Discursive Social Psychology

Misyurov D.A. Dialectical formulas based on the binary notation as the development formulas // Credo New. 2012. №2

by Dmitry Misyurov

The article suggests dialectical formulas based on the binary notation as the development formulas: formula with... more The article suggests dialectical formulas based on the binary notation as the development formulas: formula with dominant and the non-dominant elements; universal formula; formula with symbolic weight of elements; tautological formula. For example, it suggests an opportunity to use the dialectical formulas for modeling and artificial intelligence creation, etc.

Villains, Victims, and the Financial Crisis: Positioning Identities through Descriptions

by Andrea Whittle

Chapter 7, in Constructing Identity in and around Organizations
Edited by Majken Schultz, Steve Maguire, Ann Langley, and Haridimos Tsoukas (Oxford University Press, 2012)

This chapter draws insights from the field of Discursive
Psychology (DP) to examine the identity positioning... more This chapter draws insights from the field of Discursive
Psychology (DP) to examine the identity positioning employed in the
narratives surrounding the financial crisis. Existing narrative, discursive,
and communicative approaches to studying identity have tended
to focus on more or less explicit identity-talk, where participants produce
direct accounts of themselves or others. What is less well understood
is how descriptions of objects, actions, and events perform
identity work. This chapter contributes by showing how DP enables
us to understand how apparently “neutral” and “factual” descriptive
accounts act as a form of identity positioning.We focus our analysis on
the identity positions constructed during a public hearing involving
senior banking executives in the United Kingdom. The analysis suggests
that two competing identities, victim and villain, were constructed for
the bankers in the dialogue between the witnesses (bankers) and the
questioners (politicians).We argue that apparently neutral descriptions
of events, such as accounts of what happened and why, can represent
methods of positioning identity.We propose that a “discursive devices”
approach, inspired by DP, contributes to the understanding of identity
positioning by highlighting the power of micro-linguistic tools in laying
out the moral landscape of the characters involved in the description.
We conclude by arguing that the characters and stories
surrounding the financial crisis are important because they acted to
shape how the crisis was made sense of and acted upon.

The Language of Interests: The Contribution of Discursive Psychology

by Andrea Whittle

Human Relations March 2011 vol. 64 no. 3 415-435

In this article we outline the contribution of the field of Discursive Psychology (DP) for the understanding of... more In this article we outline the contribution of the field of Discursive Psychology (DP) for the understanding of interests in organization studies. We discuss the limitations of viewing interests and motives as cognitive states, essential drivers of action and explanatory variables. Following DP, we propose to view interests and motives as a key component of meaningful social practice, making interests and motives a topic for analysis rather than resource for explanation. DP offers a distinct approach to analyzing the accounts that people make about their interests in a particular state of affairs, their stake in a particular situation, or their motive in pursuing a particular course of action. To illustrate our argument, we analyze two data extracts from a qualitative study of a UK public-private partnership. By illustrating the way in which interests are dealt with in different interactional situations, we seek to contribute by outlining a more sophisticated and insightful way of understanding interests within organization studies.

Translating Management Ideas: A Discursive Devices Analysis

by Andrea Whittle

Organization Studies February 2011 vol. 32 no. 2 187-210

This paper puts forward a discursive devices approach to analysing the linguistic practices involved in the... more This paper puts forward a discursive devices approach to analysing the linguistic practices involved in the translation of management ideas. The paper draws on empirical data from a study of a quality improvement initiative in a UK public—private partnership. To illustrate our argument, we examine the discursive devices skilfully employed by two change champions during a training session to introduce staff to the new quality regime. Drawing insights from the field of discursive psychology, we analyse how a variety of discursive devices, such as footing, are employed to translate the idea during dialogue between sellers and recipients. We suggest that skilful variation can play a relevant role in the translation of management ideas.

Claiming and displaying (national) identity

by Susan Condor

Analytic techniques currently employed in empirical work on national identity often fail to correspond to the way in... more Analytic techniques currently employed in empirical work on national identity often fail to correspond to the way in which the construct is conceptualised in theory. In particular, approaches that emphasise the strategic and dialogic quality of national identity claims in everyday life do not easily combine with analytic practices that treat interview respondents’ self-descriptions as acts of literal self-disclosure. Applying Goffman’s constructs of frame and footing to a corpus of data collected in England, we consider how national identities may be performatively displayed in interview encounters. We argue that analytic approaches that overlook subordinate channels of communication, which take utterances out of narrative context, and which focus on what respondents report explicitly at the expense of what is elided or assumed in conversation, may contribute to overly literal, and conceptually unsophisticated, interpretations of the process of self-representation.

