title: Social representations, correspondence factor analysis and characterization questionnaire: a methodological contribution.
abstract: The characterization questionnaire is inspired by Q-sort methodologies (i.e. qualitative sorting). It consists in asking participants to give their opinion on a list of items by sorting them into categories depending on their level of characterization of the object. This technique allows us to obtain distributions for each item and each response modality (i.e. characteristic vs. not chosen vs. not characteristic). This contribution intends to analyze these frequencies by means of correspondence factor analysis. The originality of this contribution lies in the fact that this kind of analysis has never been used to process data collected by means of this questionnaire. The procedure will be detailed and exemplified by means of two empirical studies on social representations of the good wine and the good supermarket. The interests of such a contribution will be discussed from both methodological points of view and an applications perspective.
authors.affiliation: Aix-Marseille Université, Laboratoire de Psychologie Sociale (LPS EA849), 13621 Aix-en-Provence Cedex 1, France. gregory.lo-monaco@univ-amu.fr
authors.forename: Grégory
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Lo Monaco
authors.forename: Anthony
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Piermattéo
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Guimelli
authors.forename: Jean-Claude
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Abric
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003258:Consumer Behavior; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008960:Models, Psychological; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D011779:Q-Sort; D036301:Qualitative Research; D012737:Sex Factors; D012923:Social Class; D012938:Social Perception; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*; D014920:Wine