Discursive Psychology: Between Method and Paradigm

Abstract

Hammersley (200*) criticises 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 where 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 theorising 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 emphasises the rich and nuanced approach to psychology that has been developed in this tradition.

Problems in Place: Using Discursive Social Psychology to Investigate the Meanings of Seasonal Homes

“…Such meanings and the processes of their production transcend aggregated individual meanings and may be more likely to be revealed in the kinds of discourse analysis advocated by Stokowski (2008) that rely on public discourses (e.g., documents, hearings). Similar issues animate a vigorous debate about whether discursive social psychology necessarily requires the imposition of a narrow paradigmatic orthodoxy or constitutes a general method that offers supplements and correctives to more conventional (e.g., attitudinal) forms of social scientific research (De Rosa, 2006;Hammersley, 2003;Potter, 2003a). In particular, Hammersley argued that discursive social psychology inappropriately and unnecessarily rejects the view of social actors as possessing or being guided by any "substantive, distinctive and stable mental characteristics" and "rules out the content of what people say about the world as a source of analytically usable information" (p. 752).…”

“…First, the emergence of discursive social psychology reflects an antagonistic position that sees no way to bridge the divide between discursive and experimental (i.e., attitudinal) social psychology (Potter, 2003a). Some researchers counter with an integrative position that presumes an underlying compatibility and possibility for eventual unification (Hammersley, 2003).…”

“…As with most approaches to discursive social psychology, our attempt to identify various interpretive frames that seasonal homeowners use to describe their second home experience was not an effort to identify universal categories of meanings, but rather exemplars of the ways people interpret, explain, and account for their actions and evaluations. In contrast to some positions (e.g., Potter, 2003a;Stokowski, 2008), we do not necessarily exclude the content of what people say as legitimate sources of information about meanings. In the end, the meanings embedded in narratives and texts are beyond anyone's direct observation.…”

Soft Prosody and Embodied Attunement in Therapeutic Interaction: A Multimethod Case Study of a Moment of Change

“…Thereafter, the third author watched the extracts and commented on the analysis, which was then further elaborated on the basis of his observations. The analysis was informed by ideas from conversational analysis (Goffman, 1979;Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974;Silverman & Peräkylä, 1990), and discursive psychology (Edwards & Potter, 1992;Potter, 2003). Particular use was made of methods for analyzing prosody (Couper-Kuhlen &Selting, 1996;Barth-Weingarten et al, 2010) and emotions (Peräkylä & Sorjonen, 2012) within interactions.…”

Rethinking the factuality of ‘contextual’ factors in an ethnomethodological mode: towards a reflexive understanding of action-context dynamism in the theorization of coaching

“…(Chelladurai & Saleh, 1980, p.35) and has, unquestionably, provided a significant contribution not only to the theoretical understanding of coaching, but also to its methodological toolbox (Cumming, Smith, & Smoll, 2006). As is typical of social-cognitive modeling in general (Edwards, 1997;Potter, 2003), however, what constitutes a "situational characteristic" is presupposed to be self-evident 3 , and the relationship between context and (required, actual and preferred) behaviour is taken to be monodirectional. This core conceptualization of the action-context relationship is also apparent in the Mediational Model of Adult Leadership Behaviours in Sport (Smoll & Smith, 1984), developed shortly after the MDML (see Figure 3).…”