What to do in the face of crisis? Social representations of the willingness to take action

Abstract

Drawing on representations theory and the responses to a questionnaire from 453 Portuguese participants, we analyzed the variations and anchoring of the willingness to act against the austerity measures in the context of the recent economic crisis. The results reveal three main positions: doing nothing, economic resistance, and civic participation. The discussion is focused on the finding that the differences between the inclination for action or lack thereof are associated with ideological-political variables (attribution of responsibility for the crisis, representations of the European Union and political orientation), and personal variables (feelings), but not with respondents’ economic situation, which may be due to the fact that our sample is composed exclusively of students.