Week 9 Study Guide

DE300 Investigating psychology 3

Week 9 Study Guide

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Week 9 Study Guide

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Contents
 1. Introduction
 Week 9 study tasks

 Week 9 learning outcomes

 2. Why use text-based qualitative

methodologies?
 Exploring text-based qualitative
methodologies

 Revisiting CHIP

 3. Methods and skills

 Research questions in text-based qualitative
research

 Methods of data collection

 Qualitative analysis of data

 Phenomenological analysis

 How do we use it?

 How do we write it up?

 4. Independent project

 References

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1. Introduction

View description - Uncaptioned Figure

Welcome to Block 2 of DE300.

This week focuses on jealousy research. It introduces two key text-

based qualitative methodologies: the phenomenological
approach and the discursive approach. These are the two main
methodological approaches that you will be learning about in this
block of the module.

You will examine what we can learn about jealousy when we use
ideas and principles from text-based qualitative approaches to
explore it.

You will also consider the similarities and differences between text-
based qualitative methodological approaches and the methods you

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have learned about in Block 1. In the Methods and skills section,

you will recap and extend your knowledge of research design for
text-based qualitative research that you encountered on DE200.
You will also apply phenomenological analytic concepts to data.

Lisa Lazard

View description - Lisa Lazard

You should begin this week’s study by listening to the audio by

Lisa Lazard, who is one of the authors of Chapter 7 of your module
textbook, ‘Why use text-based qualitative methodologies?
Explorations of the phenomenology and social construction of

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jealousy’. In this audio, Lisa provides a general discussion of

phenomenological and discursive approaches.

Note: the study week number has changed since this audio was
recorded – we apologise for any confusion caused by the
reference to ‘Week 10’ in the audio.

Audio content is not available in this format.

Welcome to Week 9

View transcript - Welcome to Week 9

Week 9 study tasks

Below, you will find a list of the study tasks for this week. These
include calculations of how long it should take you to complete
each task, which should help you when planning your study. You
should set aside 12 hours for the core study tasks. You have 16
hours of study time this week, so the remaining time should be
used for your independent project.

 Read Chapter 7, ‘Why use text-based qualitative

methodologies? Explorations of the phenomenology
and social construction of jealousy’. (5 hours)
 Watch a video of Paul Stenner discussing how
eyewitness testimony is understood from qualitative
methodological perspectives. (1 hour 30 minutes)

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 Complete a CHIP resource activity. (1 hour)

Methods and skills

 Recap the conceptual links between formulating a
research question and choosing the method. (30
minutes)
 Recap how to develop your research question and
choose the method. (30 minutes)
 Apply phenomenological analytic concepts to data. (1
hour)

Independent project
This week you should extend your knowledge of how to conduct a
literature search to locate relevant research for your project (1 hour
15 minutes).

Week 9 learning outcomes

After you have completed this week’s study you should be able to:

 identify the principles underpinning qualitative

research in psychology
 demonstrate critical appreciation of the types of
evidence and research methods used in psychology
 differentiate qualitative from quantitative
methodological principles

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 recognise the assumptions underlying

phenomenological and discursive approaches in
psychology
 recognise how qualitative methods relate to the topic
of ‘social construction’.

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2. Why use text-based qualitative

methodologies?
Now read Book 1, Chapter 7, ‘Why use text-based qualitative
methodologies? Explorations of the phenomenology and social
construction of jealousy’ by Paul Stenner and Lisa Lazard.

Using examples from research on jealousy, Chapter 7 introduces

phenomenological and discursive approaches in psychology. It
focuses on how these approaches lend themselves to exploring
questions about human experience and the making of meaning by
examining how they differ from the principles and assumptions of
natural science investigations. Throughout this chapter, there is a
critical consideration of the assumptions that underpin these
approaches, which will be key to shaping the overall research
design in your independent project.

When you have finished reading the chapter, return to this study
guide to work through the rest of this week's tasks and activities.

Exploring text-based qualitative

methodologies
As Chapter 7 of your textbook notes, you have, up until this point,
been learning how to be objective because scientific approaches
are concerned with psychological phenomena that are objectively
describable and measurable from a third-person perspective. Text-
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based qualitative approaches generally do not start from this

premise. For example, phenomenological approaches are
concerned with people’s subjective experiences. Discursive
approaches step back from experience to focus on discourse –
how versions of events or experience are constructed in talk and
text and how social actions are performed in discourse. The
general principles underpinning qualitative research form the basis
of the first three activities this week.

Scene from BBC Eyewitness

View description - Scene from BBC Eyewitness

In Week 4, you heard Graham Pike referring to the BBC

Eyewitness television series to explain how experiments can be
applied to real world phenomena. (You may find it helpful to revisit
Week 4 Activity 1 to refresh your memory.)

In the video below, Paul Stenner returns to the Eyewitness

footage to explore how qualitative approaches make sense of
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issues raised in this programme and how this perspective differs

from the experimental approach to understanding eyewitness
testimony. Watch the video now.

Video content is not available in this format.

Applying qualitative methodology to real world issues: rethinking Eyewitness

View transcript - Applying qualitative methodology to real

world issues: rethinking Eyewitness

Activity 1: A forensic example revisited

Allow about 1 hour 30 minutes

Now watch the video again with the specific questions below in
mind. You can keep notes on your answers in the text boxes
provided.

1. How would a psychologist using a discursive approach

understand eyewitness testimony?

Provide your answer...

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View discussion - Part

2. What do you understand from the video about how the issues
that are of interest to qualitative research differ from those
investigated in experimental projects?

Provide your answer...

View discussion - Part

3. Based on what you have seen in the video, what would you say
are some of the key similarities and differences in the way that
experimental and text-based qualitative research is developed and
carried out?

Provide your answer...

View discussion - Part

4. What are the key features of a discursive approach to memory?

Provide your answer...

View discussion - Part

5. What are your initial thoughts on how Paul Stenner explains the
jealousy scene in the Eyewitness programme?

View discussion - Part

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The methodological approaches discussed in the video often

require quite a different way of thinking about the social world from
the one we are used to. So don’t worry if you feel that you haven’t
got to grips with all the features of the phenomenological or
discursive approach described in this activity. If you found some of
the issues raised in the activity unclear, you may find it helpful to
reread Chapter 7, or just the relevant sections of it. This will help to
consolidate your understanding of the methodological approaches
discussed and applied to eyewitness testimony in the video.

Revisiting CHIP

The CHIP star field

View description - The CHIP star field

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You might remember the ‘Conceptual and historical issues in

psychology (CHIP)’ resource from your studies on DE200. This
resource allows you to explore the historical context underpinning
the psychological perspectives, theories and narratives that make
up the rich and varied landscape of theory and research in
psychology. You can follow the links between topics, methods,
traditions, perspectives and the relationships between
psychologists. In doing so, you will gain a sense of the historical
context behind, and cultural influences on, the development of
theories and methods.

You may wish to revisit the DE200 activities on how to use the
CHIP resource to refresh your memory.

In this week’s chapter, you read about discursive and

phenomenological approaches in psychology, and about social
constructionism. In Activity 2, you will consolidate your reading
and extend your knowledge by exploring these approaches
through the CHIP resource. This activity encourages you to
explore the links between these approaches and the historical
contexts that have shaped them.

Activity 2: Qualitative methodologies and CHIP

Allow about 1 hour

Perspectives: Phenomenology

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Open the CHIP resource link in a new window in your web

browser. Go to the ‘Perspectives’ tab at the top of the star field and
read the description of phenomenology. Then come back to this
activity and answer Questions 1–5.

1. Phenomenology is not strictly psychological because it was

originally the philosophical approach of Edmund Husserl.

(a) True

(b) False

View answer - Part

2. The ‘natural attitude’ means taking for granted that the world we
perceive is a reality existing outside of ourselves.

