Critérios de construção e relato da análise prototípica para representações sociais

A análise prototípica é uma convenção de apresentação bastante difundida para caracterizar a estrutura de uma representação social a partir de dados de evocações livres. O presente texto visa a sistematizar e indicar algumas dessas informações que deveriam estar presentes na descrição de resultados da análise prototípica, discutindo brevemente os prós e contras de algumas opções de realização da análise. Para tanto, é feita uma breve introdução da análise e posteriormente passa-se a considerações técnicas, finalizando com um exemplo de relato

An Overview of the Literature Related to Social Representations Published in Scientifi c Journals

Abstract The present study aims at characterizing part of the academic production on social representations published in scientifi c journals, so as to provide information about the development and current state of the fi eld. In August and September 2013 2526 abstracts of papers published in journals indexed in four databases were retrieved, all of which were about social representations. For each abstract registers were made concerning the country in which the fi rst author's institution was located, publication year, journal discipline and categorized information relative to the studied group and social objects. The results confi rmed and expanded previously conducted meta-analyses, giving evidence of a contrast between applied studies in the health area involving related groups and objects, more typical from South America and Brazil, and psychosocial research linked to the psychology fi eld and carried out mostly by European researchers. A considerable increase in the importance of the participation of Brazilian and South American authors relative to the total production was also noticed, replacing authors from European institutions as leaders according to that criterion. Keywords: Social representations, scientifi c production, bibliographic research, Bibliometrics. Um Panorama da Literatura Relacionada às Representações Sociais Publicada em Periódicos Científi cos Resumo O presente estudo visa a caracterizar parte da produção acadêmica sobre representações sociais publicada em periódicos científi cos, de modo a fornecer informações sobre o desenvolvimento e estado atual do campo. Em agosto e setembro de 2013 foram obtidos 2526 resumos de artigos publicados em periódicos indexados em quatro bases de dados, todos sobre representações sociais. Para cada resumo foram registrados o país da instituição do primeiro autor, ano de publicação, disciplina do periódico e informações categorizadas relativas aos grupos e objetos sociais estudados. Os resultados confi rmaram e expandiram meta-análises realizadas anteriormente, evidenciando uma contraposição entre estudos aplicados na área de saúde com grupos e objetos relacionados, mais típicos da América do Sul e Brasil e pesquisas psicossociais ligadas à área da psicologia e realizadas por pesquisadores principalmente do continente Wachelke, J., Matos, F. R., Ferreira, G. C. S., Costa, R. R. L. 294 europeu. Nota-se também um aumento de importância considerável na participação de primeiros autores brasileiros e sul-americanos em relação ao total, tornando-se líder no volume de produção acadêmica na área, substituindo autores provenientes de instituições europeias. Palavras-chave: Representações sociais, produção científi ca, pesquisa bibliográfi ca, Bibliometria. Una Visión General de la Literatura Relacionada con las Representaciones Sociales Publicadas en Revistas Científi cas Resumen El presente estudio tiene como objetivo caracterizar parte de la producción académica sobre las representaciones sociales publicada en revistas científi cas, para proporcionar información sobre el desarrollo y el estado actual del campo. En agosto y septiembre de 2013, fueron recuperados 2526 resúmenes de artículos publicados en revistas indexadas en cuatro bases de datos, todos sobre las representaciones sociales. Para cada uno se hicieron registros sobre el país de la institución del primer autor, año de publicación, la disciplina de la revista y los grupos y objetos estudiados. Los resultados confi rmaron y ampliaron meta-análisis realizados antes, e muestran un contraste entre estudios aplicados en el área de la salud con grupo y objetos afi nes, más típicos de América del Sur y Brasil, e investigaciones psicosociales del campo de la psicología llevados a cabo por investigadores europeos. Se observó también un aumento considerable en la importancia de la participación de autores de Brasil y de América del Sur en relación con la producción total, en sustitución de autores de instituciones europeas como líderes de acuerdo a ese criterio. Palabras clave: Representaciones sociales, producción científi ca, investigación bibliográfi ca, Bibliometría. This paper presents an overview of part of the worldwide academic production related to social representations published in scientifi c journals until mid 2013. Social representations are common sense theories shared and elaborated by groups about everyday issues Various decades after the proposition of the theory, a study of the characteristics of papers employing social representations may provide an evaluation of the international development of the theory and its popularization across different disciplines throughout the years. Other than the scientifi c qualities of a theory (i.e. the tests that it faces continuously in order to prove itself a plausible model to understand social reality), its diffusion amongst disciplines, countries and continents might provide evidence of its value as a framework to tackle scientifi c problems and shed light into the needs of the academic communities of different contexts. Amongst the various social psychological schools, social representations theory is commonly considered a sociological form of social psychology A variety of social representations schools and perspectives can be found, stressing different aspects of the phenomenon, ranging from ethnographic approaches to understand the relationship between individual appropriation of group culture to experimental studies of the individual management of information that is shared by group members (for works illustrat- An Overview of the Literature Related to Social Representations Published in Scientifi c Journals. 295 ing the methodological diversity of social representations research, see It is a perspective that is often open to interdisciplinary dialogue. Much of the research is dedicated to applied transdisciplinary themes such as health and education Originally a social psychological theory from France, social representations theory was well received by some researchers from European countries like Portugal, Italy and England. Authors who classify the varieties of social psychology that are proposed around the world associate the theory with European social psychology, due to its emphasis on ideological and intergroup processes The assessment of the state of art of social representations research can provide information concerning the contexts of diffusion of the study of related phenomena and the aspects that are privileged. There are some well-known examples of such efforts in the literature. A fi rst project in that direction was possibly the general bibliography in social representations organized by Some well known meta-analyses of the literature on social representations have been provided by Annamaria de Rosa. In 1992, she reviewed the growing literature on developmental psychology aligned with social representations and social cognition and discussed their points of contact and divergence, including a categorization of studied social objects or thematic perspectives took into account by the research De Rosa and D'Ambrosio (2008) have carried out