A comparative study of cognitive social psychology and discursive psychology in their approaches to the study of prejudice and intergroup conflict.
The study of prejudice and intergroup conflict within social psychology arose in response to the experiences of genocide in the Second World War (Dixon, 2007, p.147). This extreme example of prejudice is utilised within this essay to articulate the efficacy of socio-cognitive and discursive perspectives to understand conflict and offer applicable interventions to promote peace. Drawing upon studies such as Tajfels Minimal Group Paradigm (cited Brown, 2007, p.146) and Kerr’s presentations of sectarian violence (Kerr, 1996 cited Dixon, 2007, p.157), it will be shown that a discursive approach to conflict, which recognises the powerful role of modern myths and discourses in the maintenance of violence, is preferable to socio-cognitive approaches. However, both perspectives appear limited by their epistemic reduction to individual or social paradigms, which hinder exploration of further contributing factors within prejudice and conflict such as psychosocial unconscious motivations.
Conceptual similarities exist between discursive and socio-cognitive perspectives, although differences are illustrated by articulation of terminologies. For example, both approaches similarly view prejudice and intergroup conflict as emerging from collective ideologies and beliefs, which are operationalised through categorisation. However, these ‘socially shared cognitions’ become discursive ‘interpretative repertoires’ (Dixon, 2007, p.157). Differences in terminology are thus illustrative of further, fundamental epistemological and ontological differences.
Socio-cognitive research employs experimental methods to discover knowledge of prejudice within individual minds. Although expressive of two theoretical paths, one adhering to the dominant scientific paradigm, the other to a critical tradition, both nonetheless reduce into individualistic terms. Prejudice is therefore interior (Allport, 1954, p.9 cited Dixon, 2007, p.147), explained as faulty cognitions (Dixon, 2007p.149), leading to theories of ‘authoritarian’ (Adorno et al, 1950 cited Dixon, 2007, p.147) and ‘dogmatic’ (Rokeach, 1960, cited Dixon, 2007, p.147) personalities, pathologising prejudice. Tajfel sought to normalize prejudice eschewing ‘aberrationist’ theories (Dixon, 2007, p.148), focusing instead on inter-group prejudice as a rational part of social identity. However, his exploration of group prejudice and understanding of social categories were still tested experimentally, again reducing to an internal individualistic paradigm.
Discursive psychology views prejudice as a societal creation. Categories are formed between people, existing as external discourses, contextually morphic and available as socio-cultural tools with which to negotiate the world (Dixon, 2007, p.159). These social representations are maintained through language, belief and cultural practice. Research and analysis focuses upon the linguistic structures apparent within rhetoric and narrative to identify the discourses utilised and the maintenance of subject positions. Thus, discursive psychology conflicts with a socio-cognitive perspective on many levels. For example, discursive methodology, viewing prejudice as an external creation, does not recognise the efficacy of the cognitive method, which seeks to uncover prejudice within the mind. Our two perspectives may thus be seen to exist at either end of a continuum between individual and social epistemologies, which in turn, inform their methods of knowledge production.
Prejudice as a socially created discourse, is illustrated within a study by Kerr (Perceptions: Cultures in Conflict’ Kerr, 1996 cited Dixon, 2007, p.15). Two narratives are given, the first from the Protestant dominated United Democratic Party and the second by a previously Republican prisoner. A thematic discourse analysis demonstrates how both accounts, although acknowledging the reality of the violence, adopt contrasting ideological views as to the aetiology of the conflict (Dixon, 2007, p.158). Each positions the other as responsible for the violence and reserves a ‘moral justification’ discourse for their own group. This negotiation of social accountability (Cooper and Kaye, 2002, p.104) is achieved by employing rhetorical strategies to position the other, thus constructing and maintaining sectarian representations, which maintain the violence and power relations. Events are then evaluated through these collective representations maintaining collective belief systems, informing inter-group conflict (Eidelson and Eidelson, 2003 cited Dixon, 2007, p157).