(a) True

(b) False

View answer - Part

3. From a phenomenological perspective, emotions such as

jealousy are understood in terms of the evolutionary advantages
that they have for those experiencing that emotion.

(a) True

(b) False
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View answer - Part

4. The phenomenological concept of ‘intentionality’ concerns

actions that are freely chosen.

(a) True

(b) False

View answer - Part

5. The ‘lifeworld’ is the world insofar as it is experientially relevant

to a given person. It is a concept that enables phenomenologists to
situate experiences in meaningful social and historical contexts.

(a) True

(b) False

View answer - Part

Perspectives: Social constructionism

Now go back to the ‘Perspectives’ tab at the top of the CHIP star
field. Explore the description of social constructionism and then
come back to this activity to answer Questions 6–12.

6. A social constructionist would suggest that interpretive networks

are important for understanding the social world.

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(a) True

(b) False

View answer - Part

7. Social constructionism is a form of sociological determinism.

(a) True

(b) False

View answer - Part

8. Social constructionism would argue that scientific knowledge is

produced through social processes.

(a) True

(b) False

View answer - Part

9. Social constructionists only pay attention to social influences;

they deny physiological differences between people.

(a) True

(b) False

View answer - Part

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10. Social constructionism suggests that people’s core sense of

identity is reasonably constant.

(a) True

(b) False

View answer - Part

11. What other perspectives have links to social constructionism?

Provide your answer...

View answer - Part

12. Read the descriptions of the perspectives linked to social

constructionism, then summarise each description in no more than
50 words.

Provide your answer...

Key figures in phenomenology and social

constructionism

This week you have looked at the work of some key figures in
phenomenology and social constructionism, including that by
Husserl (1970 [1939], Brentano (1982), and Berger and Luckmann
(1966). Practise using the CHIP resource to explore their links in
psychology.

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3. Methods and skills

Over the past nine weeks, you have had the opportunity to
consolidate and extend your knowledge of experimental and
survey research design. This week you will be developing your
knowledge of qualitative research design by focusing on how
psychologists formulate research questions for qualitative
research.

Research questions for qualitative projects are formulated to

explore, rather than predict; so different considerations are needed
for wording these kinds of questions. Your research question plays
an important role in shaping the subsequent design of the project.

You will also be recapping methods of data collection and focusing

on the three data-collection methods that you can choose for your
independent project: individual interviewing, focus groups or
finding existing data.

The data collected for a qualitative project tends to be rich in detail,

allowing psychologists to fully explore the topic under study. There
is no attempt to limit or constrain how issues relevant to the
research study are described and discussed. This week you will
have a go at applying analytic concepts to this kind of data. You
will be introduced to the use of phenomenological analysis, which
you will want to consider using in your independent project if your

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research question is focused on examining research participants’

subjective experiences of particular events or episodes in their
lives.

Research questions in text-based

qualitative research

View description - Uncaptioned Figure

You have spent much time on DE300 learning about hypothesis

testing, but not all psychological research is based on prediction.
Some psychologists ask research questions that are designed to
explore experiences and meanings rather than to predict what will
happen.

If you are not predicting a relationship between variables, then

what issues might a research question focus on? Here are some of
the key areas that a qualitative project might explore, illustrated by

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examples of possible research questions from the broad area of

jealousy research, which you read about in Chapter 7:

 the key characteristics of certain experiences – for

example, ‘How is jealousy experienced?’
 how certain social processes work and are displayed
in talk and text – for example, ‘How do people
negotiate jealousy in intimate relationships?’
 understanding the different ways of describing and
explaining in talk or text – for example, ‘How is
jealousy described and deployed in newspaper
articles on infidelity?’

So how do you go about developing a research question from a

general topic you are interested in? You might find it helpful to
consider the following points when formulating your research
question.

1. You will need to specify an area for your research.

This involves familiarising yourself with the entire
breadth of the topic area and then narrowing down
your question to a specific issue. To do this you will
have to read relevant literature to find out what
research has already been done.
2. You will likely find that your chosen topic is broad and
complex. For example, the topic of experiences of

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jealousy might comprise issues regarding different

kinds of relationships (e.g. intimate relationships,
friendships, siblings, parents and children). If you tried
to explore all these issues in a single study, it’s likely
that your study would be quite confused; this would be
reflected in the data you collected, as well as what
you could say about it. This is why it is important to be
selective about the issue(s) you will focus on and
make them explicit in your research question. The
process of narrowing down the focus of research to a
specific area enables you to ask questions that are
clear and focused.
3. It is important that your research question relates to
the theoretical perspective you are using in your
study. This perspective will determine the focus of
your question and how it is phrased. You need to be
clear about exactly what you are trying to find out in
your study. The two qualitative approaches in DE300
– phenomenological and discursive – are associated
with different types of research questions. It is
therefore important that your research question is
appropriate for whichever approach you adopt. If you
are clear about the question you are asking, you can
be more confident about the answers.

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Methods of data collection

You might remember from DE200 that there are a number of
methods for collecting qualitative data. (If you wish, you can revisit
the DE200 material to refresh your memory.)

You will come across a range of data-collection methods used in

qualitative work when you come to do your independent research
and reading. However, over the next four weeks, you will be
concentrating on three data-collection methods that are arguably
the most commonly used in qualitative research: individual
interviews, focus groups and finding existing data. A brief summary
of the pros and cons of each method is provided in Table 1 below.

Table 1: Methods of collecting qualitative data

Data Description Strengths Limitations

Interviews of The data is It provides a Power
individuals
generated means to relations are in
from a explore operation
conversation subjective between the
about the meanings. researcher and
research topic the
It draws
between a interviewee:
attention to the
participant and this may shape
central role of
the researcher. what is said in
the researcher
This is usually the interview
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a face-to-face context.
in the research
interaction but
process and The use of
can also be
invites some digital
carried out
consideration technologies
using digital
of how the can produce
technologies
researcher co- thinner data
(e.g. online
produces the than face-to-
video
data. face
conferencing,
interviews. For
instant
example, if the
messaging).
interview
A semi- requires the
structured interviewee to
format can type, shorter
allow the answers are
interviewee often provided.
some freedom
to introduce
and explore
issues that are
relevant to
them.
Focus groups The data is The focus group The focus
generated from a can elicit rich
group discussion of interactional data group
topics and issues and provide
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introduced by the insights as to how dynamics may

interviewer or explanations are
facilitator. co-produced, need to be
managed and
negotiated. carefully
handled to
encourage
participation
from all
members.

Transcription
of audio-
recorded focus
group data
may be difficult
in terms of
hearing the
details of
overlapping
speech or
accurately
distinguishing
between
participants’
voices.
Existing data The data can The material is As the material is
comprise any often easy to already in
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existing documents access and quick to existence, there is

or texts that are collect. In most no opportunity to
relevant to the cases where the clarify or follow up
question; for material is public – points, so you need
example, such as newspaper to work with what
newspaper articles, articles – ethical you have unless
magazines, legal concerns are less of you do further
drafts, popular an issue than with study. In many
books and other methods. cases this makes
advertisements. existing material
easier to interpret
using some
methods of
analysis (such as
discourse
analysis) than
others.

It is important to think about what kind of data each method

provides and whether this data will generate suitable and sufficient
information for you to answer your research question. For
example, if your research question focuses on key characteristics
of a particular experience, you will need to collect rich and detailed
descriptions of that experience. In this case, individual interviews
may be a better option than focus group discussions, because the
group interaction may mean that certain details of individual
experience may not be voiced in as much detail. Similarly,
newspaper articles rarely describe individual experiences in depth
because of their concise nature. However, if your research
question is about the multiple ways a topic or issue is described
and understood, then focus groups or newspaper articles may be a
better choice because you may be able to access a wider range of
perspectives on a given issue than would necessarily be provided
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in an individual interview. It is also worth thinking through how the

strengths and limitations of each method may impact and shape
the data you collect and what the implications of these issues are
for answering your research question.

