Characteristics and social representation of ecstasy in Europe - Irefrea

same time, are not recognised by all the specialists on representations, and which willcondition the methodology for the survey, as we will see.As for the methodology, as Abric explains in his book “Pratiques et représentationssociales”(Abric, 1994), two unavoidable questions are raised; the collection ofrepresentations, on the one hand, and analysis of the data obtained, on the other.Therefore the methodology must take into account instruments capable of discoveringthe content of the representations, and instruments which enable their analysis with theobjective of establishing the relationships between the components, ordering themhierarchically if possible, and instruments capable of discovering the central nucleus.In order to determine the components of the representation -its contents, in otherwords- Abric (1994) proposes interrogative methods such as the interview, thequestionnaire, the single-subject focus or the drawings method with graphical support,or associative methods such as free association or the associative card.In order to meet the second objective -to get to know the relationships between thecomponents of the representation- we are using two types of methods, those whichserve only to discover the relationships between the components (constitution of pairsof words, of groups of words, etc.) and those with which the components are alsoordered hierarchically, such as successive hierarchical selections and successiveselections by blocks. It is preferable to utilise the second of these, those which, inaddition to showing the relationships between the components, also provide informationon the closeness of the relationships because, in this way, it is possible to go on toidentify the components that form part of the central nucleus.Finally, to confirm which of these identified components form the central nucleusof the representation, we can utilise the following centrality tests, the ISA (method“Induction par Scénario Ambigu”), the SCB (Base cognitive squema) or the “mise encause du noyau central” method.Returning to our survey, our intention was to make a first approach to socialrepresentations and their structure, as going any deeper would have required more timeand more surveys. We have not, therefore, gone on to defining more specific aspects ofrepresentation such as its central nucleus and its peripheral system. For the moment, wehave restricted ourselves to collecting social representations and to sketching out whatcould be the first outline of their structure.The methods selected for the survey on social representations of ecstasy were theinterview and the documentary analysis to ascertain the constitutive components of therepresentation and the successive selection by blocks method for arranging them inorder. This method allowed for a Similitude Analysis on the basis of which we obtaineda distance index going from +1 (maximum similitude) to -1 (maximum exclusion).Therefore, it gives us information on the relationships established between the variablesand their importance. This is the information that appears in the diagrams and on thebasis of which we have made some interpretations on ecstasy use.105