Discursive psychology

Discursive psychology begins with psychology as it faces people living their lives. It studies how psychology is constructed, understood and displayed as people interact in everyday and more institutional situations. How does a speaker show that they are not prejudiced, while developing a damning version of an entire ethnic group? How are actions coordinated in a counselling session to manage the blame of the different parties for the relationship breakdown? How is upset displayed, understood and receipted in a call to a child protection helpline? Questions of this kind require us to understand the kinds of things that are 'psychological' for people as they act and interact in particular settings - families, workplaces and schools. And this in turn encourages us to respecify the very object psychology

The Stereoscope and Popular Fiction: Imagination and Narrative in the Victorian Home

The stereoscope was a popular parlour toy that provided a powerful psychological viewing experience in the heart of the domestic space. In this article, I consider the stereoscope’s position as an instrument that was experienced, and often represented, in relation to the imaginative narrative processes of memory and fantasy. By reading the stereoscope’s position within popular fiction, the article seeks to uncover the way in which the stereoscope was consumed. The article shows that for many in the mid-Victorian period, the stereoscope operated as an everyday narrative-forming experience with a strong relation to the popular periodical fiction that was read alongside it in the domestic space. The first section of this article considers the cultural and psychological position of the stereoscope within the home, reading this alongside a number of short stories published in the popular periodic press. The second section consists of an analysis of the stereoscope’s involvement with psychological dualism and self-doubling, issues which stem, in particular, from the device’s reliance on photography. These aspects of the device are explored in relation to a nineteenth-century short story which draws a problematic relation between one’s self and one’s portrait. Finally, the article draws these issues together to show the importance of imaginative narratives within the stereoscopic experience. The viewing conditions of the stereoscope encouraged viewers to engage in an anticipatory, open-ended, and imaginative fantasy narrative. It is this unique narrative character of stereoscopic viewing experiences which most prominently distinguishes the device from other visual media

A Generalized Probabilistic Gibbard-Satterthwaite Theorem

Friedgut, Kalai, and Nisan have proved that social choice functions can be successfully manipulated by random preference reordering with non- negligible probability. However, their results require two restrictions: the social choice function must be neutral, and the election must have at most 3 alternatives. In this thesis we focus on removing the latter restriction and generalizing the results to elections with any number of candidates. We also provide a survey of related work analyzing and comparing results from a number of authors

Beyond cognitivism

What is the appropriate relation between the fields of language and social interaction (LSI) research and cognitive psychology? I wish to speculate about one possible future where LSI hijacks much of the action that would have been considered the province of cognitive psychology, respecifying and reorienting it as it does so. In this future, LSI becomes a foundational discipline in the social sciences rather than existing merely to service one of a wide array of different topic areas. It is a future of ambition and creative argument. LSI might need a name change, though

Discursive psychology: between method and paradigm

Hammersley (2003) criticizes a particular style of discourse research for developing as a distinct paradigm, yet lacking the coherence a paradigm would require. He suggests a range of problems in relation to constructionism, reflexivity and the ‘thin’ model of the human actor, and argues instead for methodological eclecticism in which discourse analytic methods are supplementary to alternatives. This commentary highlights a range of confusions and misunderstandings in this critique. In particular, it highlights the way discourse analytic work is connected to a range of theoretical notions, most fundamentally in its theorizing of discourse itself as a medium oriented to action. It identifies important sources of incoherence that can arise when mixing discourse analytic and more traditional methods. It reiterates the virtues of constructionism, particularly when considering the operation of descriptions, stresses the value of exploring (rather than ignoring) reflexive issues, and emphasizes the rich and nuanced approach to psychology that has been developed in this tradition

Cognition and conversation

This article considers the different approaches to cognition in conversation analysis (CA) and discursive psychology (DP). Its points are illustrated through a critical but appreciative consideration of an article by Drew in which he uses conversation analysis to identify ‘cognitive moments’ in interaction. Problems are identified with Drew’s analysis and the conclusions he draws. In particular, he a) presupposes a dualistic division between depth and surface; b) makes circular inferences from conventional conversational patterns to underlying cognitive entities; c) presupposes (rather than demonstrates) that the underlying cognitive entities influence conduct. It is argued that none of these things is required by conversation analysis; rather Drew is imposing cognitivist assumptions on conversational materials. Discursive psychology’s approach focuses on cognitive issues in terms of how they are constructed and oriented to in interaction; its virtues are pressed

Re-reading discourse and social psychology: transforming social psychology

This paper considers one theme in the contemporary legacy of Potter and Wetherell's (1987) Discourse and Social Psychology. It overviews the context that led to that book and considers a series of critical responses from both experimental and critical/qualitative social psychologists. It refutes criticisms and corrects confusions. Focusing on contemporary discursive psychology, it highlights (a) its rigorous use of records of actual behaviour; (b) its systematic focus on normative practices. In methodological terms, it (a) highlights limitations in the use of open-ended interviews; (b) considers the way naturalistic materials provide access to participants’ own orientations and displays; (c) builds a distinctive logic of sampling and generalization. In theoretical terms, it (a) highlights the way discourse work can identify foundational psychological matters; (b) offers a novel approach to emotion and embodiment; (c) starts to build a matrix of dimensions which are central to the constructing and recognizing of different kinds of social actions. It now offers a fully formed alternative social psychology which coordinates theory and method and a growing body of empirical work

Discursive social psychology: from attitudes to evaluative practices

This chapter reviews the major theoretical and methodological features of discursive social psychology and illustrates the scope and nature of this approach through showing the way it can respecify the social psychology of attitudes. It reviews discourse research on attitude variability; it describes conversation analytic studies on the way evaluations are managed in interaction and shows how our understanding of political oratory can be improved; it discusses the way evaluations are bound up with broader, culturally-defined systems of discourse; it discusses the relation between assessments and factual accounts; and finally it shows how a discursive approach can rework notions of function, consistency, vested interest and emotion

Two kinds of natural

Two kinds of natura

Discourse analysis and constructionist approaches: theoretical background

This chapter is structured in terms of questions and answers. There are several reasons for adopting this format. First, people often consult a handbook to find the answers to questions so the format may simplify this task. Second, most constructionist approaches place a considerable emphasis on dialogueand question-answer sequences are dialogue in one of its most prototypical forms. Third, constructionist researchers have been at the forefront of moves to rethink the literary forms in which social science is presented. I shall start with some general questions about constructionism and its place in psychology, and then I shall move on to focus on issues of method and analysis. I shall concentrate upon general principles and arguments, however, this is not intended to be a how-to-do-it chapter. Chapter 11, by Rosalind Gill, provides a more fleshed out example of a particular style of constructionist research