Developing research questions and

method choices
In Activity 3, you are asked to think about how theoretical
approaches link to research questions and how these both then
influence the methods you might use to explore your questions.

Activity 3: Developing research questions and

method choices
Allow about 30 minutes

Below you will see three topics that qualitative researchers might
be interested in researching. Have a go at writing a possible
research question for each topic. You should attempt to write a
question that is suitable for a study using a phenomenological
approach and one that is appropriate for a discursive study. After
you have written your research questions, write down a possible
method or methods that you could use to collect data that answers
the question.

Topic 1: Individual participation in riots and urban conflict

Phenomenological approach Discursive approach

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Research question Method Research question Method

Provide your Provide your Provide your Provide your
answer... answer... answer... answer...

View discussion - Part

Topic 2: The meaning of romantic love in adult relationships

Phenomenological approach Discursive approach

Research question Method Research question Method
Provide your Provide your Provide your Provide your
answer... answer... answer... answer...

View discussion - Part

Topic 3: Mother–daughter relationships in later life

Phenomenological approach Discursive approach

Research question Method Research question Method
Provide your Provide your Provide your Provide your
answer... answer... answer... answer...

View discussion - Part

Qualitative analysis of data

So far you have revisited and extended your knowledge of
research design for qualitative projects. This has involved thinking
about how you might formulate a research question and how this
links to your decision on what method to use to collect your data.

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The next step is to think about how your research question and the
data you have collected influence your decisions about data
analysis. Over the next four weeks, your study of
phenomenological and discursive approaches will include the
considerations that go into analysing data from these types of
research. This week you will start by getting a flavour of the
process of working with the key phenomenological analytical
processes.

Phenomenological analysis

View description - Uncaptioned Figure

As you read in this week’s chapter, phenomenological analysis is

concerned with people’s understandings of their experiences and
what these experiences mean to them. A key part of conducting
phenomenological analysis is to try to understand experiences
from the standpoint of those who have lived them. This is not
always as easy as it sounds because what we attribute to the
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world around us can be very different from the attributions made by

the people we study. The process of attempting to leave our
preconceptions behind as we attempt to make sense of another
person’s perspective is known as ‘bracketing’.

The concept of the ‘lifeworld’ in phenomenological analysis is

central to the task of understanding and interpreting what an
experience means to a person. You might remember that the
lifeworld refers to the context in which experiences happen in and
which shapes those experiences. This context comprises four main
dimensions:

1. Sociality. The relationships we have with particular

people become relevant to certain experiences and
contribute to how we make sense of our experiences.
2. Spatiality. Our experiences are shaped by the place
in which they happen and the objects that are in that
place; for example, cities (the volume of traffic, people
and buildings) might be experienced differently from
the countryside (with more green open space).
3. Temporality. This refers to the subjective experience
of the passing of time. You might recall an experience
when time seemed to drag or when it passed quickly.
The perception of time is very much tied to what is
being experienced and how we experience it.

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4. Embodiment. Different social meanings are crucial for

how we understand our bodies. Bodies differ across a
number of aspects, such as biological sex,
disabled/ablebodiedness, ethnicity, and so on. The
social meanings we attach to such differences
contribute to how we make sense of others’ bodies as
well as our own.

To make sense of a participant’s lived experience, a

phenomenological analysis will pay attention to references in the
data to these different dimensions of the lifeworld.

How do we use it?

View description - Uncaptioned Figure

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To introduce you to the process of working with the concept of

bracketing and dimensions of the lifeworld, you will analyse two
short extracts taken from Derek Edwards’ paper ‘Emotion
discourse’ (Edwards, 1999). Both extracts are from a counselling
session attended by Connie and her partner, Jimmy, who were
experiencing jealousy in their relationship.

It is worth noting that Edwards analysed this data using discourse

analysis. Once you have completed the following activity, you
might find it useful to compare your phenomenological analysis of
the extract with the discursive analysis of it that can be found in
Edwards’ article.

The first extract documents Connie’s version of an episode of

jealousy exhibited by her partner, Jimmy. The research question
you will be working with is:

What is important to Jimmy’s and Connie’s

experiences of jealousy in their relationship?

Take a few moments to familiarise yourself with Extract 1 with this

research question in mind. In addition to reading the transcript, you
may wish to listen to the audio recording of Connie’s version
provided below. Listening is a different skill from reading and
carries different information with it. Most researchers find it helpful
to listen to the audio of data as well as reading the transcript of it.
Once you feel familiar with the data, you will be in a position to
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think about the first phases of phenomenological analysis –

bracketing and considering dimensions of the lifeworld, which you
will look at next.

Extract 1
1. Connie: At that point, Jimmy … My
2. Jimmy’s extremely jealous – extremely
3. jealous person. He always has been, from
4. the day we met, you know. And at that point
5. in time, there was an episode with a
6. bloke in a pub, you know, and me having
7. a few drinks and messing.That was it.
8. Right. And this all got out of
9. hand to Jimmy, according to Jimmy. I was
10. always doing it and, you know, always
11. aggravating him. He was a jealous person;
12. I aggravated the situation; and he
13. walked out that time. To me it was
14. totally ridiculous the way he goes on
15. through this problem that he has.

(Edwards, 1999, pp. 273–4)

Audio content is not available in this format.

Extract 1

View transcript - Extract 1

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Bracketing
When doing phenomenological analysis, it is often helpful to begin
by ‘putting yourself in the shoes’ of the person you are trying to
understand. In relation to this extract, this will involve trying to
understand jealousy from Connie’s perspective. This means first of
all bracketing out your preconceptions about this kind of situation,
which will involve avoiding the temptation to judge Connie or
impose your view of the world on to her experience. So the first
stage of the analysis involves making notes about what Connie
actually says and how her experience seems to her.

For Extract 1, this first step in the analysis might look like this:

Connie has experienced jealous reactions from her partner,

Jimmy, from the outset of their relationship [‘always has been, from
the day we met’]. Connie seems to experience her behaviour as
light, playful and in the spirit of fun [‘having a few drinks and
messing. That was it.’]. She rejects the idea that she is deliberately
provocative, and because of this she seems to experience Jimmy’s
reactions as extreme, unwarranted and ‘totally ridiculous’.

Dimensions of the lifeworld

After bracketing, it is often helpful to go through the data to start
making notes on the dimensions of the lifeworld that are relevant to
the experience described in it. Remember to return to your

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research question to make sure that, as you attend to the

dimensions of the lifeworld, you focus on those that are directly
relevant to answering the question you’ve posed. It is possible that
not all dimensions will show up as relevant in relation to all aspects
of experiences, but it is nevertheless important to explore each
dimension when initially engaging with the data.

Let’s take a look at how the lifeworld becomes relevant to Connie’s

experience.

Sociality. To identify aspects of this dimension, it is helpful to jot

down:

1. the people mentioned in the data

2. what their relationship is with each other
3. how they feel about each other
4. the key events that they are involved in.

For Extract 1, an analysis of these four aspects might look like this:

1. The main characters are Connie, her jealous partner,

Jimmy, and the ‘bloke’ in the pub.
2. Connie is in an intimate and exclusive relationship with
Jimmy. The ‘bloke’ does not seem to have a
particularly close connection with either Connie or
Jimmy. He is not described as a friend or someone
whom either Connie or Jimmy knows particularly well.

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He seems to be a casual acquaintance, at least to

Connie.
3. Connie seems to be exasperated with at least some of
Jimmy’s expressions of jealousy, as she finds them
‘ridiculous’.
4. The event that ties Connie, Jimmy and the ‘bloke’
together is the situation in the pub where Connie is
being playful with the ‘bloke’. Jimmy reacts jealously
to this situation and walks out.

Spatiality. To map this dimension, you need to go through the

extract and note down spaces, places and objects that are relevant
to the experience. In this extract, the place that is relevant is the
pub and the objects that are mentioned are ‘drinks’.

