PS1030 Lecture 2: Theory, Method, and the Critical Turn PDF

This lecture in four words Storytelling BlackLivesMatter Philosophy Dogs PS1030 Understanding Individuals and Groups Lecture 2: Theory, Method, and the Critical Turn Dr James P Ravenhill (he, him) [email protected] A very brief introd...

This lecture in four words Storytelling BlackLivesMatter Philosophy Dogs PS1030 Understanding Individuals and Groups Lecture 2: Theory, Method, and the Critical Turn Dr James P Ravenhill (he, him) [email protected] A very brief introduction… Critical psychologist: Feminist, queer; Qualitative methods Research in gender and sexualities: Gay masculinities Sexual self-labels in sex between men Bisexual men’s mental and sexual wellbeing Masculinity and help-seeking at university Intimate and sexual relationality in forensic mental healthcare Teaching in gender and sexualities, EDI, (critical) social psychology, addiction, qualitative methods Menu Part 1: Theory Part 3: The critical turn Behaviourism Accounts from the dark history of psychology Cognitive psychology An introduction to critical Social neuroscience psychology Evolutionary psychology Qualitative research methods Application of social psychology Discourse Analysis Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis Part 2: Method (1) The philosophies of research Part 4: Method (2) The scientific method Qualitative approaches Outcomes Outline the key theoretical influences on social psychology Explain the applied value of social psychological research Describe the scientific approach in social psychology Describe qualitative approaches in social psychology Outline and critique the underlying assumptions of the positivist (scientific) approach in psychology Explain how critical psychologies offer alternative perspectives for understanding human experience  Content advisory This lecture contains some descriptions of animal cruelty, racism, violent crime, eugenics, homophobia, and gender essentialism. There are references to (but no descriptions of) human sexuality. There are no graphic images Part 1: Theory We’re going to take a brief look at four theories that are relevant to social psychology: (1) (Neo)-Behaviourism; (2) Cognitive psychology; (3) Social neuroscience; (4) Evolutionary psychology There are lots of other relevant theories – but these are the ones discussed in the textbook! (Neo)-Behaviourism: Learning via association and reward Role of reinforcement in social behaviour E.g., Reinforcement-affect model of attraction (Lott, 1961): We tend to be attracted to people who compliment us(!) Modelling theory E.g., Children model adults who behave aggressively, and imitate the adults’ behaviour, especially if that behaviour is rewarded (Bandura, 1963) Influence of the presence of others E.g., Evaluation apprehension (Cottrell, 1972): Social rewards and punishments are based on others’ evaluations, which creates drive to perform, and affects performance quality  Cognitive psychology: Role of thinking in social behaviour Cognitive consistency theories E.g., Dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957): Behaviour is motivated by the need to reduce discomfort arising from conflicts between different beliefs, and between beliefs and behaviours Attribution theories E.g., The Fundamental Attribution Error (from last week: Can anyone remember?!) Social cognition (currently the most dominant position in social psychology) E.g., As an explanation of prejudice: Ascribing negative attributes to outgroup members to enhance self-esteem  Social neuroscience: Role of neurophysiology in social behaviour Cognition arises from neurophysiological processes – i.e., the activity of different areas of the brain Methods include use of fMRI to measure brain activity while participants are engaged in social cognitive tasks E.g., Social neuroscientific explanations of violent crime (including homicide) that relate differences in the prefrontal cortex to lack of impulse control (E.g., Raine, 1998)  Raine et al. (1998) Three groups of participants: Affective, impulsive murderers Predatory, premeditating murderers Control group (nonviolent) Measured glucose metabolism in various brain areas associated with violent behaviour, using PET Findings: Emotional, unplanned impulsive murderers less able to regulate and control aggressive impulses due to deficient prefrontal regulation. Both groups of murderers have higher propensity to aggression. Predatory murderers have sufficiently good prefrontal functioning to regulate aggressive impulses; affective murderers lack this control  Evolutionary (social) psychology: Role of evolutionary pressures (to survive and reproduce) in social behaviours Social behaviours exhibited by modern humans are adaptive, facilitated the reproduction and survival of the human (and predecessor) species E.g., Storytelling as an adaptive social behaviour: The most successful storytellers are the most reproductively successful (based on studies on a Filipino hunter-gatherer community) Storytelling evolved to facilitate social co-operation in the hunter- gatherer societies of our evolutionary past (Smith et al., 2017)  Theoretical influences on social and personality psychology The video can be found at https://youtu.be/69t2aGPfKns?si=aGDWKTYqcA2sX4Gr Image from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/14/trayvon-martin-george-zimmerman-trial Applied value of social psychology: #BlackLivesMatter In 2013, Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi created a Black- centred political project called #BlackLivesMatter, in response to the acquittal of the White man who shot and killed unarmed Black teenager Trayvon Martin, in Sanford, Florida (USA). Trayvon, 17, was walking home from a local shop when he was confronted by his killer, who accused him of acting suspiciously, and shot him dead, following an altercation. The man who shot Trayvon, George Zimmerman, claimed self-defence as a mitigating circumstance. When eventually he was arrested for the killing, he was put on trial for second-degree murder, but a jury found him not guilty of all charges.  