Social discourse and normative influences

Alexis Ferrand (1) , Lise Mounier (1)

1 LASMAS - Laboratoire d'analyse sociologique et de méthodes appliquées aux sciences sociales

In the national survey “Analyse des Comportements Sexuels en France” (ACSF, N=20.000), we have designed a module allowing to describe up to three relation of confidence about sexual and emotional affairs (sub sample N=2340). That chapter presents the size and the composition of confidence networks in various categories of population, showing noticeably the important proportions of peoples who speak to no one of their sexual affairs (the steady sexual partner could not be cited). We suppose that it impedes the adaptation and adoption of campaign messages (it prevents the “two step flow”). The last part shows how interviewees perceive the sexual behaviour of their confident (that we define as practical norms). The younger you are, the higher status you have, the more seemingly your are to have an heterogeneous network composed of confidents who sexually behave and who react to AIDS differently from each others.

Mots clés: Sexual behaviour; discussion networks; norms; influence

Mots clés: Comportement sexuel; réseaux de discussion; normes

Domaines: Sociologie

Alexis Ferrand, Lise Mounier. Social discourse and normative influences. A.Spira, N.Bajos, and the ACSF Group. Sexual behaviour and AIDS, Avebury, pp.140-148, 1994. ⟨halshs-00257614⟩