Temporality. To make sense of how temporality operates in the

data, it is useful to note down how time becomes relevant to the
experience. This might include a consideration of when things
happened and the time sequencing of events. For example,
jealousy is relevant to Connie from the moment that she became
intimately involved with Jimmy. There is a time sequencing of the
events in the pub. Connie is playfully ‘messing’ with the bloke first,
and this is followed by Jimmy walking out of the pub.

Embodiment. In the first stages of analysis it is helpful to

describe how bodies are understood by the participants and how

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they relate to a particular experience. You might have noticed that

bodies are not explicitly mentioned in this extract. However, it
could be suggested that bodies are relevant to this experience
because Connie talks about herself in relation to the ‘bloke’ and
Jimmy, which flags the significance of their heterosexual bodies in
the context of sexual jealousy.

Practising a phenomenological analysis

You will now work with a second extract from Derek Edwards’
paper ‘Emotion discourse’ to practise bracketing and identifying the
lifeworld dimensions in data. This extract is taken from Jimmy’s
description of his experience of jealousy in his relationship with
Connie.

Take some time to familiarise yourself with the extract. You might
find it helpful to listen to the audio recording, as well as reading the
transcript. Remember that the research question is:

What is important to Jimmy’s and Connie’s

experiences of jealousy in their relationship?

Extract 2
1. Jimmy: Uh. And I was boiling at this stage, and
2. I was really angry with Connie. And
3. I went up to bed, and I lay on the bed,
4. and I got into bed, and I could

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5. hear giggling and all that, downstairs. And

6. then the music changed – slow
7. records, and, um, they changed to slow records, and I
could
8. hear that Connie was dancing with
9. this bloke downstairs. And
10. Caroline turned round and said something
11. about it. It was … it was ‘Oh Connie,
12. look out. I’m going to tell Jimmy on you.’
13. And next thing I hear is ‘What
14. he doesn’t know doesn’t hurt him.’
15. Counsellor: I’m sorry?
16. Jimmy: ‘What he doesn’t know doesn’t hurt
him.’
17. Soon as I heard that, I went
18. straight downstairs and I
19. threw them out. And I took Connie up the
20. stairs and threw her on the bed. I kept
21. trying to run and jump out the window.
22. But, you know, I couldn’t. I couldn’t
23. get myself to go out. I couldn’t
24. do it.
25. Counsellor: So that’s what you felt like?
26. Jimmy: Oh yeah.

(Edwards, 1999, pp. 274–5)

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Audio content is not available in this format.

Extract 2

View transcript - Extract 2

Activity 4: Practising a phenomenological

analysis
Allow about 1 hour

Bracketing

Now that you have read Jimmy’s account, try to see his experience
of jealousy from his perspective, bracketing your preconceptions.
You may find this tricky because Jimmy is talking about difficult
and controversial issues. Stick with it because this phase of
analysis takes practice. First, simply read the text carefully, and
make notes about what Jimmy actually says and how this
resonates (or doesn’t resonate) with your own ideas about the
experience.

Provide your answer...

Dimensions of the lifeworld

Your next task is to identify relevant dimensions of the lifeworld in

Jimmy’s extract. Read the extract and identify features of Jimmy’s
experience that may relate to the four dimensions of the lifeworld.
For each dimension, consider the questions that can be used to
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guide your initial exploration and write down your answers in the
text boxes provided.

1. Sociality

Read through the data and consider who the key characters are in
Jimmy’s description and what their relationship is to one another.

Provide your answer...

View answer - Part

Now read the extract again and consider how the participants feel
about one another, insofar as you can grasp this from Jimmy’s
description. Identify the important events in this account, and how
time is relevant (e.g. when things happen).

Provide your answer...

View answer - Part

2. Spatiality

Jot down the spaces, objects and places that are mentioned in the
account.

Provide your answer...

View answer - Part

3. Temporality

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Consider if and how time is relevant to Jimmy’s experience. How

are events sequenced in time?

Provide your answer...

View answer - Part

4. Embodiment

Are there any references to the body – either implicit or explicit – in

the extract? What meanings are associated with bodies here?

Provide your answer...

View answer - Part

Interpreting patterns in the data

You have now begun the process of applying phenomenological
concepts to data. Bracketing and dimensions of the lifeworld
provide a way to unpack participants’ experiences in detail by
focusing on particular aspects of that experience that are relevant
to the research question. These initial steps of the analysis involve
organising the data. This is important because it allows you to say
something about general patterns in the lived, subjective
experiences of the participant or participants. The questions that
are asked in the early phases of phenomenological analysis invite
you to pay attention to what is being said and described. They also
focuses attention on how you might interpret patterns in the data.

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As you may remember from your studies on DE200, the primary

role of interpretation is to flag several elements of qualitative
methodologies that offer a different way of thinking about core
issues in research, including:

 the roles of subjectivity and objectivity

 reflexivity
 the value of context
 generalisation from samples.

You might find it useful to revisit these concepts because they

form the basis for understanding key issues in carrying out
qualitative research. These concepts are also important for
understanding what qualitative analysis tells us and what we can
do with the conclusions we draw. It will be important for you to
consider how these concepts will work in relation to your
independent research.

How do we write it up?

You have now learned about the initial work that goes into doing a
phenomenological analysis by applying the concepts of bracketing
and dimensions of the lifeworld to data. However, this is just the
initial phase of data analysis. As you will see next week, there are
other steps that need to be undertaken before a phenomenological
analysis is completed.

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At this stage it is worth thinking about what needs to be included in

the final write-up. You may remember from your studies on
DE200 that the write-up of qualitative reports follows a basic
structure:

Research report template

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View description - Research report template

Introduction
This section of the report should provide a clear rationale for your
study (i.e. explain the reasons for what you’re about to do). To do
this, you will need to:

1. introduce the general subject matter briefly

2. review relevant academic literature, including research
claims and theoretical developments
3. explain the approach that you are taking and why
4. conclude with your research question(s).

Method
In this section of the report you need to explain:

 how you chose and collected your data

 the steps you took in analysing your data.

This should include a discussion of:

 the methodological framework that informed your

method choices (e.g. did choosing a discursive
approach affect subsequent data-collection choices?)
 the method of data collection chosen, and any
materials that were developed for your research (e.g.
an interview schedule, consent forms, and so on)
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 outcomes of any pilot work undertaken

 sampling techniques used to recruit participants (or, in
the case of working with existing data, which you will
learn about in Week 12, the sampling
decisions/techniques used to collect a sample of
text/newspaper articles) and an outline of key
characteristics of the sample
 how data collected were prepared for analysis (e.g. a
description of how data were transcribed)
 an explanation of the analytic steps taken to arrive at
the final version of your analysis.

Analysis
The Analysis section should include:

 a brief overview of what analysis was used and how

the analytic concepts were used to structure this
section of the report (e.g. in phenomenological
analysis, it is not unusual to structure the final write-up
in terms of themes, in which discussion of dimensions
of the lifeworld appear when relevant in each theme –
this will be discussed in more detail next week)
 an interpretation of relevant data – this will include the
presentation of data extracts that support the analytic
concepts you are outlining and explaining (each data
extract included in this section must be interpreted).
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It is important that the interpretation you write in this section of the

report is:

 persuasive – use plenty of extracts to support your

claims
 transparent – ensure that the reader can see how
the themes are relevant to your research question(s)
 plausible – be careful not to take your interpretation
too far away from the data. Asking someone else to
check your interpretation is one way to check the
plausibility of your analysis. There is no single correct
interpretation; others are always possible. It is a
question of determining whether yours is plausible.

It can be helpful for the reader if you end this section with a
summary of the key points that you’ve made.

