The general aim of this research was to investigate the use of the Basic Cognitive Schemes (BCS) model in examining the qualitative vs. quantitative centrality of a social representation’s (SR) core elements. Firstly, we examined the internal structure of the social representation of the European integration (Study 1, N = 71) according to Central Core Theory of the structural approach of social representations. Secondly, we investigated the qualitative vs. quantitative centrality of its core elements (Study 2, N = 106) using the BCS model. The study included young people from Eastern Romania enrolled in a Psychology undergraduate degree. The results permitted the identification of the elements defining the internal structure of the SR of the European integration among young Romanians. We identified five central elements with prescriptive functions (i.e., mobility, unity, opportunity, European funds, and civilization). Furthermore, after checking their qualitative and quantitative centrality using the BCS model, only three of them were confirmed as both qualitatively and quantitatively central. Thus, the results also underlined the importance of the BSC model in better understanding the relationships between the SR’s internal elements. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.
The European integration has become a much-debated topic since Romania’s first request to join the European Union in 1995. Despite its high media coverage, pre-integration surveys showed that Romanians had a poorly structured highly positive image of the European Union, where they minimized the negative consequences of the European integration and overestimated the positive ones.
The current research aimed to collect more in-depth data about young Romanians’ representations of the European integration, e.g., beliefs, emotions, and behaviours that they associate with the European integration based on the new social practices as well as their own personal experiences.
In Study 1, 71 Romanian university students, recruited after introductory psychology courses, completed a questionnaire consisting of a free association and a justification task. More specifically, participants had to write down the first five words that came to their mind when thinking about “European integration” and then justify their associations. These tasks allowed us to identity the discursive elements (core and peripheral) that organized the social representation (SR) of the European integration. In Study 2, 106 Romanian university students filled in a similar questionnaire. Results from Study 1 indicated that the SR of the European integration included five core elements (i.e., mobility, unity, opportunity, European funds, and civilization). More specifically, young Romanians perceived the European integration as an opportunity for mobility and cooperation among EU members. It facilitates cultural integration leading to the fortification of the relations between EU members and the development of social and cultural exchanges. In addition, it leads to economic development through accessing European structural funds and being part of the European single market. Study 2 partially confirmed the results from Study 1 and provided us with a better understanding of the relationship between the core and peripheral elements structuring young Romanians’ representation of the European integration.
The present research findings highlight how young Romanians make sense of a new reality, i.e., the European integration that characterizes their world. Furthermore, their representation of the European integration is not a simple reproduction of the formal information produced by EU and mass media; it includes both objective characteristics of the integration process (e.g., mobility, structural funds) as well as personal experiences and prior representations of the European Union (e.g., solidarity, hopes of acceptance).
The theory of social representations (SRT) studies the knowledge of common sense. It focuses on the organisation of the concepts acquired in the process of intra/intergroup communication and, thus, relates social groups to social knowledge. Social representations (SR) define a form of social knowledge and express a group’s shared values, norms, and attitudes towards an object of representation (
The Central Core Theory assumes that SRs have dual characteristics, being both stable and moving, rigid and flexible, and consensual, while being marked by strong inter-individual difference (
The core elements have a qualitative and a quantitative dimension.
The Basic Cognitive Schemes (BCS) model represents a key theoretical framework in understanding the relationships between the elements of a SR providing new research directions in the internal analysis of SRs. According to
Numerous contemporary socio-political (e.g., European enlargement, European integration, Brexit) and economic changes (e.g., the introduction of the Euro) constitute debate central issues in people’s everyday lives and major topics for scientific social and political research (
The general aim of this research was to explore the feasibility of the Basic Cognitive Schemes (BCS) model in examining the qualitative vs. quantitative centrality of a social representation’s (SR) core elements. In order to pursue this aim, we have chosen an emerging social object, i.e., European integration within a non-Western context, i.e., Romania, a new state member.
