Abstract

CHAMON, Edna Maria Querido de Oliveira  and  MORAES, Pedro Milton de. Social representation of risk in potentially dangerous activities. Temas psicol. [online]. 2011, vol.19, n.1, pp. 243-252. ISSN 1413-389X.

Normally, risk, a hazardous situation with potential to cause damage and loss to people and facilities, is considered under a pure technical point of view. We intend to investigate the risk under a psychosocial perspective, anchored on the social representation of a group dealing with the risk. We present two studies: an oil company and a chemical company, producer of explosives. Data were collected through a set of semi-structured interviews: 16 individuals were interviewed for the oil company, and 15 individuals for the chemical company. An automatic content analysis was performed using the software ALCESTE©. Results show that risk concept is related to control and reliance on abstract systems and at the same time is focused on human reliability. There is a marked cleavage between representational contents related to a mechanical perspective of risk management and contents related to potentially dangerous activities, specific to the studied groups

Keywords : Social representation; Risk; Risk representation; Risk society.

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