Perceived ethnolinguistic vitality: The Anglo‐ and Greek‐Australian setting

Abstract

This paper addresses the issue of how ethnic groups cognitively represent some of the societal forces impinging upon them and relevant outgroups. By utilising the concept of ‘vitality’ and its attending measurement instrument (the SVQ), Greek‐ and Anglo‐Australians’ construals of the sociostructural positions of their own and that of the other group were elicited. The results indicated quite complex cognitive representations in that the two groups (i) agreed that Anglos possessed more vitality on certain status and institutional support, while Greeks assumed more vitality on certain demography items, (ii) disagreed frequently about each other's sociostructural positions, and (iii) weighted the questionnaire items differently. Moreover, four judgemental dimensions resembling closely the componential structure of the original ‘vitality’ construct accounted for most of the variance in a factor analysis of all subjects’ ratings. The findings provide strong empirical support for the social psychological reality of the concept of ‘perceived vitality’.