Positioning a ‘mature’ self in interactive practices: How adolescent males negotiate ‘physical attraction’ in group talk

Abstract

This article presents a discursive psychological approach in examining the ways that adolescent boys (ages 12–15 years) accomplish a sense of ‘maturity’ by bringing off and managing certain features of ‘heterosexuality’ in group interaction. We focus on and analyse moments when the boys negotiate implicit challenges, make evaluations and offer assessments concerning their physical and sexual attraction to girls' looks. These moments are highly important for negotiating their peer status, for working toward a distinction between ‘childhood’ and ‘adolescence’, and for marking a normatively heterosexual self within the burgeoning institution of adolescence. We will specifically show how ‘heterosexual desire’ is carefully managed in group discussions where the boys participate in normative heterosexuality, but in ways that are nevertheless designed to appear mature and knowing, rather than shallow, naïve or sexist. Three discursive methods of negotiation are identified and described in detail: (1) underscoring the non‐literality of actions by appealing to motives, (2) denials with built‐in concessions, and (3) differentiation through caricature. Couched within the proposed discursive framework, we are reversing the traditional logic of developmental approaches to ‘maturation’. Rather than viewing maturation as the effect of resolving developmental tasks, we argue that ‘maturity’ comes to existence in the way talk is accomplished; that is, as highly flexible and fragile projections of identity that involve a continuous refinement of ‘finely tuned positioning skills'.

Preadolescents' understanding and reasoning about asylum seeker peers and friendships

“…We used a discursive analytical approach for analyzing the discussions (see Edwards & Potter, 1992;Edwards & Stokoe, 2004;Korobov & Bamberg, 2004). This discursive analysis is not about coding and counting responses, but about examining the ways in which definitions and interpretations are accomplished in interactive social practices (Potter, 1998).…”

“…The active ways in which children in peer interactions define and construct reality and struggle with alternative interpretations and moral issues should be studied. The level of (verbal) interaction is important in itself and what children in interactions say can be treated as social practices with their own features and consequences (e.g., Edwards & Stokoe, 2004;Korobov & Bamberg, 2004).…”

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

“…Discursive social psychology represents an increasingly visible research approach that tries to avoid the mentalism of attitude theory while maintaining a psychological focus on individual-level processes (De Rosa, 2006;Korobov & Bamberg, 2004;Potter, 1998;Potter & Wetherell, 1987). Discursive social psychology refers to "a set of ideas and developments from discourse analysis, conversation analysis and rhetoric" that argues people construct "their worlds through their accounts and descriptions" (Potter,.…”

“…These accounts and descriptions constitute "a lexicon or register of terms and metaphors drawn upon to characterize and evaluate actions and events" (Potter & Wetherell,p. 138) and construct individual identities (Davies & Harré, 1990;Edley & Wetherell, 1997;Korobov & Bamberg, 2004). Thus, discursive social psychology represents an alternative between overly mentalistic individual accounts of meaning and disembodied semiotic accounts that ignore how individuals appropriate and apply meanings in their everyday lives.…”

“…Discourse analysts eschew "any form of cognitive reductionism, any explanation which treats linguistic behaviour as a product of mental entities or processes whether based on social representations or some other cognitive furniture such as attitudes, beliefs, goals, or wants" (Potter & Wetherell, 1987, p. 157). Korobov and Bamberg (2004) argued that discursive social psychology remains susceptible to potentially problematic "already-given" entities such as interpretive repertories, frames or scripts. To avoid these problems, Korobov and Bamberg drew a distinction between ready-made discourses or repertoires that risk discursive determinism and what they described as more agentive notions "in which the discursive resources are not always already given but rather are accomplished" (p. 475).…”