Social representations of EU states among Latvian inhabitants

The declaration of independence in 1991 entailed a transition of Latvia from the geographical space of the Soviet Union to the space of Europe. Joining the European Union in May 2004 caused an important transformation of social reality and “life-space” of Latvian inhabitants through their reflection of a new community. It caused a cardinal reconstruction of psychological representation of a new geographical space of the Latvian inhabitants. At present, each Latvian inhabitant creates a psychological concept of European countries, which is an image reflected in individual consciousness on the one hand, and a source of motivation on the other. The competence about Europe determines the degree of comfort or discomfort among Latvian inhabitants; their adaptation – or inability to adapt – to new geographical, economic and psychological environments; acceptance or non-acceptance of European values, norms and ways of life; attitudes to the idea of the European Union; and future perspectives for living in that community. Of course, many of the concepts that people have about Europe are non-verbal, spatial ideas. They are not easily translated into words. In this case, it is important to investigate the people’s subjective attitudes converting it to the scale of “positive” or “negative”/ the research is going to focus on peculiarities of the social representations of European countries among people of various age, region, education and ethnic groups in Latvia.