The Thousand Shades of the Financial and Economic Crisis: a Study of the Social Representations of the Crisis in Portugal

Abstract

The study describes the representations of 453 Portuguese students about the present financial and economic crisis, examining the impact of the family financial situation on these representations, and the relationship between these representations and different factors likely to influence them. An initial word association task produced 2339 responses, from which 86.75% were classified into six classes by a downward hierarchical classification. Four classes (58.26% of the corpus) confirmed that the austerity measures implemented in Portugal affected the respondents with different degrees of severity: respondents described the consequences of the crisis in terms of misery, difficulties, or change, depending on their family’s income. More generally, the discourses (41.73% of the corpus) pointed out the factors that were viewed as responsible for the crisis as well as the geopolitical situation of Portugal. The answers given to opinion scales revealed a consistent pattern of results: respondents with a lower family income experienced less positive emotions toward the crisis (η2 = .03, p = .007), more negative emotions, stronger feelings of vulnerability and relative deprivation that resulted from comparison with others (all η2 ≥ .05, p < .001). However, the unequal consequences of the crisis were reflected neither in differences in the respondents’ expectations about their future situation, which they foresaw without great changes, nor in their lack of willingness to participate in protest actions against the austerity measures.

Predictors of the Perceived Efficacy of Actions Against Austerity Measures

“…Respondents with a lower family income experienced less positive emotions and more negative emotions toward the crisis, as well as stronger feelings of vulnerability and relative deprivation that resulted from comparison with others (Poeschl, Valentim, & Silva, 2015). However, respondents did not differ in their expectations about their future situation, which they foresaw without great changes, and, unlike the Greek respondents, declared a similar unwillingness as the other respondents to participate in protest actions.…”

“…Another study using a free association task compared the discourses of Portuguese students based on their family income (Poeschl, Valentim, & Silva, 2015). The word most frequently associated with the crisis was "poverty".…”

“…Then, after verifying that they were related to the willingness to take action (cf. Chryssochoou et al, 2010;Poeschl et al, 2015), we looked for the relative weight of the societal, crisisrelated and individual-related variables for the assessment of their efficacy.…”

Attributing and Managing the Crisis: Lay Representations in Three European Countries

“…Others have examined the effect of people's financial position, feelings of vulnerability, and emotions on their willingness to take action against the austerity measures implemented in their country (Chryssochoou, Papastamou & Prodromitis, 2013;Poeschl, Valentim & Silva, 2015).…”

Socio-cognitive Elaborations and Reactions to Economic Crisis: Insights from Social Psychology

“…For example, studies on the social representations of crisis (Galli et al, 2010;Poeschl, Valentim & Silva, 2015), showed that crisis is perceived mostly through negative meanings, like poverty, unemployment, and (lack of) money. But the understanding of crisis is anchored in differences in the people's financial situation.…”