Read more at https://blacklivesmatter.com/ #BlackLivesMatter The Black Lives Matter movement gained more national traction as there were more and more incidents of White people (including police officers) killing Black people in the USA, without punishment. The killing of Black man George Floyd by White police officer Derek Chauvin in May 2020 was a watershed moment for the Black Lives Matter movement. It attracted international attention, and people across the world marched, demonstrated, and used their social media to call for justice for George Floyd, and to show solidarity with their Black friends and colleagues, and all Black and minoritised ethnic people. In what ways did you participate in the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement? Applied value of social psychology: #BlackLivesMatter What the psychological processes behind racism and prejudice? What are the situational and individual variables that can lead to brutality by a (White) police officer towards a (Black / minoritised ethnic) citizen? What is the role of social influence in participation in social justice activism? How can minorities (statistically less frequent in a given population) influence majorities? How do minority perspectives become adopted by the majority? How can we challenge structural racism? #BlackLivesMatter and social psychology: Research Updegrove, A. H., Cooper, M. N., Orrick, E. A., & Piquero, A. R. (2020). Red states and Black lives: Applying the racial threat hypothesis to the Black Lives Matter movement. Justice Quarterly, 37, 85-108. doi:10.1080/07418825.2018.1516797 Racial threat hypothesis: When the population of a minoritised “racial”/ethnic group grows, the dominant group orients to stronger social controls over that group Findings: Older, Republican, and conservative men more likely to oppose BLM; Black people and people who think police hold biases against Black people are less likely to oppose BLM #BlackLivesMatter and social psychology: Research Wellman, M. L. (2022). Black squares for Black lives? Performative allyship as credibility maintenance for social media influencers on Instagram. Social Media + Society, 8, 1-10. doi:10.1177/20563051221080473 Findings: The posting of black squares was performative, used by social media influencers as a strategy to build and maintain credibility with followers. Influencers were unable to merge their existing online identities with the Black Lives Matter movement long-term, resulting in the “memeification” of social justice activism, and no substantial progress toward diversity, equity, and inclusion Part 2: Method – Philosophy and science This part of the lecture starts with a brief foray into the philosophies that underpin psychological research There are quite a few new concepts here, and they may take a while for you to get your head around. Don’t worry if you don’t quite “get it” straight away!  Ontology - - - - - - - - - - Epistemology What is reality? How can we “know” reality? 1. Realism Positivism 2. Relativism Interpretivism See chapters 1 and 2 of Willig, C. (2021). Introducing qualitative research in Psychology. London: McGraw Hill (available as an eBook in the library) 1. Ontological realism and Epistemological positivism Ontological realism There is an objective reality, independent of human interference Epistemological positivism Objective reality can be known by undertaking scientific, value- free research, using quantitative methods Research findings are universal – assumed to be generalisable to the entire target population (more on this later) 2. Ontological relativism and Epistemological interpretivism Ontological relativism “Reality” is constructed by human culture, in particular, by language (certain phenomena are “socially constructed”) Epistemological interpretivism People’s versions and understandings of “reality” can be studied by analysing what they write, say, and produce creatively, using qualitative methods Research findings represent how the people studied understand the world, and it might be assumed that other people may share similar understandings Ontology - - - - Epistemology - - - - Methodology What is knowledge? How can we study knowledge? Which approach is appropriate? Realism Positivism Quantitative (numerical data) Relativism Interpretivism Qualitative (word/image data) Positivist methodologies The psychological experiment Quantitative (numerical) findings represent the Surveys (scales) “truth” about the world. These are “scientific” ways Randomised Control Trials (RCTs: of conducting research Chiefly in clinical psychology) These methods underpin theory and research in mainstream See chapters 1 and 2 of Willig, C. (2021). Introducing qualitative psychology research in Psychology. London: McGraw Hill (available as an eBook in the library) The psychological experiment Develop a theory based on existing “knowledge” Derive predictions (“hypotheses”) from theory: “If this condition is true, then I would expect this outcome” Design an experiment that allows