Alberta Contarello

Cross-Cultural Variations in Relationship Rules

A British study of the informal rules of 22 social relationships was replicated among Japanese, Hong Kong and Italian samples. Subjects were asked to rate the importance of 33 common and varying numbers of relationship-specific rules to each of these relationships on a 9-point bipolar scale. Multivariate analyses showed each culture has a structure of highly endorsed rules, although a number of cross-cultural differences emerged in the nature of these rules, particularly those relating to intimacy. Certain cross-cultural predictions were confirmed.

ICTs, social thinking and subjective well-being - The internet and its representations in everyday life

Abstract The spread of ICTs constitutes an intriguing phenomenon for studying the interweaving between ways of knowing, thinking and experiencing new ‘realities’. A suitable framework for investigating this topic is the social representations one, which addresses socially shared structures of knowledge, loaded with emotional features and symbolic values. In the present study, we explore how the internet is represented and how it is related to social well-being. The number of participants was 101. The components of the representation – information, attitude, representational field – were investigated using a qualitative–quantitative methodology; social well-being (in general, and after the internet entered one’s own life) was measured through Keyes’ scale [Social Well-Being. Social Psychology Quarterly , 61 ( 2 ), 121–140]; levels of practice were also taken into account. Participants show a medium–high level of social well-being in its various components (integration, acceptance, contribution, actualisation and coherence). A more complex picture appears ‘after internet’, with gains in terms of closeness, contribution, actualisation of society, counterbalanced by diminished trust in people and resort to one’s own group for security and comfort. The representational field opposes an intimate picture to a wider perspective; space to time; functional to experiential features of the internet. Participants take different positions on these dimensions, providing foreseen and unexpected patterns of images and meanings.

Peace, War and Conflict: Social Representations Shared by Peace Activists and Non-Activists*

The article suggests the use of social representations theory to provide a positive approach to peace research and a theoretical framework for understanding peace movements. Studying peace, war and conflict in this perspective enables exploration of these concepts as objects socially constructed, elaborated and shared by different groups. Four groups of activists are compared with people not belonging to any association, in order to investigate the existence of particular social representations of peace, war and conflict. As in previous cross-cultural research, an independent social representation of peace emerges only among activists. The social representation of war is also different in the two groups: non-activists see it as frightening, whereas activists see ways of tackling it. The greatest difference between the two groups is in the social representation of conflict. Conflict is assimilated to war for non-activists, whereas activists represent it as more manageable and normal. The results support the idea of understanding peace activism as a particular form of coping – community coping – based on the group as a whole, rather than on individual capacity to manage problems. At a theoretical level, the article discusses the importance of linking social representations to practice and group identification. At a practical level, it suggests that support for pacifism will be only transient and superficial until these underlying differences in representations can be changed.

Tokens in the tower: Perceptual processes and interaction dynamics in academic settings with 'Skewed', 'Tilted' and 'Balanced' sex ratios

We tested Kanter’s (1977a, 1977b) theory concerning the effects of group proportions (sex ratios) on visibility, polarization and assimilation, using natural groups of women and men in academia. Study 1 compared male-skewed and male-tilted settings and found evidence of greater polarization by minority women than majority men. The only effect of group proportions occurred for perceived dispersion as a measure of assimilation; replicating Brown and Smith (1989), men showed an out-group (OH), and women an in-group (IH), homogeneity effect, and both effects were accentuated in the skewed setting. Study 2 extended the research to include male-skewed, male-tilted, balanced and female-tilted sex ratios. Men’s OH effect declined as relative out-group size increased, and women’s IH effect declined as relative in-group size increased. There was also a linear decrease in relative perceived in-group impact and status as actual relative in-group size declined. We discuss our findings with respect to the validity of Kanter’s theory, gender and group size as moderators of perceived variability, and methodological issues in studying diversity.

Italian students' social representation on aging: an exploratory study of a representational system

In various countries there are studies aimed at characterizing social representations on aging, but little is known about their relations with other representations. The present study proposes to characterize those relations through the notion of representational systems. An exploratory survey has been conducted with 151 Italian undergraduate students. They have completed evocation tasks about seven social objects linked to aging and also rated the distances among them. Distance ratings went through similarity analysis, while a prototypical analysis was carried out for aging and three objects: death, health and family. The results indicate possible content connections among representation elements and suggest a conjunction relationship between aging and family. The notion of representational systems opens possibilities for more refined representational characterizations.

How Do Therapists Understand Their Client’s Problem and Its Resolution: Objectification in Theories of Change

Images and metaphors help to structure the therapist’s belief system in two ways. First, images represent strategies used by therapists in order to simplify the most abstract theoretical concepts. Second, images provide a system according for organizing the information about a client and anticipate the patterns of client change. Within the theoretical frameworks of social representations and of goal directed action theory, the present study explores the metaphorical aspects linked with therapeutic knowledge. This study aims to reconstruct the social representations that therapists use to objectify their theoretical model. The present research relies on a qualitative methodology. The results show that therapists from different orientations rely on different metaphors although, in certain conditions, they tend to share a more general representational system. Implications for psychotherapy training and clinical practice are considered.

