Social stereotypes of college students in relation to the environmental defenders

Abstract

This paper has the objective/purpose of studying, and exploring in descriptive form, the contents of stereotypes of college students concerning to the environmental defenders. Three hundred and twenty-five (325) students of both sexes, average of 24 years old took part into this study. It was asked to the participants to express, in free way, all the attributes which came our to their minds for the stimulus expression "Environmental Defenders". Two thousand and fourteen (2,014) words of positive content and one thousand and thirty-four (1,034) of negative content were listed. Such content words were grouped by similarity into one hundred and nineteen (119) positive attributes and eighty-five (85) negative with their respective frequencies. Those attributes were categorized into three groups/nuclei of meanings (NS - NM) which constitute three semantic dimensions (DS - SD), respectively: (1) NM - Society, SD - Politics; (2) NM - Nature, SD - Ecological; (3) NM - Individual, SD - Personal. The obtained results show the attributes related by the college students, which can give support to actions and politics of environmental defenders and increase their effectiveness according to public opinion.

social stereotypes; college students; environmental defenders