a meta-analysis of 1731 abstracts presented in English, French and Spanish in the fi rst eight International Conferences on Social Representations, the main biannual conferences related to social representations theory. Other than coding classic bibliographic information such as the conference in which each paper was presented and the nationality of the fi rst author, they categorized each abstract in terms of the thematic areas privileged by the investigation or the type of treatment given to social representations theory. Concerning the latter category, the authors assessed whether just a general treatment was given to the phenomenon of social representations, or if specifi c theory-related paradigms were focused -such as structure, genesis, or meta-theory. The results indicated a contrast between papers authored by Europeans, which focused proportionally more on theoretical aspects and references related to paradigmatic social representations theory, and papers written by Latin Americans, which had an applied and empirical nature and dealt with social representations in a generic way. In the same vein, Madiot (2013) presented an analysis of the French language abstracts of the 11 biannual International Conferences on social representations. Her corpus consisted in 2549 abstracts. Her analysis also focused on the theoretical schools that were identifi ed in the communications and methodological choices. Concerning social representation objects, the most frequent ones were work, education and health. In terms of groups, the populations of Wachelke, J., Matos, F. R., Ferreira, G. C. S., Costa, R. R. L. 296 children, parents, teachers, caretakers and health professionals were privileged. More recently, De Rosa (2013) presented an overview of the meta-theoretical analysis of an extensive body of literature on social representations theory. In January 2012, the database consisted of 6938 references, 2700 of which were articles and book chapters that underwent detailed meta-analysis. She presented the results of a meta-theoretical analysis based on 2065 bibliographical sources, including 956 book chapters, 936 journal articles, 65 papers presented at conferences, 57 PhD thesis chapters, 46 university reports or manuscripts and 5 web documents, all published from 1952 to 2009. Her results point out a trend to publish theoretical contributions in book chapters and empirical research in journal articles, and also confi rm the interdisciplinary interest revolving around social representations theory. Amongst the main topics of the published contributions, the analysis identifi ed theoretical and methodological issues, the relationship of social representations theory with social psychology and other disciplines, health-illness, communication, and interpersonal and intergroup relationships. The research is concerned with assessing the specifi c aspects of social representations theory that are stressed by the papers. The project differentiates between studies that incorporate the theoretical concepts of social representations theory and others that refer to the phenomenon in a generic way, possibly disconnected with the theory. There have also been some analyses of the social representations literature provided by Brazilian scholars. The fi rst social representations studies in Brazil were published from 1982 to 1997 In addition, we shall focus our attention on a specifi c bibliographic source: peer-reviewed journals. Such choice is justifi ed by the thorough evaluation that each manuscript undergoes in the process managed by an editor and usually two reviewers, belonging either to the editorial board or having ad hoc status. Papers are only accepted after their relevance and correction are ensured through quality control, in a process that is usually stricter -or at least more uniform, sharing standards-than what is observed sometimes with books or conference proceedings. We propose that there is space for a thematic analysis of journal papers on social representations in a broader set of international sources than what was hithAn Overview of the Literature Related to Social Representations Published in Scientifi c Journals. 297 erto observed. Other than classical variables like the location of fi rst authors' institutions or the discipline affi liation of journals, emphasis will be given to the identifi cation of the populations and groups taken in consideration in social representations studies. Every social representation study necessarily refers to a group that represents and to an object, a social life topic with some salience to the group, that is represented An analysis of the groups and objects that inspire more studies and the association of those choices with specifi c institutional and geographic contexts can shed light into the research practices related to social representations. Similar analyses have been carried out, usually through a categorization of broad thematic areas The aim of the present contribution is to carry out an exploratory thematic analysis of the abstracts of journal articles related to the study of social representations. Articles from international databases relative to psychological, social and health sciences were included, and the considered variables concern the geographical context of the fi rst author, the disciplines linked to the journals, publication periods and the groups and objects that were studied. Method Data Sources A documental study was carried out. We retrieved all abstracts in English from four major abstract databases that resulted from a search with the terms "social representation" or "social representations" in the title, abstract and keywords fi elds. Although the choice of databases was based on some diversity of disciplines and regions and took into account important resources, it must be clear that the effort does not refl ect the full universe of scientifi c databases. The chosen databases were PsycINFO (American Psychological Association); Scientifi c Electronic Library Online (Scielo.org); MEDLINE Complete (EBSCOHost); and Sociological Abstracts (ProQuest). The choices were justifi ed by the coverage of important disciplines and geographic areas, including one database per main discipline fi eld that is commonly associated with the study of social representations (psychology, social sciences, health) and also a general data base comprising Latin American journals of all fi elds, providing signifi cant overlap with discipline-specifi c bases but at the same time adding some more recent or more regional journals. PsycINFO is the main psychology database and also includes journals from other human and health sciences, Scielo is a generalist database that covers mostly South American journals -but also includes South Africa and the Iberian countries -, Sociological Abstracts covers the social sciences and MEDLINE contains research related to the health fi eld. Procedure Abstract search and coding took place from August to September 2013. The contents of abstracts were checked, so that only the ones related to social representation in the sense of shared knowledge were kept for analysis. Abstracts that were related to other meanings of the social representation expression (e.g. political participation or popular representativeness, were excluded). Moreover, since the content of the selected databases overlaps, repetitions were also excluded. A total of 3359 abstracts were identifi ed at fi rst, 2526 of which were unique cases related to the referred meaning of social representations. Those 2526 abstracts formed the sample retained for analysis. The co-authors carried out article search and retrieval activities independently and the fi rst author checked and discussed their results in order to reach a consensus in terms of Wachelke, J., Matos, F. R., Ferreira, G. C. S., Costa, R. R. L