The European integration has become a much-debated topic since Romania’s first request to join the European Union in 1995. Despite its high media coverage, pre-integration surveys showed that Romanians had a poorly structured highly positive image of the European integration, where they minimized the negative consequences of the European integration and overestimated the positive ones (
The current research aimed to collect more in-depth data about young Romanians’ representations of the European integration, e.g., beliefs, emotions, and behaviours that they associate with the European integration based on the new social practices as well as their own personal experiences. Thus, we aimed to investigate the internal structure of the SR of the European integration among young Romanians according to Central Core Theory (
According to the Central Core Theory (
Seventy-one first year psychology undergraduate students (56 women, 15 men) aged 19 to 30 years old
The Ethics Committee of our Department of Psychology approved the study. We invited the participants to a Psychology lab where the study took place. Upon arrival to the lab, we provided the participants with an information sheet that contained a full description of the study as well as details about anonymity, data confidentiality, and their right to withdraw from the study at any stage. Once participants signed the consent form, they filled in a paper-and-pencil-questionnaire consisting of two main tasks (i.e., free association task and justification task) and answered a few questions related to socio-demographic information (age, gender, year of study, field of study). The questionnaire was followed by a short debrief.
The free association task is a fundamental method used to collect data about the content of SR (
The justification task (
We created a database with all the associations (= units of analysis) produced by the participants (
In order to identify the elements within the internal structure of the SR of the European integration we performed a prototypical analysis (
Word/Expression | Word/Expression | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Importance ≤ 2.80 | Importance > 2.80 | ||||
Frequency ≥ 10 | Frequency ≥ 10 | ||||
Mobility | 22 | 2.59 | Cooperation | 17 | 3.41 |
Unity | 22 | 2.36 | Economic growth | 13 | 3.38 |
Opportunity | 14 | 2.78 | Evolution | 11 | 3.72 |
European funds | 13 | 2.30 | Intercultural relations | 11 | 3.09 |
Civilization | 10 | 2.60 | Development | 10 | 2.80 |
Frequency < 10 | Frequency < 10 | ||||
Change | 8 | 2.62 | Freedom | 9 | 2.88 |
Globalisation | 8 | 2.25 | Equality | 7 | 3.71 |
Norms | 8 | 2.25 | Alliance | 7 | 3.00 |
Prosperity | 7 | 2.00 | Economy | 6 | 3.83 |
Euro | 5 | 2.20 | Power | 6 | 3.66 |
Modernization | 4 | 2.75 | Uniformity | 6 | 3.66 |
Solidarity | 6 | 2.83 | |||
Security | 5 | 3.60 | |||
Acceptance | 4 | 4.00 |
The core of the SR of the European integration among young Romanians includes elements referring to the positive consequences of the European integration (i.e.,
The internal structure of the SR of the European integration includes predominantly positive elements (e.g.,
The text corpus provided by participants during the justification task was submitted to a lexicometric analysis using Lexico3 (
A lexicometric analysis consists of identifying occurrences of lexical units (i.e., forms, segments, generalised types) in the different parts of the textual corpus. As a result, we were able to identify 511 units of analysis (i.e., expressions) which we then submitted to an automatic content analysis. The co-occurrence analysis performed with Lexico3 revealed that respondents organised their discourse about the European integration around three dimensions.
As we can see in
Category / Theme | % | |
---|---|---|
EU integration’s consequences | ||
Socio-political consequences | 176 | 34.40 |
Economic consequences | 146 | 28.57 |
Definitions and beliefs | ||
Definitions | 66 | 12.91 |
Attitudes to EU integration | 32 | 6.26 |
European Union | ||
EU symbols | 40 | 7.82 |
Principles | 31 | 6.06 |
In general, respondents mainly focus their discourse on their hopes, which translate into a positive view of the future. One of the main expected outcomes of the integration refers to economic development and thus, respondents expect higher incomes and economic prosperity. Additionally, respondents anticipate less bureaucratic procedures when it comes to travelling within EU (e.g., studying or working abroad, vacationing). Although participants anticipate that unity among European countries will lead to a stronger sense of belonging among Romanians and to a stronger European identity, they also express fear of losing their national identity and the values and traditions embedded in their culture.
