JONATHAN POTTER - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by JONATHAN POTTER

One of the most basic topics in social psychology is the way one agent influences the behaviour o... more One of the most basic topics in social psychology is the way one agent influences the behaviour of another. This paper will focus on threats, which are an intensified form of attempted behavioural influence. Despite the centrality to the project of social psychology, little attention has been paid to threats. This paper will start to rectify this oversight. It reviews early examples of the way social psychology handles threats and highlights key limitations and presuppositions about the nature and role of threats. By contrast, we subject them to a programme of empirical research. Data comprise video records of a collection of family mealtimes that include preschool children. Threats are recurrent in this material. A preliminary conceptualization of features of candidate threats from this corpus will be used as an analytic start point. A series of examples are used to explicate basic features and dimensions that build the action of threatening. The basic structure of the threats uses a conditional logic: if the recipient continues problem action/does not initiate required action then negative consequences will be produced by the speaker. Further analysis clarifies how threats differ from warnings and admonishments. Sequential analysis suggests threats set up basic response options of compliance or defiance. However, recipients of threats can evade these options by, for example, reworking the unpleasant upshot specified in the threat, or producing barely minimal compliance. The implications for broader social psychological concerns are explored in a discussion of power, resistance, and asymmetry; the paper ends by reconsidering the way social influence can be studied in social psychology.

Social Psychological Review

Over the last decade or so discursive psychology has developed as a distinct perspective within s... more Over the last decade or so discursive psychology has developed as a distinct perspective within social psychology, psychology and social science more generally (Edwards, 1997; Edwards &amp; Potter, 1992; Potter &amp; Edwards, 2001). One of the things that differentiates it from other approaches is its conceptualisation of psychology itself. Most social psychological takes as at least a central topic an inner representation or processing system of some kind. This is true of social cognition work, of social representations research, and of many ...

International Journal of English Studies (IJES), 2003

This paper addresses the broad question of how work in sociolinguistics should be related to soci... more This paper addresses the broad question of how work in sociolinguistics should be related to social theory, and in particular the assumptions about cognition that can underpin that relation. A discursive psychological approach to issues of cognition is pressed and illustrated by a reworking of Stubb's review of work on language and cognition. A discursive psychological approach is offered to the topics of racist discourse, courtroom interaction, scientific writing, and sexism. Discursive psychology rejects the approach to 'cognition' as a collection of more or less stable inner entities and processes. Instead the focus is on the way 'mental phenomena' are both constructed and oriented to in people's practices.

Representing Reality: Discourse, Rhetoric and Social Construction

Qualitative Research in Psychology, 2020

ABSTRACT This paper overviews limitations in both the way attitude function has been conceptualiz... more ABSTRACT This paper overviews limitations in both the way attitude function has been conceptualized in social psychology, and in the empirical basis for the claims made. We suggest that the premise that attitudes are expressed for cognitive/motivational reasons is an untested artefact of the methodological procedures commonly used. In contrast, an investigation of ‘attitudes’ in the wild (assessments, evaluations, judgements) is offered as an alternative pathway to address questions of function. The analytic core of the paper is the analysis of a collection of interactional examples where an Object-side assessment (e.g. ‘this soup is lovely’) is issued in combination with a Subject-side assessment (e.g. ‘I love this soup’). We investigate what is achieved by combining O-side and S-side assessments: why use an O-side assessment and then an S-side assessment? Or, why use an S-side assessment and then an O-side? We show that (a) O-side and S-side assessments support different actions; (b) the combination manages world and speaker issues in a single package; (c) the combination of O-side and S-side can be hearably complete; (d) O-side first, S-side second can be a resource for building (on) affiliation; (e) S-side first, O-side second can be a platform for continued dispute. Programmatic work on the function of assessments is proposed.

British Journal of Social Psychology, 2019

This paper contributes to the study of admonishments, the operation of shaming in family interact... more This paper contributes to the study of admonishments, the operation of shaming in family interaction, and more broadly presses the virtue of a discursive psychological reconsideration of the social psychology of emotion. It examines the methodological basis of contemporary research on shame in experimental and qualitative social psychology, illustrated through the Test of Self-Conscious Affect (TOSCA) and qualitative work using shame narratives. Doubts are raised about how these methods can throw light on shaming practices in natural situations. The study uses a collection of video recordings of family mealtimes, focusing on admonishment sequences in which parents address the interrogatives 'what are you doing' or 'what did I say' to a 'misbehaving' child. Despite the interrogative syntax, rather than soliciting information we show that these interrogative forms pursue behaviour change by publicly highlighting both the problem behaviour and the child's active and intentional production of that behaviour. This is the sense in which the practice can be understood as shaming. Although this practice prosecutes shaming, ways in which the children can ignore, push back, or rework parents' actions are highlighted. This study contributes to a broader consideration of how enduring behavioural change can be approached as a parents' project. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Research on Language and Social Interaction, 2019

