Representações sociais de estudantes italianos sobre o envelhecimento: um estudo exploratório de um sistema representacional

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.Há pesquisas em diversos países sobre representações sociais sobre envelhecimento, mas pouco se sabe sobre suas relações com outras representações. O presente estudo visa caracterizar essas relações através da noção de sistema representacional. Um levantamento de dados exploratório foi conduzido com 151 universitários italianos que completaram tarefas de evocações sobre sete objetos sociais ligados ao envelhecimento e avaliaram as distâncias entre eles. As avaliações de distância passaram por análise de similitude, enquanto que análises prototípicas foram realizadas para envelhecimento e três objetos: morte, saúde e família. Os resultados indicam possíveis conexões de conteúdos entre elementos das representações e sugerem uma relação de conjunção entre envelhecimento e família. A noção de sistemas representacionais abre possibilidades para o refinamento de caracterizações representacionais

Social representations on aging: Structural differences concerning age group and cultural context

Mainly due to the salience of the world population aging phenomenon, aging and old age are consistently gaining relevance in social life and pointing out to the importance of characterizing the social representations about the topic. After identifying the need of systematic structural research at the level of structural status and basic cognitive scheme activation related to the social representations on aging, two controlled survey studies were conducted to assess the roles of age group and cultural context to differentiate representational structures. Gender was also taken into account. Study 1 had a sample of 80 Italian participants balanced by gender and age group (young and mature). Study 2 had a similar design, comparing the results from the young Italian sample to a group of 40 young Brazilians. Instruments were questionnaires with standard basic cognitive schemes tasks and centrality questionnaires. Log-linear analysis and one-way chi-square tests were employed for data analysis. Results indicated that both, in terms of structural status and scheme activation, the age group and cultural context variables are associated to representational differences, while the role of gender was restricted to peripheral modulations. The study sets foundations for further basic and applied research by providing a baseline structural characterization

Social Representations of “Normality”: Everyday Life in Old and New Normalities with Covid-19

Several icons express the experiences of daily life at the time of Covid-19. Among them, "astronauts in their own home” recalls a twirl of bodies in a vacuum bubble. Aware of the structuring power of everyday life, we analysed how people were living the experience of lockdown at home and if and how a social representation of a new normality would emerge. We carried out two studies in the Italian context. In the first, 223 participants narrated their lived experience in the first phases of lockdown. By means of textual analysis (Reinert’s method), the corpus returned four lexical worlds focusing on emotions produced by the suspension, need of a new awareness, effort to readjust to the situation, and the organizing power of routines. A thorough reading focused on women’s narratives enhanced the structuring power of everyday life, both at a personal and at a societal level, including new collective rituals and appointments. The second study enrolled 214 participants and explored the advanced phase of the lockdown. Participants answered a free association task to the stimulus-word new normality. The resulting corpus, analysed via correspondence analysis, gave rise to five dimensions pertaining various aspects such as constraints, opportunities, challenges, again both at an individual and at a societal level. In conclusion, underlining the reverberations on the psychosocial plane of the suspension of everyday life and their relation with emotional, cognitive, relational and societal assets, our contributions highlight the relationships between lived experience and social representations

Rappresentazioni sociali dell'invecchiamento tra psicologia sociale e letteratura

Scopo del presente lavoro è proporre l'analisi di testi letterari per lo studio delle rappresentazioni sociali dell'invecchiamento. Dopo un'introduzione al tema, con cenni ai recenti sviluppi in termini di invecchiamento positivo e all'utilità di un maggiore interscambio tra psicologia sociale e letteratura, vengono presentati i risultati di analisi quali-quantitative e qualitative di due recenti opere italiane. Sia l'analisi delle corrispondenze, sia una lettura più qualitativa dei testi, restituiscono indicazioni preziose rispetto all'intento di co-costruire un modo di Invecchiare Bene. Assonanze e divergenze rispetto alla letteratura psico-sociale sull'invecchiamento contribuiscono ad una lettura critica e generativa dell'ultimo 'dono del tempo'