We may conclude that the main themes and dimensions of the respondents’ discourse clearly translate into the core and peripheral elements of their SR of the European integration underlining the communication functions of SR.
According to
One hundred and six first year undergraduates in Psychology (74 women, 32 men) aged 18 to 24 years old (
The Ethics Committee of our Department of Psychology approved the study. Participants were approached during a Research Methods lecture and they were asked to restrain from interacting with each other while filling in the questionnaire. Each participant received an information sheet that contained a full description of the study as well as details about anonymity, data confidentiality, and their right to withdraw from the study. Once participants signed the consent form, they filled in a paper-and-pencil-questionnaire derived from the BSC model (
Before filling in the free association task, participants were provided with a short paragraph presenting the aim of the study (i.e., to examine lay perceptions and beliefs about the European integration) and similar findings from previous studies. These findings suggested that Romanians believe that European integration provided new opportunities for
Similar to Study 1, participants had to justify the associations they have generated for each of the five stimulus words. According to
This task consists of evaluating the type of relation established by the stimulus words with their associations (
The analyses performed in this study focus on the participants’ responses to the evaluation task. In order to have a better understanding of the type and nature of the relations between the core elements and their functions within the representational field, we analysed the total valence of each element (Vt). The valence of an element – central or peripheral – underlines its activation degree within the SR of a specific group at a given moment and, for a specific object. It is reflected by the number of positive connections (= “yes” responses) established between that element and its produced associations (
Element | Mobility | Unity | Opportunity | European funds | Civilization |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
5061 | 5319 | 4872 | 5133 | 5464 | |
Total valence (Vt) | 0.56 | 0.59 | 0.54 | 0.57 | 0.61 |
Partial valence for praxis (Vp) | 0.57 | 0.59 | 0.52 | 0.57 | 0.61 |
Partial valence for attributes (Va) | 0.55 | 0.58 | 0.52 | 0.54 | 0.59 |
Activation index (λ) | 0.90 | 0.88 | 1.00 | 0.93 | 0.85 |
Index error (Δλ) | 0.08 | 0.09 | 0.08 | 0.08 | 0.11 |
Type of elementa | Peripheral (0.90 < 0.92) | Peripheral (0.88 < 0.91) | Central (0.92 < 1.00 < 1.08) | Central (0.92 < 0.93 < 1.08) | Peripheral (0.85 < 0.89) |
aFollowing
Although useful, the comparison of the total valence is not enough to distinguish between the core elements and those peripheral and/or over-activated (
Furthermore, the analysis of the partial valence for Praxis and Attributes offers interesting details into the normative versus functional nature of the core elements (
Social Representations consist of informative, cognitive, prescriptive and normative elements that reflect the reality as perceived by individuals pertaining to different social groups. It is through these elements that people acquire the meaning of the world and then transmit it to others. SRs spontaneously originate in daily life allowing individuals to construct frameworks that facilitate their understanding of the reality and guide their interactions with the world.
The study of SR includes the study of the processes and dynamics within society (e.g., social, political and economic phenomena) and is focussed on the nature of human thinking and social interactions (
The current research is anchored in the structural approach of SRs (
Results from Study 1 indicated that the internal structure of the SR of the European integration included five core elements (i.e., mobility, unity, opportunity, European funds, and civilization). Core elements are usually guided by individual values and beliefs embedded in culture, social standards and rules. These elements determine the meaning that individuals assign to an object of representation and the way in which they organised their knowledge about a social object. Our findings suggested that young Romanians see the European integration as an opportunity for mobility and cooperation among EU members. It facilitates cultural integration leading to the fortification of the relations between EU members and the development of social and cultural exchanges. In addition, it leads to economic development through accessing European structural funds and being part of the European single market.
Core elements fulfil prescriptive functions, describing new social practices and norms associated with an object of representation, whereas peripheral ones fulfil concretization functions (
The analysis of the respondents’ discourse showed a strong focus on positive attitudes towards the European integration due to perceived economic outcomes; thus confirming previous findings among Romanian respondents (
Additionally, respondents expressed hopes that unity among the state members will lead to a sense of belonging and a European identity among Romanians.
