The social representation as a consensual system and correlation analysis

Résumé

This paper discusses the problems with the standard correlation analysis in the context of the research on social representations as consensual systems. Some first steps to find a central tendency of such consensual systems are given. Furthermore, the general problem of two different aspects of a social representation are discussed : its "representativeness" as a qualitative characteristic of a consensual system and its most characteristic reaction on a quantitative reaction scale.