Contenu du sommaire : Thèmes : La crise

Roots of crises in social representations
Within this paper, we present the idea suggesting that, social representations, and more broadly social thinking, as the inbuilt process of any social system, shall be, in a certain way, crises' potentials. They indeed might lead to heaviness and dysfunctions which might restrain the capability of the system to prevent or regulate situations of crises. More over, the technical and rational paradigm, articulated around the mastering and the control of risks, doesn't appear to us as an alternative but, only as one instantiation of social thinking. We illustrate this theoretical frame through a qualitative study showing how a social system, a research and technologic development firm which has adopted a technical and rational model of riskmanagement, behaves through a collective dialectic which could generate crises situations.

Les émotions dans la résolution du conflit et la réconciliation post-conflit
Emotions have long been recognized as an important factor to consider in the context of conflict resolution and post-conflict reconciliation. Recently, scholars in the field have made great strides in terms of expanding our knowledge on the subject by exploring the distinctive antecedents and behavioral effects of different discrete emotions such as hatred, anger, guilt, and hope. Additionally, findings related to the emerging subfield of emotion regulation suggest ways that peacemakers and peacekeepers might help facilitate more amicable relations among states. The present work provides a comprehensive overview of such relevant contemporary research and, in doing so, highlights the interconnectedness of emotions, cognitive processes and additional factors that give rise to political attitudes and actions. Based on research revealing that emotions ultimately influence the success or failure of resolution and post-conflict reconciliation attempts, we suggest that up-regulating hope, guilt, fear, and anger (when levels of hatred are low) and down-regulating hatred can have constructive implications for peacekeepers in the post-reconciliation stage of conflict. We also suggest that determining a conflicts emotional ripeness, a measure of the parties' emotional readiness to move forward, can help peacekeepers identify steps that will increase the likelihood for sustainable peace.

Un peuple qui n'en finit pas de mourir : les fondements existentiels de la perception israélienne : dés guerres et conflitThe conflict between Israel and its neighbors involves disagreements over concrete issues such as settlements, terrorism, and borders. In the current paper we argue that underlying these tangible issues are deep-seated existential concerns which fuel the conflict and stand in the way of reconciliation. We focus specifically on the unique mindset of Israeli Jews because we believe that the history of persecution against the Jews plays a vital role in how contemporary Israelis perceive the conflict. We demonstrate, on the basis of terror management theory, that reminders of personal death or collective death (the Holocaust) lead Israelis to support violent solutions, express opposition to compromise and reconciliation, and license morally questionable behavior during conflict. However, we also show that providing existential security may buffer against, and even overturn the detrimental effect of existential insecurities on violent responses. We conclude that existential security for Israelis is a precondition to peace.

Representations of Justice and Democracy in Mexico City in the time of crisis
The text reports on the results of a survey that began in 1988 in Mexico City in a context of high political debate. We analyzed the opinions of Mexico City inhabitants about various issues of public interest. Those opinions revealed the presence of a system of thinking based on two opinion groups: one that was associated with the notion of justice, and the other with that of democracy. Although those opinions were often viewed as independent and distinct expressions about various social issues, they seem however to be organized around deeper bases where the citizens' perceptions about the social dynamics that they experience are formed. Thus, this research aims at showing that the link among these different points of view is based on a social thinking system. The different points of view that were studied were gathered through a Likert-type questionnaire administered over time, 14 times in all, to the inhabitants of Mexico City, in its 16 districts. Each time, 600 to 950 citizens were surveyed. The coherence of opinions around the notions of justice and democracy reflects powerful elaborated perceptions, and also an analytical and critical capacity of citizens. These results support the idea that such perceptions are anchored in a larger system, that is, in a social thinking system.

Crisis situations and modes of reasoning: Effects of the positioning intensity on the choice of a reasoning frameworkTwo types of reasoning frameworks to fight against the exception or the contradiction have been studied: the denial scheme and the strange scheme. In a crisis situation, the subjects have polarized positions; it is while people take position that they love or hate the source object of mobilization. We think that in such situations, facing contradiction, the subjects with polarized positions employ more the denial scheme than the subjects with moderated positions. We also think that the subjects with moderated positions employ predominantly the strange scheme, since that type of rationalization demands cognitive resources that are unavailable to the polarized subjects. In October 2007 many French universities were blocked as the students were rallying against the Law about University Reformation. In that situation three positions towards the block were possible: favorable, against and neutral. To create the contradiction in the subjects (n = 143) we told them that the block had a characteristic in contradiction with their opinions. The results confirmed our predictions: the simple fact of positioning oneself (independently from the valence of that position) makes subjects employ less the strange scheme ((t (141) = - 3.88; p. < .001) and more the denial scheme (t (141) = 3,37; p < .001), in comparison with the subjects with non-extreme positioning. Therefore, when the hated/loved object is contradicted, the participants would be more likely to reject than to discuss.

