The psychological investigation of heroism is relatively new. At this stage, inductive methods can shed light on its main aspects. Therefore, we examined the social representations of Hero and Everyday Hero by collecting word associations from two separate representative samples in Hungary. We constructed two networks from these word associations. The results show that the social representation of Hero is more centralized and it cannot be divided into smaller units. The network of Everyday Hero is divided into five units and the significance moves from abstract hero characteristics to concrete social roles and occupations exhibiting pro-social values. We also created networks from the common associations of Hero and Everyday Hero. The structures of these networks show a moderate similarity and the connections are more balanced in case of Everyday Hero. While heroism in general can be the source of inspiration, the promotion of everyday heroism can be more successful in encouraging ordinary people to recognize their own potential for heroic behavior.
We developed a method that can identify polarized public opinions by finding modules in a network of statistically related free word associations. Associations to the cue Bmigrant^were collected from two independent and comprehensive samples in Hungary (N 1 = 505, N 2 = 505). The co-occurrence-based relations of the free word associations reflected emotional similarity, and the modules of the association network were validated with well-established measures. The positive pole of the associations was gathered around the concept of BRefugees^who need help, whereas the negative pole associated asylum seekers with BViolence.^The results were relatively consistent in the two independent samples. We demonstrated that analyzing the modular organization of association networks can be a tool for identifying the most important dimensions of public opinion about a relevant social issue without using predefined constructs.
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