French and Venezuelan People's Conceptualization of Human Rights: Indivisibility and Universality Issues.

The present study aimed to examine French unpaid participants' (N = 50) perceptions about Human Rights (HR). The material was a series of scenarios depicting a socio-political situation of a fictitious state and a response scale. Four critical items of information were provided: (a) the degree in which the State offers social protection to the citizens (not at all, intermediate or complete);(b) the level of respect for Civil Liberties in the country (no respect, intermediate, full respect);(c) the level of Equality between citizens (inequality of rights vs. equality of right);and (d) the level of Respect for the private life of the citizens (no respect for private life vs. full respect for private life). The 36 stories were obtained by the orthogonal crossing of the four factors: 3 x 3 x 2 x 2 = 36. Results from the French sample were compared with previous results from a Venezuelan sample (Guédez & Mullet, 2014). Results showed no difference in the importance given to Social Protection between French and Venezuelan participants. Also, the crucial four-way interaction was significant at a very stringent level, and the five-way interaction involving Country was not. Thus, it can be safely considered that the way HR are conceptualized is correctly expressed by the equation: Judged Respect for HR = Privacy x Civil Liberties x Equality x Social Protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]