Social representations of delinquency in crisis situations: the Joe Van Holsbeeck case in Belgium
This study analyzed the social representations of delinquency in a crisis situation produced by the Joe Van Holsbeeck case (Belgium), as well as the possible links between those representations ant the individuals' level of mobilization. A correspondence analysis showed that (1) these representations were organized essentially around a dimension opposing a categorical reading (based on an ethnic, socio-economic, or generational criterion) to an individualized reading of the event, but also (2) the constitutive role that the stereotype of the Maghrebi has played in triggering the masses' reactions. Finally, our results equally suggested (3) that a higher level of mobilization seems to be linked to the questioning of solidarity and morality of the Belgian society.

The financial crisis of 2008 : A collective threat or individual challenge ? An analysis of the social thinking activated in a crisis situation. This text focuses on the common sense thinking about the financial crisis of 2008, also called social thinking, or lay thinking. After having distinguished between the objective reality of the crisis and its subjective reality, we proposed an analysis of the social thinking about the financial crisis of 2008. This analysis was conducted at the positional level, a complement to the individual and inter-individual level often adopted in psychology, and to the ideological level, often adopted in sociology, political sciences, etc. This analysis was supported by several recent studies carried out in Europe since the beginning of the crisis, as well as by an empirical study carried out in France. The latter compared the social thinking about the financial crisis of 2008 (social representations), the behaviors and the intentions for action of two groups of participants, who were different in their level of praxis related to the financial sector: senior managers of the financial sector, and lay citizens. Participants' personal involvement towards the financial crisis was measured as a selection variable. We discuss the differences between the two groups in terms of social thinking about the crisis and of intentions for action mainly in relation to the participants' level of praxis and personal involvement.

Economics and Finance during the global financial crisis: Social representations, metaphors and rhetorical figures in the media discourse from Autumn 2008 until Spring 2010Part of a larger transnational and interdisciplinary research program focused on “Mass Psychology and Stock Market: heterogeneous agents, media and investors”, this article highlights some rhetorical devices used in the social discourse elaborated by media and experts about the financial crisis as an explanation based on the split between the good « real» economy and bad « virtual» finance: the former represented as being anchored in the productivity of real people and their work, the latter represented as being anchored in insubstantial financial products produced by speculators so complicated that ordinary people as well as so-called experts do not understand them. In this article we present preliminary results of the first exploratory study based on qualitative analysis of media sources from Autumn 2008 until Spring 2009, integrated by a second study aimed at the analysis of the contents and structure assisted by the Multidimensional Analysis for textual data (ALCESTE, Reinert, 1983) on 345 articles published from September 2008 to April 2010 on the homepage of generalist (La Repubblica) and specialized (Il Sole 24 ore) Italian newspapers websites. Further steps of the ongoing research program foresee qualitative and quantitative analyses of specialized and generalized media from Europe, US and China until 1st June 2010.

The social representation of the economic crisis in four European countries
The aim of this article is to present an international research on the social representation of the economic crisis. Given the complexity and the recency of this object, we chose a multimethodological approach. The data analysis was conducted in three successive stages: descriptive, interpretative, and comparative. In each country, the sample was made of participants from three different socio-economic categories: bankers, small merchants, economy students. This choice of categories allowed us to empirically test the concept of “distance to the object”. Strategies and techniques of data collection and processing are complex and quite innovative and they are explained in the text. In this article, we present only results related to the first phase of the whole research.

Thinking the ecological crisis: Representations and practices in France and Germany
This article examines how the ecological crisis makes sense in French and Germany. First, social representations' approach and the idea of “a human history of nature” help us to overcome some difficulties linked to the object. Then, we propose to approach the ecological crisis by considering motives for ecological practices. We use data from a comparative study in France and Germany and more specifically data from Focus Groups. Results show the antithetic nature of thêmata used to think about the ecological crisis in both countries and their connection with associated ecological practices.