for the hypotheses to be tested Generate quantitative (numerical) data from the experiment, and apply statistical tests to investigate differences between conditions  The scientific method: Underpinning principles 1. Universality Certain “laws” govern human behaviour Human behaviour can be measured using positivist methodologies (e.g., experiments) Research findings can be generalised to the entire target population 2. Individualisation Has different interpretations (don’t worry too much about this!) People function for purposes that are self-serving Individuals are the site of all function and “dysfunction” 3. Objectivity Knowledge is objective, can be known using scientific methods, and is value-free (the researcher is independent of the researched) BUT Positivist social psychological research can’t be truly “scientific” because: 1. Humans are not objects – myriad influences affect their thoughts and behaviour They are not predictable 2. Psychologists choose which variables to study, how to define them, how to study them, how to measure them (i.e., there is subjective influence) The researcher and the researched are not independent Imagine each blue dot on the graph represents a participant’s data. How would a quantitative researcher treat the participant circled? (What are they likely to do with this data?) Why haven’t I heard of this before?! Most of the studies you have learned about are quantitative and are assumed “scientific” “Science” is culturally privileged in the UK and the USA (and “the Western world” more generally) Quantitative researchers do not routinely engage in philosophical reflection… …but they should because their research makes some pretty important assumptions!  Critical realism: A bridge between realism and relativism There is an objective reality (ontological realism), but this is unobservable directly, and therefore can only be known via some sort of human interference and interpretation (epistemological interpretivism) Addresses the “epistemic fallacy” – the confusion between ontology and epistemology – the belief that was is measured reflects what is real Many social psychologists identify as “critical realists”, and accept the limitations of what they can “know” from their research  Part 3: The critical turn in Psychology The critical turn in (social) psychology: Parker (2007) Critical psychology “turns the gaze of the psychologist back on the discipline” (Parker, 2007, p. 1) Asks the questions: Why are some forms of knowing privileged over others? Who has the power to produce and access knowledge? How has the discipline of psychology contributed to the (re)production of inequalities, and the marginalisation of particular groups? How has psychological theory and research reified (made real) certain “knowledge” about people and the world? What are the enduring implications of historical practices in psychology?  Let’s take a peek behind the curtain, at psychology’s darker past…  Content advisory – reminder The following slides contain details about animal cruelty, racism, eugenics, homophobia, and gender essentialism There are no graphic images The information is brought to you to expose the dark past of psychology, and to highlight the need for psychologists (including psychology students) to be highly reflexive in their practice, to ensure that they’re working ethically and with a commitment to principles of equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) Intelligence and eugenics Lewis Terman (Stanford University) Developed the Stanford-Binet IQ test: Idiocy—Feeblemindedness—Genius Test used to “prove” “deficiency” in Indigenous, Mexican, and Black people: Scientific racism This justified racial segregation in the US school system People who scored under 70 targeted for sterilisation (at least 60,000 people in the USA) Image from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Terman Read more at https://stanforddaily.com/2019/11/06/eugenics-on-the-farm-lewis-terman/ The Stanford-Binet IQ test is still used to this day to test intelligence, particularly in children. There are examples where the development of the scale by Terman is reported with no reference at all to how and why it was developed. Psychology’s dark past has a pretty bad hangover….  Image from https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/57607955 Read more at https://stanforddaily.com/2019/11/06/eugenics-on-the-farm-lewis-terman/ Homosexuality Lewis Terman (Stanford University) – yes, him again Published “Sex and personality: Studies of masculinity and femininity” (1936) Women and men (binary) are distinguishable by inherent, gendered attributes People who score lower in the “appropriate” Preserving the idealised domain categorised as sexually deviant White, heterosexual family “Homosexual” men (score higher in meant marginalising and femininity) of particular concern eugenically eliminating Underlying motivation: Eradication of people who couldn’t LGBTQ+ people produce it Find out more: Drescher, J. (2015). Out of DSM: Depathologizing homosexuality. Behavioral sciences, 5, 565-575. Homosexuality 19th Century: Kraft-Ebbing writes of homosexuality as a congenital disease (All nonprocreative sexual behaviours deemed psychopathology) Heavy influence on 20th Century interpretations of homosexuality as pathology Psychoanalytic perspectives that claimed no “normal” homosexuality very influential in 1952, when DSM first published DSM-I (1952): homosexuality as “sociopathic personality disturbance” DSM-II (1968): homosexuality as “sexual deviation” DSM-II (1973): homosexuality