task (reaching estimation task, Experiment 1) but not when attention was allocated to other features (lexical decision, Experiment 2; and color, Experiment 3). Results showed faster responses for words presented in Near‐space in all experiments. Consistent with our hypothesis, congruency effects were observed only when a reaching estimate was requested. Our results add important evidence for the role of top‐down processing in congruency effects from embodied representations of spatial terms.     

Explaining embodied emotions – with and without representations

Embodied accounts have offered a theoretical framework in which emotions are understood to be patterned embodied responses that are about core relational themes. Some authors argue that this intentionality should be understood in terms of some kind of non-conceptual representation format, while others suggest a radical enactivist framework that takes emotions to be intentional but not representational. In this paper I will argue that the abstract nature of the core relational themes emotions are about and the interrelatedness of emotions with each other and with other mental states speak in favor of emotions being representations.     

Constructing and contesting threat: Representations of white British Muslims across British national and Muslim newspapers

White British Muslims pose a challenge to racialised representations of British Muslims as non‐white, foreign and Other. By drawing on tools from Critical Discourse Analysis to develop Social Representations Theory on a micro‐analytic level, and making connections with other relevant social psychological theories on intergroup relations, this article examines the constructions of white British Muslims as a threat in six national and two Muslim British newspapers. It looks at how discourses are used to create, perpetuate and challenge the ‘hegemonisation’ of social representations in majority and minority press. The findings show that white British Muslims are portrayed as a threat not just despite of, but because of, their position as part of the ‘white British’ ingroup. Consequently, the threat they pose often leads to their Muslimness being emphasised. This was, at times, contested, however, either through direct challenges, or by making the threat ambivalent by drawing on their whiteness.