Social Psychology and Literature: Toward Possible Correspondence

“We are all social psychologists” declare Tajfel and Fraser (1978) and, by way of explanation, they offer one of the most complete definitions of the discipline. It is the study of “the various aspects of the interaction between individuals, between and within social groups, and between individuals and social systems, small or large, of which they are part” (Tajfel and Fraser 1978, p. 22). Similar in their interests and passions, what, above all, distinguishes a professional social psychologist from an “amateur” or naive one is the method, or rather methods, used. The former follows strict research rules and procedures which are logical and systematic, explicitly sets out the hypotheses and tries to support them with references to scholarly shared criteria. The latter worries much less about the logical consistency of his or her convictions, develops naive, often post hoc, theories to explain events — especially when faced with the unexpected — and, being closely tied to pre-existing ideas, tends to confirm the underlying bias in a kind of vicious circle. There is, however, a third category. Because of their mastery and competence in treating psychosocial phenomena, authors of literary texts emerge as bearers of a type of knowledge which is different both from that of the scientist and that of the “practical” person, busy getting on with everyday life. Psychologists tend to appreciate this ability and often refer to the richness and depth shown by poets and writers when considering the psychic and relational aspects of life, or the familiarity with which they approach such extreme themes as life, love and death.

Social Psychology and Literary Texts: An Empirical Analysis of a Contemporary Indian Novel

The aim of the article is to illustrate the contribution of research with literary tests to study Self1 and social relationships. We briefly overview, first, different theoretical approaches using literature in social psychology, second, the analysis of Self and identity within the framework of social representations. This perspective considers literary texts—co-creations of their time—worth of study to test and expand social psychological knowledge. In the present research the importance of the individualism—collectivism dimension to understand social “worlds,” and of dynamic forces underlying social life is tested. After considering studies on Self and culture in the Indian context, a novel by Anita Desai—a recognized authoress, renowned in India and in the West—is analyzed. Content and correspondence analyses were performed to detect dimensions underlying the portrayed characters and relationships. The resulting structures partially support but also extend social psychological knowledge on Self and relationships.

Invecchiare bene in tempi di crisi. Punti di vista euritmici attraverso i posizionamenti con l’Alter

The increase of longevity ‒ and of the chance to spend the third, fourth and fifth age in relatively good health ‒ appears today to favour the conditions to age positively, although self-handicapping ideas persist that depict this as a life period of mere decline. While the WHO supports agendas aimed to foster citizens’ active ageing, few studies have been conducted in order to gather how the elderly might gain a eurhythmic perspective on their own ageing in a political and social context characterised by the global crisis. Referring to the theory of Social Representations and adopting a qualitative methodology, this work analyses thirty episodic interviews carried out with Italian elderly people. Its aim is to reconstruct the themes that define ageing well and the positioning from which individuals construct their eurhythmic points of view. The results show that, living and reasoning on ageing well, the participants enhance in various ways: availability of resources; positive mental states; more functional life styles; being involved in activities. The comparison with the Alter evoked in the accounts (such as youth in precariousness or unhealthy people) appears to be the main organizing principle of points of view used to interpret one’s own ageing in favourable terms. Starting from these positioning, three bipolar dimensions emerged: autonomy/dependence; fragility/no fragility; good luck/bad luck. The paper closes reasoning on the potentials, but also on the limits, that the research activity may have to promote constructions of reality more functional and socially relevant.

Redefining agency in late life: the concept of ‘disponibility’

ABSTRACT In light of an increased ageing population, policy makers are faced with the urgent problem of planning programmes that reflect active ageing or, in other words, the promotion of activities that help individuals to remain active in a societal context. The construct of agency, defined as the capacity to make decisions and to address situations depending on the individuals future plans, reflects a specific normative criterion: individuals are expected to live in an active and productive way, while those who are unable to live up to this expectation are considered dependent, passive, unproductive, weak. From a social constructionist perspective, the current study proposes a critical reflection on the qualities usually attributed to the construct of agency that are liable to appear reductive and oppressive when applied to an elderly population. Once the basic premises underlying agency, as it is commonly defined in the Western tradition, have been deconstructed, a different conceptualisation, based on interviews with older individuals, will be presented. The current work aims to produce a different conceptual framework that will permit examination of experiences and organisational modalities of agency typifying later life. The comments made by the interviewees in many cases resonate with ideas contained in Taoist philosophy and, more specifically, with the concept of disponibilité (or disponibility) outlined by the French sinologist François Jullien, which we discuss here.