replaced with Sexual Orientation Disturbance DSM-III (1980): Ego-dystonic homosexuality DSM-III-R (1987): All references to homosexuality removed... …BUT “distress over sexual orientation” only removed in DSM-V, in 2013 Pavlov’s Dogs: The story Cute dog Delicious dog food Not so cute drool Bell Image from https://www.simplypsychology.org/pavlov.html NB: Do not use simply psychology as a source for your university studies! Pavlov’s Dogs: The reality Dog taken from the street; not necessarily stray (in the thousands) Brutal, painful experiments, including procedure to collect saliva Experimented on for 8-10 hours a day Image from https://kingdomofdogs.org.uk/who-was-pavlov Read more at https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/kingdom-dogs Let’s close those curtains for the time being. Throughout your degree, I encourage you to critique your “knowledge” that you take for granted as being “true”…! Critical psychology is influenced by… Feminism The reification of “natural” differences between women and men (biologically-determined, unchangeable) disadvantages women, LGBTQ+ people Queer psychology Categories of gender and sexuality are used to pathologise women and LGBTQ+ people; Disrupts normativity to expose hierarchies of power Decolonial psychology White, Eurocentric knowledge and knowledge production is privileged over indigenous forms; Voices of the marginalised (the colonised) should be brought to the forefront Associated with critical psychology are: Feminist psychology LGBT psychology People historically or Queer psychology contemporaneously Critical Disability Studies marginalised by and within Critical Race Theory Decolonial Psychology mainstream psychology Qualitative research Critical psychology is: Feminist; Anti-racist; Anti-individualist; Contextualised (in people, societies, and ecologies)  Part 4: Method (2) Qualitative research Why does critical psychology usually rely on qualitative research approaches? We can answer that by looking at the stance of critical psychology on universality, individualisation, and objectivity, the three principles that underpin mainstream, positivist psychology. Critical psychology on universality: Certain “laws” govern human behaviour Unique social relationships and sociocultural contexts influence human experience and behaviour Human behaviour can be measured using scientific methodologies; Research findings are generalisable to the entire target population Research findings are based on very specific samples and do not represent the attitudes, behaviours, experiences of all people Critical psychology on individualisation Individuals are the site of prevention and treatment for “dysfunction” Structural oppression or difference is pathologised into individual dysfunction People function for purposes that are self-serving People are equally dependent on “the social” and “the ecological” for their survival; People should be understood in social and ecological contexts Critical psychology on objectivity Knowledge is objective, can be known using scientific methods, and is value-free (the researcher is independent of the researched) Knowledge is provisional, contingent on who generated it and who has access to it; Only interpretations and representations of reality can be known via research; Researchers are inherently enmeshed with their research subject, their participant, and the knowledge they produce Therefore, critical psychology is usually associated with qualitative research approaches Ontology - - - - Epistemology - - - - Methodology What is knowledge? How can we study knowledge? Which approach is appropriate? Relativism Interpretivism Qualitative (word/image data) “Reality” is constructed by human culture, in particular, by language (this is called “social constructionism”) People’s versions and understandings of “reality” can be studied by analysing what they write, say, and produce creatively Qualitative research – an important note Not all qualitative research is interpretivist / social constructionist Critical psychologists are not against quantitative research! If I want to research inequalities in education (for example), I might need to do some quantitative research to find out what those inequalities are (e.g., differences in degree outcomes on the basis of “race” / ethnicity) Qualitative research often still abides by some “rules” of the scientific method, such as clarity around methods for replication, and some standardisation (e.g., in interview questions) Qualitative research – what does it do? Privileges descriptions and interpretations of experience (phenomenology) Provides insights into how people make sense of the world around them Positions people in social and ecological contexts Disrupts mainstream forms of knowledge production via creative methods Qualitative research: What methods are used? Diaries Paintings Group interviews Drawings Avatars Policy documents Court reports Focus groups Maps One-to-one interviews Newspaper reports Films and TV programmes Clay modelling Open questions on survey Observation Qualitative research: Two (of many) approaches 1. Discursive Study “ways of talking” to examine how people understand the world and their position in it Analytic approach: Discourse Analysis 2. Experiential Study descriptions of experience to know what it feels like to experience a given phenomenon Analytic approach: Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) Discourse analysis (e.g., Parker, 1992) Discourse: “A system of statements that construct an object” (Parker, 1992, p. 5) Discourses