Secularism in France is both a state principle and a cultural construct, that enforces a State neutrality towards religion. Recent studies have demonstrated the emergence of a lay conception called 'New Secularism' (NS) that is used to legitimize expression of prejudice towards North African minorities. However, none have been able to yet demonstrate links between NS and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO), which would further corroborate those beliefs' role as prejudice justification. Using Social Representations Theory, we created a Secularism questionnaire and used it in a cross sectional survey (N = 261) that also included SDO and Generalized Prejudice measures. In order to test social representation of Secularism's legitimizing function, we derived the hypothesis that NS will mediate the link between SDO and expressed Prejudice from a Social Dominance perspective. Results support our predictions and are discussed in light of intergroup status quo legitimization processes and their links with social representations.

Secularism in France is both a state principle and a cultural construct, that enforces a State neutrality towards religion. Recent studies have demonstrated the emergence of a lay conception called ‘New Secularism’ (NS) that is used to legitimize expression of prejudice towards North African minorities. However, none have been able to yet demonstrate links between NS and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO), which would further corroborate those beliefs’ role as prejudice justification. Using Social Representations Theory, we created a Secularism questionnaire and used it in a cross sectional survey (N = 261) that also included SDO and Generalized Prejudice measures. In order to test social representation of Secularism’s legitimizing function, we derived the hypothesis that NS will mediate the link between SDO and expressed Prejudice from a Social Dominance perspective. Results support our predictions and are discussed in light of intergroup status quo legitimization processes and their links with social representations.

Although campaigns promoting organ donation have proved their effectiveness, increasing the number of people who explicitly agree to become donors is still difficult. Based on the social marketing notion of persuasive technology, we reasoned that it was timely to focus on the design of this persuasive technology and to analyze its contribution in particularly challenging contexts such as organ donation. More specifically, the originality of the present study lay in the way we linked the field of persuasive technology to the theory of social representations, and combined them with an analysis of the ergonomic aspects of interface layout. This study had two complementary goals. The first was to determine whether the sociocognitive salience of the central elements of social representations (i.e., the most frequent and important themes related to the subject—here, organ donation—for individuals), can be used to achieve persuasive outcomes. The second was to determine whether interface layout, in terms of information location and background characteristics (color and contrast), can strengthen the persuasive impact. University students (N > 200) were exposed to a computer screen displaying a message involving either central or peripheral elements of the social representations of organ donation (status), placed either in the middle or on one side of the screen (location), and shown against either a white or a blue background (background). Eye-tracking data were recorded, in addition to self-reported data. In line with the elaboration likelihood model, results showed that participants who were exposed to central (vs. peripheral) elements of the social representations of organ donation followed the central route in processing information. Moreover, they had stronger attitudes, and more of them stated that they were actual organ donors. Importantly, however, at least for some variables, these status-related effects were not independent of the interface layout. More specifically, the persuasive impact of the central elements was enhanced when the information was displayed in the middle (vs. the side) of the screen and when it was displayed on a white (vs. blue) background. We discuss the theoretical and practical issues raised by these results.

IntroductionThe use of social marketing strategies to induce the promotion of cognitive health has received little attention in research. The objective of this scoping review is twofold: (i) to identify the social marketing strategies that have been used in recent years to initiate and maintain health-promoting behaviour; (ii) to advance research in this area to inform policy and practice on how to best make use of these strategies to promote cognitive health.Methods and analysisWe will use the five-stage methodological framework of Arksey and O’Malley. Articles in English published since 2010 will be searched in electronic databases (the Cochrane Library, DoPHER, the International Bibliography of the Social Sciences, PsycInfo, PubMed, ScienceDirect, Scopus). Quantitative and qualitative study designs as well as reviews will be considered. We will include those articles that report the design, implementation, outcomes and evaluation of programmes and interventions concerning social marketing and/or health promotion and/or promotion of cognitive health. Grey literature will not be searched. Two independent reviewers will assess in detail the abstracts and full text of selected citations against the inclusion criteria. A Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses flowchart for Scoping Reviews will be used to illustrate the process of article selection. We will use a data extraction form, present the results through narrative synthesis and discuss them in relation to the scoping review research questions.Ethics and disseminationEthics approval is not required for conducting this scoping review. The results of the review will be the first step to advance a conceptual framework, which contributes to the development of interventions targeting the promotion of cognitive health. The results will be published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. They will also be disseminated to key stakeholders in the field of the promotion of cognitive health.

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