This thesis deals with different social representations, those of shoemaking, shoemakers, psychology and psychologists according to two experimental groups : shoemakers and psychologists. Indeed, the intellectual and manual professions are often placed at each end of the fields of work therefore seen as incompatible, while they both have a rich history and common issues in terms of mutual recognition and training.
To illustrate this idea, a specific field of handicraft and university was chosen, with shoemakingon one side and psychology on the other side. Thereby, 20 shoemakers and 20 psychologists were interviewed through a free association questionnaire for the 4 SR objects, as well as 20 individuals that were neither shoemakers nor psychologists. These results allowed a prototypical analysis of the core and peripheral systems, as well as a categorical analysis for each of them. The modeled social representations were thus analyzed from the angle of the occupations of the two groups and compared.
The prototypical analysis found similar cores for « shoemaking », with the words « leather » and « shoe ». Concerning the SR of « shoemaker », the concept of « skill » is the core element of the shoemaker’s representation, when « art handcrafter » is the main word for the psychologist group. About the « psychology » word, the shoemakers core is composed of the verb « to listen », when the psychologists have the word « science ». At last, the object « psychologist » gathers « to listen » and « to help » for the shoemakers and « kindness » and « to listen » for the psychologist group.
About the categorical analysis, interesting themes emerged for both groups, especially about the health risks at work for the shoemakers as well as a category pointing out the weird side of the psychologist, named « the difference ». For their part, the control group showed that, concerning the SR where the experimental groups were not specialists, they had indeed close results with more generalistic and broader words.
Semi-structured interviews with the experimental groups tested the meanings and the legitimacy of the analyzes. Thus, the results show that shoemakers make a distinction between bootmakers and multiservices shoemakers, where the former distinguish themselves from the latter to keep a positive identity even by being a minority. They are also closer to the SR of the « craftsman » shared by the psychologist group : someone keeping the « old way » of doing things, working with his hands only to do a finicky work, as well as the opposition to industrial work. For their part, psychologists present psychology in a dual way, as a human science to study but also a specific part of each human justifying the use of non-scientific techniques to analyze it. This element sheds a new light on the factionnal squabbles that is often condemned between psychologists, for example concerning the obediences of public universities, between CCT or psychoanalysis.
Some limits are also to be brought up, such has the small number of subjects that took part to the study. A study that would follow on from this thesis with bigger experimental size could confirm the results found here.
Key-words : social representations, psychologists, cobblers, shoemakers, interviews, free association
Words I learned :
- Finnicky
- Factionnal squabble.