Constructs can also be utilized for retroactive justifications. For example, Falk notes how the justification for the War in Iraq changed when no weapons of mass destruction were actually found. Instead, a new ‘humanitarian justification’ was employed (Falk, 2003 cited McGoldrick 2004, p.78). This new discursive position then enters dialogue informing a new belief system with the American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stating that the war in Iraq is an investment, to the spread of democracy in the Middle East, comparing the war to the fight against communism (Rice cited Stephens, 2006).
In contrast to the above discursive understanding, the socio-cognitive perspective was struggling to explore large intergroup issues due to individual reductionism. Therefore, researchers such as Tajfel sought to address the problem by studying group membership rather than individual cognitive styles. He aimed to discover the minimal characteristics necessary within a group for prejudice to manifest. Participants were randomly allocated to two groups with a monetary gain, achievable only by treating the other group as equal. However, prejudice occurred, not in relation to etiological concepts of resource acquisition (Dixon, 2007, p.154) but instead, prejudice was motivated by group status and power. Each group sought to achieve a higher status than the other by accentuating the ‘us’ and ‘them’ dynamic regardless of the monetary gain accompanying cooperation. The determining goal of conflict thus appeared to be one of positive identity achievement through affiliation to a high status group with positive social representations (Tajfel and Turner, 1979, Brown, 2007, p.139). This was achieved my maximizing intergroup difference with social identity being defined in comparison to the excluded ‘other’ (Douzinas, 2004, p.31), maintaining power positions, (Phoenix, 2002, p.64).
Criticisms of Tajfels minimal group experiment focus upon the continuing use of experimental reductionist methods. Despite his aim to study group behaviour, the experiment measured individual’s reactions to other individuals, assuming such reactions were indicative of group memberships. The complexities of group conflict are thus trivialised (Phoenix, 2002, p.65) with minimal differences being assumed as representative of major inequalities of power (Henriques, 1998 cited Phoenix, 2002, p.65). Experimental cognitive approaches therefore appear limited in their efficacy for explaining more extreme manifestations conflict which do not easily reduce or conform to a statisfied ‘ideal average’ (Jung, 1958, p.4). Further, Tajfel himself appeared aware of the limitations of his research indicating that other factors such as ‘emotional investments’ (Tajfel, 1981 p.7 cited Brown, 2007, p.134) may maintain power differentials between groups.
Emotional investment implies that factors beyond observable cognitions may be acting within prejudice. Billig (cited Brown, 2007, p.152) posits a persuasive discursive argument to this effect when identifying the ‘waxing and waning’ of prejudice and conflict illustrative of further subjective values. He further examples bigotry as an ‘emotion-laden’ discourse (Brown, 2007, p.154) which can only be effectively explored using qualitative methods of discursive analysis to observe the linguistic operationalisation of complex socially situated materials (1997, Harre and Gillet, 1994 cited Brown, 2007, p.152). Tajfels exclusion of the Nazi holocaust as a research topic within SIT (Tajfel himself was a Holocaust survivor), is viewed by Billig as more than a desire to avoid justification or empathy through understanding, but that SIT simply cannot explain the extremes of depersonalization produced by purely group identification (Brown, 2000, p.145).
Methods therefore, although important for producing knowledge of prejudice and intergoup conflict, are not neutral. The methods employed have consequences for the knowledge produced and their subsequent application within for example, interventions to reduce conflict. The contact hypothesis is one such example. Informed from a socio-cognitive perspective it aims to unify the ‘us’ and ‘them’ dynamic evidenced as increasing inter-group hostilities (Gaertner et al, 1990, cited Dixon, 2007, p.163). It achieves this through public policy (Brown, 2007, p.163). For example, following the 2001 ‘summer of violence’ in northern England, a government enquiry was commissioned to investigate the causes of the violence and offer strategies to avoid future confrontations. The Cantle report was published recommending the establishment of common values and identities (Dixon, 2007, p165) by de-emphasising group differences (Dixon, 2007, p.162), educating individuals for example, in ‘counter-stereotypic’ behaviour in a non-competitive and equal environment (Pettigrew, 1986 cited Dixon, 2007, p.162). However, the hypothesis displays a ‘theoretical individualism’ (Dixon, 2007, p.165) inherent within the experimental method, questioning the relevance of inter-personal contact upon larger intergroup issues. Also, the very nature of the contact hypothesis implies that prejudice ‘happens’ to people, and is thus innately passive rather than an active creation utilised for power (Rapoport, p.31a). How effective is such an intervention therefore, within large group scenarios?
