Chapter 8 Flashcards
What kind of questions did Finlay and Eatough ask people? What did they focus on?
What is the experience of making a meaningful connection does its others? They focused on people’s descriptions of similar experiences.
What kind of questions do phenomenologists ask?
Distinctive research questions about people’s experience of the world (to find commonalities in structure).
What are phenomenologists interested in?
People’s own experiences (not our interpretations) in sociology-cultural lifeworlds.
Why has attraction and the forming of relationships recently become a focus of research again?
Social change in the west - technology, dating apps etc.
Because the literature on attraction and relationship formation is fragmented, Finkel and Eastwidk attempted to integrate three meta theoretical principles. What do these have in common?
Satisfy needs/goals.
What are the three theoretical principles that Finkel and Eastwick tried to integrate?
Domain-general reward perspectives (e.g. Pleasure, belonging, self-esteem, consistency); domain-specific evolutionary perspectives; attachment perspectives.
According to Finkel and Eastwick, what is the purpose of relationships?
Instrumentality (other people are used as a means to an end/achieve goals).
What are two problems with Finkel and Eastwick’s research?
Used American undergraduate SS, the assumption of instrumentality guided the data rather than emerging from the data (so problems of validity).
What do phenomenologists need to do before they explain?
Describe and gain insight into meaning.
Why do phenomenologists bracket out theory?
So data can speak for itself (rather than preconceptions).
What five facets did Finlay and Eatough find in their participants’ experiential accounts? What evidence of instrumentality was there?
Bonding, fellowship, destiny, chemistry, love. No evidence of instrumentality.
What is phenomenological reduction?
No preconceptions, biases. Avoid abstracting, theorizing, generalizing. Gain access to ‘the things themselves’ (don’t define experience for participants beforehand).
What is the first epoché?
No natural scientific thinking, no lens but on its own terms.
In the second epoché, do we return to the natural attitude?
No.
In the second epoché, what do we focus on?
Focus on how something is subjectively experienced and its meaning in a person’s lifeworld.
What does phenomenological analysis involve?
Systematic readings, empathic immersion, iterative, emergent understandings.
According to Ihde, what are three processes which can help achieve phenomenological reduction?
Description (don’t use existing theories); horizontalisation (treat everything as equally important, don’t impose hierarchy of meaning/importance); verification (constantly check back with person to see if that was what was really meant).
