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

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 (eta(2) = .03, p = .007), more negative emotions, stronger feelings of vulnerability and relative deprivation that resulted from comparison with others (all eta(2) >= .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.