Social Representations About Autism by University Students

Abstract This study aimed to identify the structure and socio-cognitive processes of the social representation of autism elaborated by university students. A total of 206 Brazilian university students participated in the study, most of whom were women attending public universities with a mean age of 22 years. The free word association technique was used, analyzed by prototypical analysis in IRAMUTEQ, and open questions were analyzed with thematic-categorical content analysis. The results revealed that the social representation of autism was anchored in mental illness and objectified in the description of Childhood Autism at ICD-10 since the most frequent element of the structure was “child” and the most readily evoked was “illness.” These findings especially suggest that a representation anchored in mental illness implies an attribution of a framework of beliefs and cognitions to autism and autistic people that reflects an atmosphere of many challenges to overcome phenomena such as prejudice and discrimination.

摘要 本研究旨在明确大学生所构建的自闭症社会表征的结构与社会认知过程。本研究共招募206名巴西大学生参与，其中多数为就读公立高校的女性，平均年龄为22岁。研究采用自由词联想技术，借助IRAMUTEQ工具开展原型分析；同时针对开放式问题，采用主题分类内容分析法进行编码分析。结果显示，自闭症的社会表征锚定于精神疾病范畴，并在《国际疾病分类第10版（International Classification of Diseases 10th Revision，ICD-10）》中对儿童自闭症的描述里被具象化——该表征结构中出现频率最高的元素为“儿童”，最易被唤起的元素为“疾病”。上述结果尤其表明，将自闭症的社会表征锚定于精神疾病范畴，意味着为自闭症及自闭症群体赋予了一套信念与认知框架，这折射出当下仍存在诸多亟待克服的挑战，诸如偏见与歧视等现象。