This article explores the practice of "subversive completions," whereby one speaker produces a gr... more This article explores the practice of "subversive completions," whereby one speaker produces a grammatically fitted completion of another speaker's unfolding turn so as to subvert the action of the unfolding turn and the ongoing sequence. We show that subversive completions may derail or exaggerate the action in progress, typically for comedic or teasing effect. We also introduce three related turn-taking practices that can be used to accomplish subversion and discuss the implications of these practices for our understanding of intersubjectivity. Data are in American English, British English, and Russian. In this article, we explore how the practice of ostensibly finishing another speaker's utterances-in-progress exploits the locally and sequentially managed nature of intersubjectivity, providing a resource for subverting an addressee's course of action and revealing the interactionally invasive and disaffiliative potential of what would otherwise be a resource for the affiliative display of intersubjectivity. Sacks (1992) observed that speakers' collaborative production of a single utterance is a powerful method used by interlocutors to show that they concur in the topic of talk and "know what's on each other's minds" (p. 147). Sacks's notion of intersubjectivity is neither classically phenomenological nor psychological. Instead, it starts with the displayed practices of the participants and how they unfold in a coordinated manner. This respecifies intersubjectivity as something practical and embedded in the systematics of conversation (Heritage, 1984; Schegloff, 1991, 1992). As Schegloff (1992) points out, "Intersubjectivity would not, then, be merely convergence between multiple interpreters of the world (whether understood substantively or procedurally) but potentially convergence between the 'doers' of an action or bit of conduct and its recipients, as coproducers of an increment of interactional and social reality" (p. 1299). Our analysis here demonstrates that the same locally managed interactional resources that establish intersubjective alignment can be deployed to subvert the action of the unfolding turn and the ongoing sequence, hijacking it in midflight, so to speak, often for comedic or teasing effect. We begin the article by briefly reviewing prior work on collaborative (or anticipatory) completions. We then turn to our analysis of our focal phenomenon-subversive completions, i.e., anticipatory completions used to subvert the in-progress action. We conclude by presenting a number of related turn-taking practices that can be used to accomplish subversion. Background: Anticipatory completions in conversation The turn-taking system for conversation provides for the organization of talk into a series of turns, during which speakers are entitled to talk at least until the completion of a turn constructional unit (or TCU; Sacks,

Discourse Studies, 2017

We focus on assessments in conversation, paying particular attention to a distinction between obj... more We focus on assessments in conversation, paying particular attention to a distinction between object-side (O-side) and subject-side (S-side) assessments. O-side assessments are predicated of an object (that it is good, awful, nice, bad, etc.), whereas S-side assessments formulate a disposition of the speaker toward that object (that they like it, love it, hate it, cannot stand it, etc.). Despite looking somewhat interchangeable, logically, these different ways of making assessments serve different interactional functions. In particular, S-side assessments allow for contrasting assessments of the same object by different persons. They are therefore useful in the management and avoidance of conflict and misalignment in the performance of actions such as compliment receipts, avoiding giving offense and disagreeing. We link the analysis to conversation analytic work on assessments and to discursive psychology’s focus on the everyday management of relations between mental states and an e...

The British journal of social psychology, Jan 22, 2018

Batel and Castro propose a reconciliation of social representation theory and discursive psycholo... more Batel and Castro propose a reconciliation of social representation theory and discursive psychology. This comment highlights the continuing relevance of long-standing critiques of social representation theory from discursive psychologists as well as their central focus on both how representations are built to appear factual and the role of representations in practices. It suggests that the analytic approaches proposed by Batel and Castro (e.g., focus groups and thematic analysis) are not sufficient to the analytic task. The proposed 'Pragmatic Discourse Analysis' falls short on its central task of identifying pragmatics. The virtues of working with naturalistic data using methods that attend to the action orientation of talk and text are pressed.

Discourse Studies, 2015

Work on advice has concentrated on institutional settings where there are restrictions on roles, ... more Work on advice has concentrated on institutional settings where there are restrictions on roles, actions and their organisation. This article focuses on advice giving in mundane settings: interactions between mothers and their young-adult daughters in a corpus of 51 telephone calls. Analysis reveals a range of designs that can be ‘advice implicative’ including advice-implicative interrogatives and advice-implicative assessments. Recipients orient to the characteristic features these implicit forms share with more explicit advice: normative pressure on the recipient’s conduct and epistemic asymmetry between advisor and advisee. Advice-implicative actions orient to contingencies on the recipient’s ability or willingness to perform the target action. They also display varying degrees of entitlement over the recipient’s performance of the target action. Manipulating contingency and entitlement can soften or heighten both the normative thrust and the knowledge asymmetry of the advice giv...

Journal of the American College of Emergency Physicians, 1979

Intense cyanosis in a previously well, 30-month-old, white girl was found to be due to the ingest... more Intense cyanosis in a previously well, 30-month-old, white girl was found to be due to the ingestion of benzocaine. A wide variety of chemical compounds present in many proprietary products, when ingested, can cause this presentation in individuals with structurally normal hemoglobin and normal activity of methemoglobin reductase. The phenomenon appears to be dose-related. Immediate recognition and initiation of appropriate therapy will effect a rapid reversal of the methemoglobinemia, and in some cases, may be life-saving. Caution should be exercised in the use of benzocaine-containing preparations.