Reflexive modernity's reflexive actors

by Nikos Bozatzis

Seismic Affection

by Nikos Bozatzis

THE MORALITY PLAY

by Derek B. Miller

A complex case of pride: Expressive behaviour, mixed emotions and the discursive approach to emotion

by Gavin Sullivan

In press chapter to be published in 2011. Current citation information is:

Sullivan, G. B. (2011). A complex case of pride: Expressive behaviour, mixed emotions and the discursive approach to emotion. In A. Freitas-Magalhães (Ed.), Emotional expression: The brain and the face (Vol. 3), pp. XXX-XXX. Oporto: University Fernando Pessoa Press.

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Pride has been presented as an emotion that is very often positive and is clearly expressed in prototypical forms in... more Pride has been presented as an emotion that is very often positive and is clearly expressed in prototypical forms in celebrations of personal triumph. However, there are some problems with this view: expressions of prototypical pride may in fact be uncommon occurrences (Tracy & Robins, 2004), there is some evidence to suggest that pride is often mixed with components of other positive and negative emotions (Sullivan, 2010) and a role for language in understanding pride has been largely avoided (Sullivan, 2007). This chapter will examine these issues using a specific detailed case study of a New Zealand golfer, Michael Campbell, winning the US Open tournament in 2005. Although idiographic approaches such as case studies are not widely used in psychology, they can provide valuable insights for subsequent empirical testing, theoretical elaboration and conceptual analysis. This chapter examines Campbell's immediate reactions to winning and analyses his expressive behaviour and remarks at the trophy presentation ceremony and includes material from a subsequent press interview. The results indicate that understanding facial and bodily expressive actions in situations of personal triumph—including controllable and uncontrollable, spontaneous and intentional features—requires close attention to their meaning and personal significance as described and expressed in discourse.

Αναδεικνύοντας Διεργασίες Ιδεολογικής Αναπαραγωγής: Ψευδής συνείδηση και ιδεολογικά διλήμματα

by Nikos Bozatzis

Occidentalism and Accountability: Constructing culture and cultural difference in majority Greek talk about the minority in Western Thrace. Discourse & Society, 20(4): 431-453, 2009

by Nikos Bozatzis

Drawing upon the notion of occidentalism, developed within cultural theory and critical ethnography, this paper... more Drawing upon the notion of occidentalism, developed within cultural theory and critical ethnography, this paper explores ways in which explicit and / or implicit assumptions about the West and western self are implicated, in their conversational mobilization, to accountability management. The data analysed come from a study in Western Thrace (Greece), which included interviews and focus group with majority Greek educators about the Muslim minority historically residing in the region. The analysis presented employs tools from critical discursive social psychology. Building upon discourse analytic treatments within social psychology on the mobilization of national categories and accountability management in talk, it is argued that the banal indexicalisation of national categories in talk opens the space for a critical interrogation of the banal indexicalisation of an occidentalist cultural imagery that posits a hierarchical distinction between cultures of the West and the Rest.

Fear of crime in South Africa: Obsession, compulsion, disorder

by Ravi Baghel

This paper proposes a five-factor social psychological model for understanding the "fear of crime" in South Africa. It argues that this phenomenon goes beyond fear, and beyond crime and is influence by the social psychological context, and the recent rapid changes in society. Consequently any attempt to address fear of crime must make an attempt to address these factors; or else actuarial and spectacular responses shall continue to offer temporary relief from anxiety, without doing anything to address this phenomenon in the long term.

This paper is an exploration into the fear of crime that pervades South
Africa, indeed more than crime itself.... more This paper is an exploration into the fear of crime that pervades South
Africa, indeed more than crime itself. The obvious linkage of high rates
of crime resulting in higher degree of fear of crime suggests itself.
However, in the South African context, there exist several paradoxes
between actual risk and perceived risk, and the linkage between crime
and fear is not as direct as it would intuitively appear. Further, in case
of South Africa the fear of crime is not just at the level of fear but can
better be described as hysteria, paranoia or obsession. Indeed this level
of fear of crime has had consequences both for policing responses and
popular responses (like lynching) to crime. Therefore, in this paper I
shall apply a five factor social-psychological model to South Africa, that
may explain not just the fear itself but also the reasons for the degree
of fear expressed