The social representation of economic crisis in different social groups

This research is part of a wider International study realized starting from 2009 in different European countries (France, Great Britain, Greece, Italy and Romania) among the activities of the “Mediterranean Center for the study of Social Representaions (CeMeRS)” of Naples. The aim of this study, placed in the Structural approach, is to investigate the social representations of the economic crisis among different social groups. The objectives of the research are: a) verify if there are differences between social representations constructed by different social groups; b) explore if and how the social representation of economic crisis has been transformed from 2009 to 2012; c) identify the differences between social representations of economic crisis (SRsEc) in different cultural contexts. It has been used a mixed method approach, useful to investigate both the SRsEc structure and content, in both a synchronic and diachronic perspective. In particular the Hierarchized Evocation method, integrated with a questionnaire of characterization (in 2012), was made to reach the structure, while a semi-structured interview (in 2009) and a structured interview (in 2012) was realized to explore the content. Data were collected in two periods, 2009 and 2012, on the same group of subjects, interviewed at the same time in each country. The participants were 120 subjects for each country involved (30 for each group, balanced on gender), equally distributed in four social categories: university students (second/third year; Faculty of Economics); bank clerks of medium level; shopkeepers; laypeople. Obtained data were treated with the Analysis of Hierarchized Evocations and Similitude Analysis (Evoc/Simi2005); categorial-frequencial content analysis (Atlas.ti); mono and multivariate analysis (SPSS). Results showed that, unless a diffuse salience of Job loss and Uncertainty, fear of future, the different Italian groups of participants had a different social representation of crisis, especially in the case of shopkeepers. This difference was traced also between the three “expert” categories and laypeople as regards the evolutive phase of their representation. A difference was found also between Italian and Greek social representations of crisis, with reference to the meaning of the salient elements and their organization.