From Similitude Analysis to Guttman effects in the study of Social Representations

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From Similitude Analysis to Guttman effectsin
the study of Social Representations
Laurent Milland
Claude Flament University of Poitiers
University of Provence
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Similitude Analysis

• Internal organization of a social
  representations elements

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Similitude Analysis in the study of social
representations

• Social representation
•  Organized set of information  (Abric, 2003)

set of information

• Contents
•  cognèmes  (Codol, 1969 Flament, 1986),
•  nodules de sens  (Lahlou, 2001)
• Elements of Knowledge of the representation
• Examples
• SR of employment payment, well-being, etc.
• SR of higher education diploma, acquire a
  qualification
• SR of ideal group equality, the same centres of
  interest

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Similitude Analysis in the study of social
representations

• Social representation
•  Organized set of information  (Abric, 2003)

Organized set of information

• Structure
• Central core and peripherical system (Abric,
  1976)
• A global organization of these elements
• Each element has relations with the others
• These relations (implication, resemblance,
  antagonistic, etc.) can be translated by the
  vague idea
•  Matching more or less  (Flament, 1986)

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Similitude Analysis in the study of social
representations

• A social object is complex
• The elements which compose its representation
  maintain numerous relations
• The organization of all these relations is
  difficult to identify
• The identification of a structure of these
  relations should allow us to extract the main
  part of these relations.

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Similitude Analysis in the study of social
representations

• The identification of a structure of these
  relations should allow us to extract the main
  part of these relations
• A picture as an example
• The similitude analysis extracting the skeleton
  of the representation
• The researcher will give a signification to the
  skeleton (a bird or a horse)

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Similitude Analysis in the study of social
representations

• A basic study of a social representation
• Searching for the contents
• Free association task
• Interview
• Searching for the organization of the contents
• Identification of the strongest relations between
  the elements structure of association
  (similitude analysis)
• Identification of the structure MEC, SCB

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Example 1 (inspired from Abric, 2003)Stage 1
Research of the contents

• Contents of the employment representation
• Constraints
• Social integration
• An obligation
• To Finance its leisure activities
• The means to have relations
• The means to earn the keep
• Personal blooming
• Self-confidence

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Example 1 (inspired from Abric, 2003)Stage 2 A
simple questionnaire

• Think about employment. Put a tick against the
  proposals which, according to you, are the most
  characteristic of what is employment
• Constraints
• social integration
• An obligation
• To Finance its leisure activities
• The means to have relations
• The means to earn the keep
• Personal blooming
• Self-confidence

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Example 1 (inspired from Abric, 2003) Stage 3
Data capture

• Chosen propositon 1
• Non chosen proposition 0

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Example 1 (inspired from Abric, 2003) Stage 4
Measurement of the relations
Simple index co-occurence or
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Example 1 (inspired form Abric, 2003) Stage 4
Measurement of the relations
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Example 1 (inspired from Abric, 2003) Stage 4
Measurement of the relationsThe similitude
matrix (Co-occurrence)
All the elements are connected What sort of
information could we extract from this matrix ?
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Example 1 (inspired from Abric, 2003) Stage 4
From similitude matrix to the structure of the
relations between elements of a representation

• What sort of information could we extract from
  this matrix ?
• We have to summarize these informations
• We can associate a number to each element
• Constraints 1
• Social integration 2
• An obligation 3
• To Finance its leisure activities 4
• The means to have relations 5
• The means to earn the keep 6
• Personal blooming 7
• Self-confidence 8

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Example 1 (inspired from Abric, 2003) Stage 4
From similitude matrix to the structure of the
relations between elements of a representation

• We re going to try to represent the relations
  between each element.
• We can decide to represent a relation between two
  elements by a segment
• Example
• Constraints 1 2 Social
  integration
• An obligation 3 2 To Finance its
  leisure activities

We want to summarize these informations and to
extract a clear structure of relations
A graph
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Example 1 (inspired from Abric, 2003) Stage 4
From similitude matrix to the structure of the
relations between elements of a representation

• We want to summarize these informations and to
  extract a clear structure of relations
• And when we represent all the relations
• is it clearer ?

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Example 1 (inspired from Abric, 2003) PAUSE
The graph theory will allow us to

• Represent the structure of the relations
• To provide algorithms which make it possible to
  extract the essence of information