You may wish to integrate links to relevant literature with your

interpretation in the Analysis section. You might remember from
DE200 that, although a discussion of the link between your study
and existing literature is typically made in the Discussion section in
quantitative reports, in qualitative reports it is sometimes easier to
make these links as you write up your interpretation.

Discussion

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Whether or not you decide to integrate a discussion of the links

between existing literature and your interpretations of data in the
Analysis section, you will still need a Discussion section that
addresses the follow issues. (Please note, if you have not linked
your analysis to existing literature in the Analysis section, then you
should do this in the Discussion section.)

 What does your analysis indicate?

 How does it address your research question(s)?
 How do your results relate to the relevant literature?
 What are the implications of your findings for the world
‘out there’? Remember that there is a difference
between generalising from your data to the wider
world (i.e. empirical or statistical generalisability) –
which you should not do – and relating your data to
the wider world (i.e. theoretical generalisability) –
which you should do.

End your discussion with an evaluation of what you have done and
then summarise it with some sensible thoughts and pointers for
further developments (i.e. not a recommendation that the study be
repeated with more data).

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4. Independent project
Your literature review
Exploring and identifying relevant literature is key to developing a
sound and interesting independent project. Week 1 directed you to
a range of training resources for developing your literature
researching and referencing skills, as well as instruction on How
to do a literature search. A literature search and review are key
to formulating clear research questions and it is important that you
complete these activities. At this stage, you should have a good
idea of your project topic so you should start your literature search
this week.

Keyword searches and reference

management
It will be important to use appropriate edatabases and ejournals to
locate relevant literature. From your second level study, you may
have experience of undertaking keyword searches using
edatabases and retrieving literature from e-journals using the
portals on the OU Library website. However, for your research
project, you will need to develop these skills further by exploring a
number of different search criteria and filters to increase the
sophistication of your literature search. Additionally, as you will
likely be working with many more literature sources, you may wish
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to consider using reference-management software, which will

enable you to download references to automatically generate a
reference list.

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References
Berger, P.L. and Luckmann, T. (1966) The Social Construction
of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge,
London, Anchor.

Brentano, F. (1982) Descriptive Psychology (trans. and ed. B.

Muller), London, Routledge.

Edwards, D. (1999) ‘Emotion discourse’, Culture & Psychology,

vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 271–91.

Husserl, E. (1970 [1939]) The Crisis of the European Sciences

and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to
Phenomenological Philosophy (trans. D. Carr), Evanston, IL,
Northwestern University Press.

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Activity 1: A forensic example

revisited
Part
Discussion
A psychologist using a discursive approach would be interested in
how eyewitnesses construct their version of what happened. You
might remember from the video that discursive psychologists aren’t
focusing on what ‘really’ happened – that is, they are not trying to
find a single true version of events.

Key to discursive approaches is the idea that social actions and

interactions become constructed in discourse. You saw this in the
video when the volunteers became positioned as eyewitnesses to
a crime. For example, the accuracy of memory becomes important
in the context of eyewitness testimony because those memories
may potentially play a part in future legal processes. As Paul
Stenner notes, this context shapes eyewitness accounts – the
words used and what is described. In the video, one example of
this is when an eyewitness says he ‘spotted’ the two people
involved in the subsequent crime, and mentions specific details
such as their clothing and their location at the bar. Paul Stenner
suggests that these ways of speaking about the crime position this
eyewitness as a competent and attentive observer. This means
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that the eyewitness account is not a straightforward record of what

happened, but it is an account that is performing social actions –
one of which, in this case, is the construction of the eyewitness as
a good and credible source of information.

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Activity 1: A forensic example

revisited
Part
Discussion
The use of video in eyewitness memory experiments provides an
important resource for determining the accuracy of eyewitness
accounts. If the material that eyewitnesses are exposed to is
staged and recorded, then you have a clear resource with which
information from eyewitness accounts can be compared. This
allows you to assess the accuracy of eyewitness accounts. Paul
Stenner suggests that underlying this experimental approach is the
realist idea that there is one reality that can be represented in
many different ways that are more or less accurate.

In contrast, qualitative researchers using discursive methods are

interested in how reality (e.g. an account or a version of what
happened from the perspective of particular eyewitnesses) is
constructed in different ways from different perspectives.
Researchers using phenomenological methods are interested in
the experience of different realities. What’s important about this is
that the starting point of discursive or phenomenological
approaches is not a focus on one reality.

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Back to - Part

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Activity 1: A forensic example

revisited
Part
Discussion
Experimental and text-based qualitative research both involve
formulating a research question, planning and implementing
appropriate research design, and collecting and analysing data. As
you saw in Week 4 Activity 1, experiments involve setting up
conditions to collect data. This design is carefully tied to a
hypothesis or prediction, so that the data collected is directly
relevant to the testing of it.

Paul Stenner emphasises that research questions used in

qualitative work are typically designed to be exploratory, and
therefore effort is made to bracket out prior expectations about
what is going on. These research questions do not predict
anything, but, rather, invite exploration of a particular aspect of an
issue or a topic. The analysis of data collected is similarly driven by
exploration, and as far as it is possible analysis needs to be led by
the data rather than one’s preconceptions about the topic under
study.

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The video also discusses some of the key characteristics of text-

based qualitative research methods:

 The research focuses on what happens in social

interaction and the detail of what is said.
 Psychological phenomena (such as memory) are
understood as concrete and situated social actions
(e.g. the social process of acts of remembering).
 Research questions are framed by distinct theoretical
assumptions based on the general idea that, instead
of getting at a reality behind the appearance of
discourse, we study the reality that is constructed in
the discourse.

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Activity 1: A forensic example

revisited
Part
Discussion
In Block 1, you learned about memory and remembering as a
cognitive process. However, from a discursive perspective a
person’s account of what they remember is not an expression of a
cognitive process that is going on inside their head. Rather, the
account, and the discourses that make up the account, is the act of
remembering as it happens; it is this that would be discursively
analysed. What would be of interest is how acts of remembering
are constructed, what social actions are performed and how the
context of remembering – whether it be remembering in the
context of witnessing a crime or recollecting shared experiences
from family photos – shapes the account given of the remembered
event.

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Activity 1: A forensic example

revisited
Part
Discussion
How did you find that? In the video, Paul Stenner provides an
explanation of how jealousy is played out through what the actors
say. You might have thought that this is a counterintuitive way of
understanding emotion. This is because we often pay attention to
how people discuss how they are feeling in order to get an insight
into how the emotion is experienced: what is going on ‘inside’ the
person. In the video, attention is paid to what is said to understand
the social process of ‘doing’ emotions such as jealousy.

It may also be the case that Paul Stenner’s explanation made

sense to you because the explanation of the meaning of what was
said felt familiar. This is because this jealousy scene (a situation
involving a triangular relationship) draws on socially and culturally
familiar ideas of what it means to be jealous. Interpreting the scene
as one of jealousy allows us to understand the meaning of the
event and the motives for the ensuing violence.

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Activity 2: Qualitative
methodologies and CHIP
Part
Answer
Right:

(b) False

Wrong:

(a) True

The philosophy called ‘phenomenology’ was proposed by Edmund

Husserl, who was a student of one of the earliest modern
psychologists, Franz Brentano. Before becoming the name of a
philosophy, phenomenology was part of Brentano’s descriptive
psychology.

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Activity 2: Qualitative
methodologies and CHIP
Part
Answer
Right:

(a) True

Wrong:

(b) False

The natural attitude is the everyday, common-sense view of the

world. What phenomenologists do is to question and suspend the
natural attitude, and hence concentrate on the experience itself, as
it is lived. To focus on experience, it is helpful to ‘bracket out’
questions of the external or internal world and to concentrate
instead on the detail and qualities of the experience. (This
‘bracketing’ is also known as ‘epoché’.)

