Nature and Environment in Collective Perception. Study on the Plain Countryside of the Northern Half Crisana Province, Romania

Abstract

The main objective of this study is geared toward how the public understands the nature and the environment, and relates to them. The research universe is represented by the inhabitants of the plain step in the northern half of Crisana Province (north-western Romania). It started from the idea that social representations generate attitudinal and behavioral patterns and the way in which people interact with the environment and nature has a significant influence on quality of life and social development. Therefore, the social representations about the environment and nature have direct effects on our future and can be oriented towards the active participation to the efforts to protect the environment and the nature in general. There were 671 residents of 34 villages questioned and their answers have set a certain socio-geographical pattern on the specifics of life environment belonging to plain. The life environment was perceived by us as a way of reporting to the nature and the environment. The rural respondents from the plain come up with the most common answers, even identical in content, drawing the nature and the environment as ambience, as the space around them.

Collective and Social Representations on Nature and Environment: Social Psychology Investigation in Rural Areas

“…The relevant research, exploring Romanian space and particularly Transylvania, focuses less on the exhaustive, thorough treatment of nature and environment of the rural individual. With a few exceptions [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12], the Romanian rural space is analyzed rather from the perspective of a natural capital of village landscapes [13], mineral resource exploitation lifestyle [14], of the predictions and challenges which villages face [15], of rural communities living in Natura 2000 areas in Bihor County or in southern Transylvania [16,17], of sustainable agriculture via family farming [18], of ecological measures to protect the land [9], and of the phytocenotic diversity of grazing, ploughable forest lands [19,20].…”