In Study 2, the BCS model proved to be an efficient instrument in examining the relations between the core elements the SR of the European integration confirming previous findings (
The current research focused on the SR of the European integration of a particular social group, i.e., young people enrolled in a Psychology undergraduate degree. Extensive research by
Furthermore, social representations and the lexical elements defining them are dynamic and change over time (
Social representations are not a faithful reflection of reality or a passive reproduction of the external world into an internal one. They are a global view of an object of representation developed by an individual or a social group who can restructure the reality in order to allow the integration of both objective characteristics but also of their own subjective beliefs and personal experiences. Our findings showed how young Romanians make sense of a new reality, i.e., the European integration that characterizes their world. Respondents’ SR of the European integration is not a simple reproduction of the formal information produced by EU and mass media. It includes both objective characteristics of the integration process (e.g., mobility, structural funds) as well as personal experiences and prior representations of the European Union (e.g., solidarity, hopes of acceptance).
Furthermore, our results provide theoretical support for the use of the BCS model in examining the qualitative and quantitative centrality of the core elements of a social representation. The model offered a detailed image of the relations between the inductors and their associations distinguishing between genuine central elements and those falsely identified as central elements and underlined the functional nature of some of these elements.
Hyper connector / Connector | Standard expression |
---|---|
Lexicon | |
SYN | A is synonym for B (e.g., Printed work SYN Book) |
DEF | A can be defined by B (e.g., Psychoanalysis DEF Confession) |
ANT | A is the contrary of B (e.g., Health ANT Sickness) |
Proximity | |
TEG | A is part of/is included in B (e.g., Dog TEG Mammals) |
TES | A includes B (e.g., Dog TES Terrier) |
COL | A belongs to the same general category as B (e. g., Terrier COL. Chihuahua) |
Composition | |
COM | A is a component of B (e. g., Piston COM Engine) |
DEC | A has B as its component (e. g., Engine DEC Valve) |
ART | A and B are components of the same thing (Piston ART Valve) |
Praxis | |
OPE | A makes B (e.g., Mechanic OPE Fixing) |
TRA | A acts upon B (e.g., Fixing TRA Engine) |
UTI | A uses B (e.g., Mechanic UTI Key) |
ACT | B is the actor acting upon A (e.g., Fixing ACT Mechanic) |
OBJ | A is an action applied to B (e.g., Fixing OBJ Engine) |
UST | B is an instrument used to perform A (e.g., Dismantle UST Key) |
FAC | B is someone thinking at the object designated by A (e.g., Engine FAC Mechanic). |
MOD | B is an action that can be applied on A (e. g., Engine MOD Dismantle) |
AOB | B in an instrument used to act over/in case of A (e. g., Bolt AOB key) |
TIL | A can be used by B (e.g., Key TIL Mechanic) |
OUT | A can be used to perform B (e. g., Key OUT Dismantle) |
AOU | A is an instrument that can be used to perform an action to B (e.g., Key AOU Bolt) |
Attributes | |
CAR | A is always characterised by B. |
FRE | A is frequently/often characterised by B (e.g., Depression FRE Insomnia) |
SPE | A is sometimes characterised by B (e.g., Hygiene SPE Insufficient) |
NOR | B is a normative attribute of A (e.g., Group members NOR Similar opinions) |
EVA | B is an evaluative attribute of A (e.g., Group members EVA Similar opinions) |
COS | A depends on B (e.g., Group cohesion COS Similar opinions) |
EFF | A determines B (e.g., Common goals EFF Group cohesion) |
This work was supported by the Romanian National Council for Scientific Research in the Higher Education [CNCSIS BD-301].
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
The authors would like to give special thanks to Fabrice Buschini, Institut de la communication et des medias, Université Nouvelle Sorbonne Paris 3 for his useful feedback and writing assistance.