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Activity 2: Qualitative
methodologies and CHIP
Part
Answer
Right:

(b) False

Wrong:

(a) True

This is the kind of explanation that might be offered by an

evolutionary psychologist. A phenomenological psychologist would
bracket out genetic explanations and attend to the nature of the
jealous experience.

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Activity 2: Qualitative
methodologies and CHIP
Part
Answer
Right:

(b) False

Wrong:

(a) True

Brentano’s concept of intentionality is the observation that mental

states always have objects that they are ‘about’. Thoughts, for
example, are thoughts about something (the object of thought may
be ‘what shall I do tomorrow?’ or ‘why was my sister mean to me
last night?’). This is also the case for feelings (we are not just
jealous, but jealous about something), memories (we do not just
have memory, but a memory about someone or something),
perceptions (we do not just ‘see’, but see, for example, this sunset
or that approaching person), and so on.

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Activity 2: Qualitative
methodologies and CHIP
Part
Answer
Right:

(a) True

Wrong:

(b) False

This concept was developed by Husserl but was also taken

forward in the work of Martin Heidegger, who emphasised the
importance of relationships, time and the broader environment to
every human experience (he used the phrase ‘being-in-the-world’
to encapsulate this). This concept makes phenomenology relevant
to social psychology, since it stresses that there is no such thing as
an individual with no context. It also forms a bridge to social
constructionism.

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Activity 2: Qualitative
methodologies and CHIP
Part
Answer
Right:

(a) True

Wrong:

(b) False

The social worlds we live in are understood by social

constructionists as ‘interpretive networks’. These networks are
continually being constructed and reconstructed by individuals,
groups and institutions.

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Activity 2: Qualitative
methodologies and CHIP
Part
Answer
Right:

(b) False

Wrong:

(a) True

Social constructionism suggests that people make active choices

rather than behaving in a way that is determined by social context.

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Activity 2: Qualitative
methodologies and CHIP
Part
Answer
Right:

(a) True

Wrong:

(b) False

All knowledge is seen as an expression of the social and historical

context in which it is produced.

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Activity 2: Qualitative
methodologies and CHIP
Part
Answer
Right:

(b) False

Wrong:

(a) True

Social constructionists do not deny the existence of physiological

differences. However, rather than trying to find out a fixed truth
about physiology, they instead pay attention to how these
differences are made sense of in different societies.

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Activity 2: Qualitative
methodologies and CHIP
Part
Answer
Right:

(b) False

Wrong:

(a) True

Identity is seen as historically and culturally specific, dynamic, and

constantly being ‘renegotiated’ through social interaction.

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Activity 2: Qualitative
methodologies and CHIP
Part
Answer
Perspectives that have links to social constructionism include
social representations, queer history/theory, and feminist
perspectives.

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Activity 3: Developing research

questions and method choices
Part
Discussion
Topic 1: Individual participation in riots and urban conflict

Phenomenological approach Discursive approach

Research question Method Research question Method
Your research Interviews would Your research Newspaper
question should be an appropriate question should accounts would be
focus on method to use as focus on the a good source of
experience. For they can capture construction of data, as a
example: ‘How is first-person meaning in researcher can
participation in a accounts of discourse. For access a variety of
riot experienced?’ experience in a riot example: ‘How is everyday public
situation. participation in a accounts. But
riot constructed in interviews or focus
everyday groups could also
accounts?’ be used to collet
relevant accounts.

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Activity 3: Developing research

questions and method choices
Part
Discussion
Topic 2: The meaning of romantic love in adult relationships

Phenomenological approach Discursive approach

Research question Method Research question Method
Your research Interviews would Your research Interviews or focus
question should be an appropriate question should groups could be
focus on method to use as focus on the used to collect data
experience. For they can capture construction of relevant to this
example: ‘How do first-person meaning in research question.
adults experience accounts of the discourse. For
romantic love?’ experience of example: ‘How is
being in love. romantic love
Focus groups could constructed in
also be used discourse?’
provided space is
made to capture in-
depth experiences
(e.g. an interview
with two or more
people who are in a
romantic
relationship).

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Activity 3: Developing research

questions and method choices
Part
Discussion
Topic 3: Mother–daughter relationships in later life

Phenomenological approach Discursive approach

Research question Method Research question Method
Your research Mothers and Your research Mothers and
question should daughters could be question should daughters could be
focus on interviewed focus on the interviewed
experience. For separately, or a construction of separately, or a
example: ‘How do focus group meaning in focus group
mothers and comprising both discourse. For comprising both
daughters mothers and example: ‘How are mothers and
experience their daughters could be mother–daughter daughters could be
relationships with conducted to relationships conducted to
each other in later collect data. constructed at collect data.
life?’ times of family
transition?’

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Activity 4: Practising a
phenomenological analysis
Part
Answer
The main characters are Jimmy, Connie, Caroline and the ‘bloke
downstairs’ (some may also note the counsellor).

Jimmy in a relationship with Connie; Connie and Caroline seem to

be friends; Connie and the ‘bloke downstairs’ are allegedly dancing
together to slow music.

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Activity 4: Practising a
phenomenological analysis
Part
Answer
Jimmy describes himself as ‘boiling at this stage’ and as ‘really
angry with Connie’. Later, he describes – without an account of
feelings – wanting to jump out of the window, but being unable to.
The feelings downstairs are described as ‘giggling’ (i.e. happy and
light-hearted). Caroline is presented as expressing concern about
the illicit nature of the dancing (‘I’m going to tell Jimmy’), and
Connie as wishing to hide this from Jimmy (‘What he doesn’t know
doesn’t hurt him.’).

The events include Jimmy becoming angry and going upstairs to

lie on the bed; Jimmy hearing giggling and slow music being put
on; and Jimmy hearing that Connie is dancing with the ‘bloke
downstairs’.

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Activity 4: Practising a
phenomenological analysis
Part
Answer
The places/spaces that are mentioned are downstairs and
upstairs. The objects that are mentioned include the bed, stairs,
records/music and the window.

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Activity 4: Practising a
phenomenological analysis
Part
Answer
The sequencing of events involves Jimmy being in bed before
Connie comes home. This temporal sequence is significant
because Jimmy seems to have experienced trying to remove
himself from a problematic situation. His extreme reactions of
throwing Connie on to the bed and trying to jump out of the window
come after he hears comments about Connie’s possible infidelity.
Temporality is also built into the meaning of the ‘slow songs’ that
create the context for the possibility of physical intimacy between
Connie and the ‘bloke’.

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Activity 4: Practising a
phenomenological analysis
Part
Answer
Much like the extract from Connie’s account that you read earlier,
in the extract from Jimmy’s account, bodies are not centrally or
explicitly discussed. They could be seen as relevant to this
experience in the sense of significance of their heterosexual
bodies in the context of sexual jealousy. The throwing of Connie on
to the bed brings with it meanings associated with gendered
violence in which men’s physicality is often treated as being more
powerful than women’s. It should be pointed out that that
understanding is not a ‘truth’ but rather one social meaning that is
often drawn on to make sense of differences between men’s and
women’s bodies.

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Uncaptioned Figure
Description
This image is a ‘word cloud’ with words of different sizes and colours. The words are
all relevant to text-based qualitative methodologies; for example “Qualitative”, “Data
collection”, “Epistemological”, “Field notes” and “Questions”.

Back to - Uncaptioned Figure

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Lisa Lazard
Description
This is a colour photograph of Lisa Lazard, one of the authors of Chapter 7. Lisa is
female with long, straight hair. She is wearing a dark top with a delicate necklace.

Back to - Lisa Lazard

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Scene from BBC Eyewitness

Description
This colour photograph is a screenshot from the BBC TV programme “Eyewitness”. It
shows the interior of a pub with the bar just visible in the bottom left. In the
background, several people are seated at tables. In the foreground two males are
standing talking – one, with his face toward camera, wears a blue jacket and jeans,
and the other, with his back to the camera, is wearing a high-vis jacket.