Estudo complementar da validade fatorial da Escala Fatorial de Satisfação em Relacionamento e predição de satisfação global com a relação Complementary factorial validity study concerning the Factorial Relationship Satisfaction Scale and prediction of global relationship satisfaction

A pesquisa complementa a validação da Escala Fatorial de Satisfação em Relacionamento de Casal, junto a uma amostra diferenciada formada por 342 universitários em relacionamentos estáveis (52,3% eram mulheres). Após análise fatorial foi verificada estrutura fatorial semelhante e índices de confiabilidade superiores aos do primeiro estudo, embora um dos itens tenha obtido carga inferior a 0,30 nos dois fatores. Foi realizada uma análise de regressão múltipla para relacionar as dimensões da escala com uma medida de satisfação global no relacionamento. O modelo com as duas subescalas da EFS-RC como preditores explicou 46% da variância da satisfação com o relacionamento.<br>The study complements the validation of the Factorial Scale of Satisfaction in Couple Relationships, within a different sample composed by 342 university students in steady relationships (52,3% of whom were female). After a factor analysis, a similar factor structure and superior reliability indexes were found, in comparison with the first study, although one item has obtained a loading lower than 0,30 on the two factors. A multiple regression analysis was carried on to relate the scale's dimensions to a measure of global relationship satisfaction. The model including both EFS-RC sub-scales as predictors has explained 46% of relationship satisfaction variance

Obese children are thin in parents\u2019 eyes: A psychologically, socially, or culturally driven bias?

Although obesity presents a serious health problem in children, parents often underestimate their children’s overweight and obesity status. Therefore, scientific literature was systematically screened through PubMed and PsycINFO to demonstrate the psychological, social, and cultural processes that underlie this evaluation bias. A total of 37 papers that focused on research conducted in different geopolitical contexts were taken into account. Furthermore, a lexicometric analysis of the papers’ conclusions was performed. The findings showed that education plays a key role in promoting parents’ awareness and their realistic recognition of their children’s weight. Accordingly, adequate educational support for parents should be implemented in all healthcare policies addressing childhood obesity

Satisfação conjugal: revisão integrativa da literatura científica nacional

Este estudo tem por objetivo apresentar uma revisão integrativa acerca do construto 'satisfação conjugal'. A partir das bases de dados LILACS e SciELO (1970-2008), foram recuperados e analisados 10 trabalhos. A maioria trata da definição de conceitos (e.g., ajustamento, qualidade) relacionados ao tema. Encontram-se investigações em diferentes contextos de casais e de construção de instrumentos de mensuração. Os estudos revelam que o relacionamento conjugal está positivamente associado à saúde e à qualidade de vida, principalmente nos anos de maturidade e velhice, embora seja apontada a necessidade de um maior número de estudos sistemáticos no contexto brasileiro