Studies of Laughter in Interaction

Pioneering work by Gail Jefferson has led the way to approaching laughter as a bounded and ordere... more Pioneering work by Gail Jefferson has led the way to approaching laughter as a bounded and ordered interactional phenomenon. Laughter can be seen as more than an uncontrollable expression of amusement, and instead something which is used with precision, in order to accomplish specific interactional goals. Episodes of shared laughter are shown to be highly ordered events which are co-ordinated by recipients in relation to the rhythmic pulses of laughter. Rather than just recording when laughter occurs, Jefferson has shown the value of paying specific attention to the exact placement of laughter in particular words, as well as the prosodic features of laughter. Recent work has further exemplified the analytic mileage which is afforded through paying attention to the precise placement of laughter.

Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Lipids and Lipid Metabolism, 1984

The inflammatory response in mammals is characterized by the synthesis in the liver of several N-... more The inflammatory response in mammals is characterized by the synthesis in the liver of several N-linked serum glycoproteins called acute-phase reactants. In C57BL/6J mice, turpentine-induced inflammation was accompanied by increases in 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A reductase activity, dolichol synthesis, and dolichyl phosphoryl mannose synthesis. Cholesterol feeding, but not fasting, prevented these inflammation-induced increases in reductase activity and dolichol synthesis. However, the rate of incorporation of [3H]mannose into total serum glycoproteins was not affected by the high-cholesterol diet, and this rate increased during acute inflammation in control and cholesterol-fed mice.

Athenea Digital. Revista de pensamiento e investigación social, 2003

Este trabajo identifica 6 estrategias comúnmente empleadas de análisis conversacionales o de dato... more Este trabajo identifica 6 estrategias comúnmente empleadas de análisis conversacionales o de datos textuales, que resultan insuficientes para calificar como análisis del discurso. Estas son: (1) pseudo-análisis a través de los resúmenes; (2) pseudo-análisis basado en la toma de posiciones; (3) pseudo-análisis por exceso o aislamiento de citas; (4) pseudo-análisis circular de discursos y constructos mentales; (5) pseudo-análisis por falsa generalización; (6) pseudoanálisis por localización de elementos. Con caracterizar estos atajos analíticos esperamos contribuir con futuros desarrollos más rigurosos de análisis del discurso en la psicología social. A number of ways of treating talk and textual data are identified which fall short of discourse analysis. They are: (1) under-analysis through summary; (2) underanalysis through taking sides; (3) under-analysis through over-quotation or through isolated quotation; (4) the circular identification of discourses and mental constructs; (5) false survey; and (6) analysis that consists in simply spotting features. We show, by applying each of these to an extract from a recorded interview, that none of them actually analyse the data. We hope that illustrating shortcomings in this way will encourage further development of rigorous discourse analysis in social psychology.

Focus Group Practice, 2004

Language, Discourse and Social Psychology, 2007

in nd d a an nd d R Re ea al li it ty y i in n P Pr ra ac ct ti ic ce e This chapter will introdu... more in nd d a an nd d R Re ea al li it ty y i in n P Pr ra ac ct ti ic ce e This chapter will introduce the perspective of discursive psychology. It will introduce its basic theoretical and methodological features, and then flesh them out using a series of recent studies of a child protection helpline. Discursive psychology will be used to make sense of a range of features of what happens on the helpline. In turn, the analysis of the helpline will be used to illuminate the nature of discursive psychology (henceforth DP). DP is a perspective that starts with the psychological phenomena as things that are constructed, attended to, and understood in interaction. Its focus is on the ways descriptions can implicate psychological matters, on the ways psychological states are displayed in talk, and on the way people are responded to as upset, devious, knowledgeable or whatever. It thus starts with a view of psychology that is fundamentally social, relational and interactional. It is not just psychology as it appears in interaction; rather, it understands much of our psychological language, and broader 'mental practices', as organized for action and interaction. It is a specifically discursive psychology because discourse-talk and texts-is the primary medium for social action. Most research in modern cognitive and social psychology takes as its central topic mental entities, representations or broad processing systems. Entities such as scripts, schemata, attitudes, attention, theory of mind, perception, memory, and attribution heuristics figure large in such research. DP is not a direct counter to such research (although, as we will show, it raises a range of questions with how such things are theorized and operationalized). Its aim is rather different. Rather than

A set of accounts concerning final year university students’ views on the status of employment op... more A set of accounts concerning final year university students’ views on the status of employment opportunities for women is examined to identify some of the practical ideologies surrounding the reproduction of gender inequalities. The focus of the analysis is the structure of the discourse produced and what is revealed about wider systems of making sense. This approach is contrasted with conventional survey research. We argue, first, that our sample’s responses represent a conflict between their endorsement of equal opportunities and their emphasis on practical considerations supposedly limiting those opportunities and, second, that their model of human subject in society is individualistic in nature as are their notions of social change and explanations for existing inequalities

Revista Interamericana De Psicologia Interamerican Journal of Psychology, 1995

Text Interdisciplinary Journal For the Study of Discourse, Jun 10, 1988