Back to - Scene from BBC Eyewitness

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The CHIP star field

Description
This colour illustration is a screenshot of the CHIP star field – a black screen with
coloured dots.

Back to - The CHIP star field

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Uncaptioned Figure
Description
This image represents a silhouette of a person with a ‘speech cloud’ above them. The
‘speech cloud’ is also a ‘word cloud’ with words of different sizes, some in red, some
in grey. The words are all relevant to research questions in text-based qualitative
research, for example “Who”, “When”, “ask”, “Why” and “knowledge”.

Back to - Uncaptioned Figure

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Uncaptioned Figure
Description
This black-and-white image shows a signpost (like a street name sign) but shown ‘end
on’. The signpost has the word “experience” on it with the first ‘e’ in the extreme
foreground.

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Uncaptioned Figure
Description
This colour photograph shows a counselling session. A white male and female are
sitting on a grey sofa. The male is explaining something with his hands outstretched;
the female sits in a defensive position holding her head in her hands. They are both
talking to a female who is visible in the right foreground with her back to us.

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Research report template

Description
This image shows the standard conventions for writing up
psychological research. On the left are eight grey rectangles
representing each main section in a report: ‘Title’, ‘Abstract’,
‘Introduction’, ‘Method/Methodology’, ‘Results/Analysis’,
‘Discussion’, ‘References’ and ‘Appendices’. A white arrow points
right from each grey rectangle to a white rectangle where each
section is briefly explained. The explanations are as follows:

Title: An informative description of the research being reported.

Abstract: A concise summary of the entire report, identifying the

background, method and findings.

Introduction: The background to the research and a rationale for

the study that explains how this particular research relates to
previous literature. The introduction ends with a clear statement of
precisely what is being studied and the hypothesis or research
question being investigated.

Method/Methodology: A thorough description of what was done

and how. The method section will usually outline the design,
participants, materials and procedure. There should be sufficient
detail to allow replication.
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Results/Analysis: What the research found: if quantitative,

summarise the numerical data and say how the data were
analysed; if qualitative, summarise that data with illustrative
examples.

Discussion: What the results mean for the topic in question. How
the results relate to previous literature, the limitations of the
findings, and what research on this topic should address next.

References: A list of all the literature cited in the report.

Appendices: Copies of further information such as a copy of a

questionnaire.

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Welcome to Week 9
Transcript
LISA LAZARD
Hello, I’m Lisa Lazard. And welcome to Week 10, where we are going to be learning
about qualitative text-based methodologies.
This week you’ll be taking a step back from experiments and survey-based methods.
As you know from your studies on Block 1, these are used to show the relationships
between variables, hopefully telling us something about how the world ‘out there’
really is.
What you will be doing this week – and for the rest of Block 2 – is focusing on
methods that tell us about what things mean in our social world. This includes: how
people make sense of the world, how they experience particular events; how they
negotiate and manage interactions; and how current issues, or topics, become socially
defined and understood.
What’s fascinating about these methods is that they allow you to explore the topic you
are interested in, which often will take you in new and unanticipated directions. This
path to research is exciting and can introduce you to new ways of thinking about our
social world.
This week you’ll meet with two qualitative text-based methodologies:
phenomenological approaches, and discursive approaches in psychology.
The phenomenological approach is about understanding experience. You may be able
to recall an occasion, when listening to someone – a friend, a colleague or a person in
the media – talking about a particular event, and wondered: what it’s actually like to
go through something like that? The phenomenological approach is well suited to
formally study this kind of initial question.
Discursive approaches, on the other hand, do not focus on questions of experience, as
such. What’s of interest here is how our social world – events, issues, topics and
people – become constructed in the ways we speak or write about them; in other
words, in the language or discourse they are constructed in.
To understand what I mean by this, think for a moment about jealousy in relationships
and the different ways it can be described. What did you come up with? You may
have thought about jealousy as a sign of real love – for example, you may have heard
people say, ‘If I didn’t care I wouldn’t get jealous’ – or you may have thought about it
as emotional insecurity – for example, ‘I’m worried I’ll lose you, that’s why I get
jealous’ – or even evidence of paranoia: it’s not uncommon to hear people caught in a
jealousy scenario to say, ‘But I didn’t do anything to make my partner jealous.’ All of
these versions of jealousy have very real implications. For example, if it’s seen as real
love, then the partner of the jealous person may find it difficult to say it’s a problem,
because it’s an expression of care, after all.
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These issues are described in Chapter 7, where we’ll continue with the topic of
jealousy to talk you through the background to phenomenological and discursive
approaches. This chapter explores some of the limits of natural science methods for
answering certain questions about human experience and discourse. And by engaging
with the complexity of understanding and analysing human experience, you’ll learn
about core phenomenological concepts. These describe a range of features that make
up how we come to understand and feel about the events we go through.
You’ll also take a closer look at the topic of social construction, which is key to
understanding discursive approaches, and examines how versions of the world
become constructed through discourse. When we are presented with a number of
versions, this then raises questions about which ones we are going to take as truth, and
which criteria we use to decide what counts as real or true. There are many debates to
be had about the nature of reality and their implications for understanding
psychological phenomena like jealousy emotions.
The online content for this week draws on ideas raised in the chapter and applies them
to a real-world example of eyewitness testimony. You’ll also be exploring the
historical and conceptual issues that frame phenomenological and discursive
approaches.
Your methods training will focus on refreshing your memory of qualitative data-
collection methods, and thinking about how to develop research questions that are
suitable for qualitative research. Other exercises include applying phenomenological
analytic concepts to a real-life transcript of a counselling session, and thinking about
your own independent project.
Should you be using a qualitative methodological approach in your own research,
remember to consider how you can access literature that uses qualitative methods, to
develop your own ideas. You can develop your skills around literature searching in
this week’s independent project activity.
I hope you enjoy this week’s introduction to qualitative text-based approaches, and
enjoy the process of developing your independent project.

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Applying qualitative methodology to

real world issues: rethinking
Eyewitness
Transcript
PAUL STENNER
Earlier in the module, Graham Pike discussed the memorable BBC documentary
called Eyewitness, and I want to return to this documentary to think about how
research questions of a qualitative kind can be generated and pursued.
First, let me set the scene a little. You might remember that the documentary involved
a group of volunteers who were led to believe that they were witnessing a fatal
stabbing in a pub. In fact, the event was staged by actors and the whole thing was
filmed. And capturing it on film gave the programme makers an accurate record of
what actually happened in the pub.
This could then be compared against eyewitness accounts collected from the
volunteers. The documentary is then able to show us that these memories are in fact
pretty inaccurate. For example, many witnesses reported events that didn’t happen,
and some of them identified the wrong person as the killer.
I want to draw attention to something interesting about this way of setting things up. It
makes memory all about accuracy or the degree to which a mental representation
faithfully corresponds to a reality. The film is taken to be the reality and the
eyewitness accounts are taken to be more or less accurate representations of that
reality.
In this way, the documentary really plays to the strength of the experimental method,
underpinned by a realist epistemology, or theory of knowledge. But, actually, as I’ll
explain, this stance can get in the way of qualitative research, so we need to be aware
of it.
The documentary is a rich source of qualitative data: it contains lots of talk and
meaningful action, and this can be analysed in its own right. Qualitative researchers
would take a step back from the realist idea that there is one reality which can be
represented in many different ways that are more or less accurate. Instead, qualitative
researchers, using discursive methods, are interested in how reality is constructed in
people’s talk. And those using phenomenological methods are interested in the
experience of different realities.
Issues like accuracy might be important in some of these constructions and
experiences, but less so in others. The trick is to be led by the data and to describe it in
rich detail in its own terms. In fact, a qualitative researcher might well ask a research

