Das estruturas cognitivas às representações sociais

Abstract

A cognitive analysis of the structure of social representation is proposed in this article. The analysis of the associations induced by means of 4 stimulus words related to the problem of unemployment is presented. The position of the «Unemployed» as a cognitive category in the represented social structure is analyzed in terms of its psychological and institutional backgrounds as inferred by the subjects. The group’s prototypical attributes are compared to those most frequently attributed to persons were unemployed at the time of the inquiry. The results suggest that, although these persons are considered to be category members, they are judged atypical in light of the category’s prototypical attributes. These data are interpreted in terms of the possibility of developing a structural model for studying social representations as units of semantic memory applied to the processing of social information.