Chapter 9 Flashcards
How is identity different to personality?
Personality is stable and measurable.
What is identity?
Our theory about ourselves.
Where does identity come from?
How we think, feel and talk about ourselves and how others do.
What does the concept of identity link together?
Personal and social identities.
In what context are social identities and personal identities linked together?
A specific social context with specific cultural and historical resources that can be used to construct identity.
Are identities what you e what or what you do?
What you do and what is done to you. Constructed in interaction with other people/socially.
To what stent are identities static and fixed.
Not at all. They are fluid and variable.
What is the difference between identity and the way in which natural science views personality?
Personality is static and fixed.
Because social interactions vary…
…identity varies.
How does one achieve a stable, coherent identity?
If perception of self is the same as the way you are seen by your social context.
Identities of groups of people, which are taken for granted, are controlled by who?
Those in power.
What happens when one has problems with one’s own social activity (less smooth and coordinated)?
It threatens sense of identity, its cohesion
What is the relationship of identity to context?
Identity changes in a different context.
Who says identity is ‘noisy, dialogical, distributed’ and formed in relation to others?
Social constructionists.
What is the basis of the shift from thing about identity as stable and thinking about it as unstable?
Discourse
Discourse analysts think about the …….of language.
Functions
To what extent does identity exist outside discourse?
It doesn’t.
In what three ways do discourse psychologists look at language?
Construction, variation, function
What can we say about ‘reality’?
That there are different versions of it.
What do discursive psychologists think about construction?
How are different versions of reality constructed and why?
What is the emphasis on variation?
Dps look at how different versions of reality are constructed.
What are the two different levels of analysis?
The micro and the macro
What does the micro approach focus on?
The details of the account and how it is constructed (not on wider issues such as gender and class unless directly relevant/referred to).
What is a feature/predicate?
Something which is being said when a category (e.g. Single mothers) is being used.
What is identity work?
The process of constructing identity through discourse.
Can categories have only one or multiple predicates?
Multiple
A category and a predicate go together…….
…in the context of a specific interaction.
What does it mean to say that a category does moral work?
Possible to use a category to invoke what is right and wrong. E.g. Single mother is against the moral order. Married is heteronormative and superior.
Who influenced the macro approach?
Foucault
What is the focus on in the macro approach?
How narratives of knowledge/dominant discourses change over time and across cultures and settings. E.g mental illness.
What is the blended/synthetic discursive approach?
Micro and macro together. Aka critical discursive psychology.
What does critical discursive psychology aim to do?
See how discourses available in culture influence interactions.
What does critical discursive psychology aim to do with respect to identity?
See how and what kind of identities are made.
What are repertoires/interpretative repertoires?
The variety of different constructions for something.
What is a ‘recognizable, recurrently used, internally coherent way of talking or writing about a phenomenon’?
An interpretative repertoire.
Why is it interesting when there is more than one repertoire in use?
Because can then compare and contrast and see functions.
What bridges the divide between the macro and the micro?
Interpretative repertoires
What are interpretative repertoires also known as?
Discourses or representations.
What is a benefit of studying the macro with the micro rather than the macro alone?
Studying the macro alone would suggest that people are determined by the interpretative repertoires available whereas studying them together allows for flexibility. Use resources when needed for different functions/identities.
A person’s different repertoires often do what?
Contradict each other.
What are subject positions?
The use of interpretative repertoires to create certain identities.
What can be done with subject positions?
Position self, someone else or resist positioning.
In spite of culture only providing a limited number of subject positions, people are very what?
Active at choosing them in different situations.
When people take subject positions, what are they ultimately trying to do?
Blame others, see self as good.
One study looked at how breastfeeding and bottle feeding women were constructed where?
On a parenting website.
In the breastfeeding study what were the subject positions available?
Breastfeeding is natural and best and good mother. Bottle feeders need to justify and defend themselves (e.g. As the responsible decision because would have to give up life otherwise).
Categories are…
Cultural constructs which are used to create meaning.
To what extent are medical categories neutral, objective and factual?
Not at all. They are formed discursively and change over time.
Are medical labels flexible or fixed?
Flexible
Are changing classifications for children’s mental health due to new discoveries?
Not necessarily. Often due to changes in cultural and historical understanding.
Changing sociocultural practices can influence what?
Medical categories.
How is there scepticism towards ADHD?
Its existence, how to define it and how to treat it.
Are there one or different versions of ADHD?
Different versions.
How nature/nurture axis relate to understandings of ADHD?
It is understood as being biological (therefore explaining naughty behavior)or the result of bad parenting.
Discursive psychology attempts to do what with regards to versions of ADHD?
Understand what these versions are doing and why (their functions).
One study (Horton-Salway)of ADHD looked at what and the media?
How parents and children are constructed.
Alison Davies used focus groups and interviews to understand what?
How parents construct ADHD, own identities and children’s. What are the discourses and how are they used?
What are the three considerations of a discursive approach to identity?
Formulating identity is doing something, variable, related to power.
What should a researcher bracket out?
Own background and preconceptions. Need to focus on the data.
In the Davies research, in what two ways did parents talk about ADHD?
That it is biological and that they understand that other people mig think it was to do with bad parenting.
What were the two repertoires Horton-Salway discovered in newspaper articles?
Biological repertoire, psychosocial repertoire
What do different repertoires provide children and parents?
Identities
How might a repertoire be seen as ‘ robust’?
If it is repeated
If you construct ADHD as not real, what does is imply?
Naughty child and bad parent.
What does using the biological repertoire achieve?
Makes it real, internal and not parent or child’s fault.
What is the function of discourse?
To persuade (defend, blame, say something is true or false, attribute causes/reasons).
People’s constructions often…
…contradict each other. Different contexts lead to different constructions with different functions.
What is an ideological dilemma?
Discourse and repertoires often contradict each other.
What is an ideological dilemma with ADHD?
Bad parent for using medication as an excuse for managing bad behavior versus bad parent for not getting the child diagnosed.