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question like, ‘Under what circumstances does accuracy get constructed as the key
issue in memory?’
There’s an interesting piece of discourse from the documentary that speaks to this
question. Immediately after the stabbing, the narrator says, ‘Our volunteers are now
eyewitnesses. The police are handling this crime like a real case.’
If you reflect on this statement for a moment, you’ll see that it reveals something very
interesting. It suggests that from the moment of the stabbing, the people in the pub get
constructed in a new way. So we now view them through the lens of a new social
category. They ceased to be merely volunteers and were transformed into the new
category of ‘eyewitnesses’. This social category is about meaning; nothing changed
physically about these people, and yet, in an instant, they acquire new social identities
and will be called upon to play new social roles.
So the sheer occurrence of the killing as a social event serves, in this context, to newly
construct all the onlookers present as ‘witnesses’. At the same time, other people
become things like ‘victims’, ‘perpetrators’, and ‘accomplices’. These social
categories come into being only after the meaningful event of the crime, and their
existence places new demands on the memories of all involved. This is because those
memories will, from now on, potentially play a part in future legal processes. And it’s
in this context that the question of accuracy acquires a new importance.
Consider, for example, that if the crime had not occurred, nobody would have been
surprised or concerned about the fact that each person had their own idiosyncratic
memory of what happened during their lunch, or hazy memories of the strangers in
the pub. But once the crime has occurred, such variability becomes a problem because
we want an account that will stand up in court.
Acts of remembering thus become very specific things in this context. They become
what Steve Brown and Paula Reavey call ‘forensic memories’. Let’s take a concrete
example from the documentary of an act of remembering.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
EYEWITNESS
There were two of them. I spotted them with high-vis jackets on. And they were sat
on one end of the bar facing the lounge.
[END PLAYBACK]
PAUL STENNER
Notice that this act of remembering is, first of all, a piece of talk. Like any act, it takes
place in a particular social context; in this case, in response to a formal interview
question. A discursive psychologist would not treat this discourse as an expression of
a memory process going on inside this man’s head. Rather, the discourse is the act of
remembering as it actually happens, and should be analysed in its own right.
We can see that the response is tailored to its forensic context. For example, he
doesn’t just say that he saw two people, but that he spotted them. He also mentioned
specific details like their clothing and their location at the bar. These ways of
constructing events position him as a competent and attentive observer. And in this
way, they foreground the accuracy of the recollection.

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So instead of thinking of memory as an abstract universal cognitive process,

qualitative researchers would study the details of concrete, discursive acts of
remembering by particular people in particular contexts.
We should not assume that accuracy is always important in such acts, but in the case
of forensic memory, it comes to be the primary value. In other contexts, remember, it
might become a very different activity. For example, imagine a family looking at old
family photographs and recollecting events from their shared past. Here, accuracy is
less important than the social pleasure of taking a shared trip down memory lane.
Let me now step back a little from this forensic theme. If we take this documentary as
a source of text-based qualitative data, our analysis actually need have nothing to do
with remembering at all. The documentary contains plenty of concrete social
interaction and communication that can be studied in rich detail. In fact, qualitative
research questions are typically designed to be exploratory, and therefore effort is
made to bracket out prior expectations about what is going on, including prior
psychological categories like memory.
Let’s look at the violent scene itself, which is barely mentioned in the documentary.
We could take this scene as data. We could transcribe it and examine it carefully. It
lasts less than a minute. There are four main characters, Gordon, Jimmy, Dean, and a
woman whose name is not given but who appears to be a companion of Gordon’s.
In a first phase, we learn that Jimmy had approached the unnamed female whilst
Gordon had visited the toilet. The phase begins with a confrontation between Jimmy
and Gordon. Gordon challenges Jimmy with the question, ‘What’s your problem,
mate?’ Jimmy responds by stating that this was the first time he had seen her smile.
Gordon instructs the woman to be quiet and pushes Jimmy away, telling him to just
go.
Notice that this scene involves a triangular structure of relationships that is typical of
the emotion of jealousy. Seen this way, Gordon is the jealous subject, Jimmy is the
rival, and the interaction between Jimmy and the unnamed female is the object of
Gordon’s jealousy. Interpreting it as a scene of jealousy lends clear meaning to the
event and provides a motive for the initial violence.
Without forgetting that these are actors, let’s analyse the actual discourse.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
JIMMY
Why not?
GORDON
What’s your problem, mate?
[INAUDIBLE]
JIMMY
I was just saying to your girl, mate, it’s the first time I’ve seen her smile.
GORDON
Sit down. Be quiet.
JIMMY
First time I’ve seen her smile.
GORDON
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Look just go.

[END PLAYBACK]
PAUL STENNER
Gordon’s utterance, ‘What’s your problem, mate?’, is clearly more than a question.
Gordon isn’t actually interested in learning about Jimmy’s problem or in helping him
to solve it. On the contrary, Gordon’s utterance presupposes that Jimmy’s presence is
a problem, and as such, directly constructs him as a problem. It conveys to Jimmy that
from Gordon’s perspective, Jimmy is out of order. He’s violating norms. Gordon thus
position’s Jimmy as problematic.
Jimmy’s response to this position is interesting. He presents a positive interpretation
by saying that this is the first time he had seen her smile. In this way, Jimmy resists
being positioned as a problem and presents another perspective. But this utterance is
quite carefully designed to offend, and it’s not surprising that it exacerbates the
situation.
So in saying that this was the first time he’d seen her smile, Jimmy aggravates
Gordon’s jealous perspective in two ways. First, it suggests that Gordon’s companion
is not happy with Gordon, and second, it suggests that she is pleased by Jimmy.
Gordon responds, in turn, with anger and aggression towards both of them.
In the second phase of the scene, the actual violence starts, and the little jealous scene
pales into insignificance. But actually, from a qualitative perspective, it makes sense
of how the participants got swept up into the violence.
Obviously there’s a lot more that can be said. But I hope that you take away three
points from this learning resource. First, that text-based qualitative methods involve
careful attention to what actually happens in social interaction and the detail of what
is actually said.
Second, that this involves a rather different way of thinking about psychological
concepts and phenomena. Memory, for example, is understood in terms of concrete
and situated acts of remembering, and not in terms of an abstract cognitive
mechanism.
Finally, this kind of qualitative research involves a different sort of research question
framed by distinct theoretical assumptions. Instead of getting at a reality behind the
appearance of discourse, we study the reality that is constructed in the discourse.
I hope that this gives a flavour of some of the exciting things that you can do when
using text-based qualitative methods.

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issues: rethinking Eyewitness

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Extract 1
Transcript
CONNIE
At that point, Jimmy … My Jimmy’s extremely jealous – extremely jealous person.
He always has been, from the day we met, you know. And at that point in time there
was an episode with a bloke in a pub, you know, and me having a few drinks and
messing. That was it. Right. And this all got out of hand to Jimmy, according to
Jimmy. I was always doing it and, you know, always aggravating him. He was a
jealous person; I aggravated the situation; and he walked out that time. To me it was
totally ridiculous the way he goes on through this problem that he has.

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Extract 2
Transcript
JIMMY
Uh. And I was boiling at this stage, and I was really angry with Connie. And I went
up to bed, and I lay on the bed, and I got into bed, and I could hear giggling and all
that, downstairs. And then the music changed – slow records. And, um, they changed
to slow records, and I could hear that Connie was dancing with this bloke downstairs.
And Caroline turned round and said something about it. It was … it was ‘Oh Connie,
look out. I’m gonna tell Jimmy on you.’ And next thing I hear is ‘What he doesn’t
know doesn’t hurt him.’
COUNSELLOR
I’m sorry?
JIMMY
‘What he doesn’t know doesn’t hurt him.’ Soon as I heard that, I went straight
downstairs and I threw them out. And I took Connie up the stairs and threw her on the
bed and I kept trying to run and jump out the window. But, you know, I couldn’t. I
couldn’t get myself to go out. I couldn’t do it.
COUNSELLOR
So that’s what you felt like?
JIMMY
Oh yeah.

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