define people, and enable and constrict lived experience (Willig, 2000) Social discourses change and transform over time; no version of the world can be said to represent the “truth” (Willig, 2013) Discourses can legitimise power structures in institutions such as science, health, religion, the family etc. Discourse Analysis can expose these power structures (e.g., patriarchal power structures that legitimise dominance of men over women) Discourse Analysis therefore a useful tool in critical (social) psychology  Discourse analysis: A brief example from Ravenhill & de Visser (2017) Darren [straight man]: Justin Fashanu, he was another one [gay sportsperson]. He was gay. And, you know, in a man’s world. So he probably tried to be more kind of macho, ‘cause he had to put on that. Mike [straight man]: Overcompensate. Darren: Yeah, to promote his masculinity, in order not to look as though he was gay. Sport (football) is a masculine “Gay” and “masculine” are domain; “Gay” men incompatible; Masculinity is incompatible with a man’s world heterosexual Gay men’s masculinities are inauthentic – compensating for masculine “failure” Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA: e.g., Smith, 1996) Phenomenological because it aims to produce detailed accounts of unique (“idiographic”) human experience Interpretative because it assumes that people actively make sense of (interpret) their experiences (and the researcher interprets what participants tell them!) Phenomenology can help us understand what it’s like to identify a certain way, to think a certain way, and to have a certain experience (Langridge, 2008) I.e., it is not concerned with universalism, rather unique experience IPA: A brief example from Ravenhill & de Visser (2019) When I’m in the middle of [gay bar] singing at the top of my voice the words to “This Boy is a Bottom” and pointing at all my friends, I’d say that that’s quite feminine, but, like, when, like, I’m playing rugby and smashing into people and not really giving a damn, then it’s kind of like, “Actually, no, not that feminine.” It’s like, “It’s quite butch.”... I just, I flip from one, both ends of the scale. I: What would you prefer to feel like? [The] majority of the time I’d like people to think I was quite manly... I don’t want to be seen as a screaming queen. New terminology – there was a lot of it! Create a glossary of the new concepts you learned today Don’t worry if it takes a while to understand the new concepts; Don’t worry if you understand for a while, but then have to revisit these slides – all perfectly usual Learning the new concepts will give you a really good foundation for learning other content on your course It will also help you to be critical in your approach to the content you learn Outcomes Outline the key theoretical influences on social psychology Explain the applied value of social psychological research Describe the scientific approach in social psychology Describe qualitative approaches in social psychology Outline and critique the underlying assumptions of the positivist (scientific) approach in psychology Explain how critical psychologies offer alternative perspectives for understanding human experience  References Bandura, A., Ross, D., & Ross, S. A. (1963). Imitation of film-mediated aggressive models. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 66, 3-11* Cottrell, N. B., (1972). Social facilitation. In C. McClinktock (Ed.), Experimental social psychology (pp. 185-236). New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston* Drescher, J. (2015). Out of DSM: Depathologizing homosexuality. Behavioral sciences, 5, 565-575 Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press* Langdridge, D. (2008). Phenomenology and critical social psychology: Directions and debates in theory and research. Social and personality psychology compass, 2, 1126-1142 Lott, B. E. (1961). Group cohesiveness: A learning phenomenon. Journal of Social Psychology, 55, 275-286*  References Parker, I. (2007). Critical psychology: What it is and what it is not. Social and personality psychology compass, 1, 1-15 Parker, I. (1992). Discourse discourse: Social psychology and postmodernity. In Postmodernism and the social sciences (pp. 80-94). London: Palgrave Macmillan UK Raine, A., Meloy, J.R., Bihrle, S., Stoddard, J., LaCasse, L., and Buchsbaum,M.S. (1998). Reduced Prefrontal and Increased Subcortical Brain Functioning Assessed Using Positron Emission Tomography in Predatory and Affective Murderers. Behavioural Sciences and the Law, 16, p319 – 332 Ravenhill, J. P., & de Visser, R. O. (2019). “I don’t want to be seen as a screaming queen”: An interpretative phenomenological analysis of gay men’s masculine identities. Psychology of Men & Masculinities, 20, 324-336 Ravenhill, J. P., & de Visser, R. O. (2017). “There are too many gay categories now”: Discursive constructions of gay masculinity. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 18, 321-330 Smith, J. A. (1996). Beyond the divide between cognition and discourse: Using interpretative phenomenological analysis in health psychology. Psychology and Health, 11, 261–271 Smith, D., Schlaepfer, P., Major, K., Dyble, M., Page, A. E., Thompson, J.,... & Migliano, A. B. (2017). Cooperation and the evolution of hunter-gatherer storytelling. Nature Communications, 8, p1-9 Willig, C. (2021). Introducing qualitative research in Psychology. London: McGraw Hill PS1030 Understanding Individuals and Groups Lecture 2: Theory, Method, and the Critical Turn Dr James P Ravenhill (he, him) [email protected]