Discursive psychology
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For other uses of the word, see discursive
Discursive psychology is a form of discourse analysis that focuses on psychological themes. It was developed in the 1990s by Jonathan Potter and Derek Edwards at Loughborough University. It draws on Wittgenstein's later philosophy, the rhetorical approach of Michael Billig, the ethnomethodology of Harold Garfinkel and the conversation analysis of Harvey Sacks. Discursive psychological studies highlight the way people construct versions of 'mental', 'social' and 'material' events and processes as parts of particular practices.
Discursive psychology conducts studies of naturally occurring human interaction that offer new ways of understanding topics in social and cognitive psychology such as memory and attitudes. Although discursive psychology subscribes to a different view of human mentality than is advanced by mainstream psychology, Edwards and Potter's work was originally motivated by their dissatisfaction with how psychology had treated discourse. In many psychological studies, the things people (subjects) say are treated as windows (with varying degrees of opacity) in to their minds. Talk is seen as (and in experimental psychology and protocol analysis used as) descriptions of people's mental content. In contrast, discursive psychology treats talk as social action; that is, we say what we do as a means of, and in the course of, doing things in a socially meaningful world. Thus, the questions that it makes sense to ask also change. For example, how are accounts constructed to manage issues of attitude and motive? Edwards and Potter illustrate this with an excerpt from a rape trial.
Counsel: [referring to a club where the defendant and victim met] It's where girls and fellas meet, isn't it?
Witness: People go there.
Note how Counsel and Witness produce competing descriptions of the place, each of which offers inferences to the jury. 'It's where girls and fellas meet' gives an impression of what the clientele are expecting and wanting; while 'people go there' neutralizes that impression. The alternative descriptions imply different attitudes, motives and even moral status. These psychological matters are played out in the competing descriptions offered by the two parties to this interaction. This is what discursive psychology is about.
In the past few years work in discursive psychology has focused on material from real world situations such as relationship counselling, child protection helplines and neighbour disputes. It asks questions such as the following. How does a party in relationship counselling construct the problem as something that the other party needs to work on? Or how does a child protection officer working on a child protection helpline manage the possibly competing tasks of soothing a crying caller and simultaneously elicit evidence sufficient for social services to intervene to help an abused child?
It is philosophically opposed to more traditional cognitivist approaches to language. It uses studies of naturally occurring conversation to critique the way that topics have been conceptualised and treated in psychology.
[edit] Central texts
- Edwards, D (1997) Discourse and Cognition. London: Sage.
- Edwards, D., & Potter, J. (1992). Discursive Psychology (ISBN 0-8039-8442-1) London: Sage.
[edit] Further reading
- Button, G., Coulter, J., Lee, J.R.E. & Sharrock, W. (1995). Computers, minds, and conduct. Polity Press, Cambridge, UK.
- Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall.
- Hepburn, A. (2003). Crying: Notes on description, transcription and interaction. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 37, 251-90.
- Potter, J. (1996). "Discourse analysis and constructionist approaches: Theoretical background". In J. T. E. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of qualitative research methods for psychology and the social sciences (pp. 125-140). Leicester: BPS Books.
- Potter, J. (1996). Representing reality: Discourse, rhetoric and social construction. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
- Wood, L. & Kroger, R. (2000). Doing discourse analysis: Methods for studying action in talk and text. London: Sage Publications.
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