La soluzione di un problema politico in militanti e non militanti

The study investigated the influence of the "militancy" variable on the solution of a political problem. Two groups of subjects, one of party militants, the other of non-militants similar to the first group in terms of age, educational level and ideological orientation, were asked to think aloud while solving a problem. The transcripts of their solutions were analysed in two ways, for reasoning strategies and for knowledge contents. In the first analysis, the militant group proved superior in length of argument, though not in the quality of reasoning stategies. In the second analysis both groups made the same number of comments about the technical issues relating to the set problem of urban pollution. The non-militants referred more frequently to the social issues, though more in terms of ideas than in terms of action by individuals and people in general, at the expense of references to political issues, especially of a strategic and economic nature. By contrast, the militant group made more references to these strategic and economic strategies at the expense of social issues, which were more concerned with groups and with action rather than with individuals and ideas. On the whole, the results show that the differences between militants and non militants in solving political problems are attributable to different ways of representing the problems themselves, rather than to differences of competence.