Efectele implicãrii asupra reprezentãrilor sociale ale unui risc colectiv: cazul riscului seismic
Effects of involvement on the social representations of a collective risk: the case of seismic risk

Summary/Abstract: This study uses the structural perspective on the social representations. We test the effects of implication on the social representations of the seismic risk built by a population that has a collective experience of earthquakes (Romanian sample) vs. those who has no such experience (French sample). The results show that the representation built by the Romanians is significantly more structured than the one built by the French. This is true for both the normative component of the social representations (which gathers the elements used for evaluation) and for its functional component (which gathers the elements used for action), and even when the participants have not gone through a major earthquake themselves. The individuals’ implication was then manipulated according to Rouquette’s model (1987). The results show that if the seismic risk is perceived as being an ultimately important matter, i.e., the individuals’ implication with this risk is high, then the normative component of the social representation is significantly structured. Instead, consistently with the theory, no effect of the implication was found as far as the functional component of the social representation was concerned. As a conclusion, some practical and theoretical consequences of these results are discussed, as well as the need to use complementary approaches when studying the behaviors related to collective risks (e.g., the theory of commitment).

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