There has been only one acknowledged, successful intervention of preventative peacekeeping to diffuse large inter-group tensions. This operation occurred in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. UN peacekeepers diffused inter-ethnic tensions by visiting and reassuring villages on a civil level whilst addressing the economic situation with sanction relief, easing tension over resources and providing humanitarian aid and human rights legislation (Ramcharan, 2002, p.173). This intervention engendered a contextual approach; transcending the empirically regressive stance of conflict as a maladaption requiring rehabilitation like the contact hypothesis, and focusing instead on collective and political discourses within society to effect change. Thus, discursive analysts would argue that collective, cultural constructions exist beyond the everyday psychological interactions with analysis of discourses such as ‘contact’ and ‘integration’ yielding understandings of the culturally embedded constructs (Hopkins and Kahani-Hopkins, 2006 cited Dixon, 2007, p.166). Conflict was negated in this case due to understandings of the political discourses in Macedonia. However, are large conflicts such as war for example, a natural continuation of political discourse by other means? (Clausewitz, 1908, 1982).
Clausewitz viewed war as a self-serving entitative phenomenon, a natural and rational articulation of socio-political goals. (Clausewitz, 1908, 1982, p.22). However, Clausewitz was writing at a time predating the Second World War. A rational war implies rational goals but the Nazi goals of achieving a Master Race appears representative of messianic beliefs rather than rational cognitive or social process (Rapoport p.15). The extremes of depersonalization and ‘psychological regression’ (Jung, 1958, p.126) that occurred led to the de-humanisation of the Jews and a re-definition of what was accepted as human.
The Nazi persecution of the Jews illuminated an interesting paradox of prejudice. It was observed that the more Jews they brutally exterminated, the greater the fear of them became. Thus, the more the Nazis tried to destroy the object of their fear and prejudice, the greater it’s power became (Lacan cited Frosh, 1997, p.172). The ‘other’ in such extremes appears to take on ‘fantastical’ proportions, a ‘psychic epidemic’ (Jung, 1958, p.127), beyond rationality and investment. Rustin views this process as evidence of extreme psychosocial projections which protect the dominating culture from anxiety but paradoxically, as the prejudice of the other is a projection of the dominators internal objects, this serves to generate more violence, hate and fear (Rustin cited Frosh, 1997, p.262). Thus, prejudice is a psychosocial complex engendered at the level of social and political relations and sustained and experienced at deep unconscious levels of the psyche (Frosh, p.266).
By taking the emergence of prejudice and intergroup conflict to the extreme of war, further levels of contributing factors beyond cognitive and discursive explanations are manifest. Although discursive psychology is successful in highlighting repertoires in which values are context bound such as the post-modern discourses of ‘just purpose’ and ‘moral liberation’ which may fuel justification for military warfare (Douzinas, 2004,p.30) becoming stories and myths which inform ‘the present through the lens of the past’ (Douzinas, 2004, p.33), it nonetheless fails to offer in-depth exploration of why certain positions are invested in as opposed to others’, through methodological avoidance of unconscious psychosocial motivations (Hollway and Jefferson, 2005). Analysis of social discourse and myth alone cannot understand the ‘fantastical excesses’ between social categories and psychic structures resulting in perverse investments (Frosh, 1997, p.174). Thus, what is said and written about conflict does not in itself determine it (Rapoport, 1968 p.12).
In conclusion, both discursive and cognitive paradigms are partially successful in their explorations into prejudice and conflict. Cognitive approaches are victims of their reductionist methodologies and conflict with discursive methods in their failure to truly expand on macro-group issues by their continued pursuit of empirical ‘truths’ and facts, which are superfluous to the understanding of contextually created social representations (Cooper and Kaye, 2002, p105). Thus, discursive, qualitative methods are far more productive in their ability to face the exteriority of conflict as a social creation. However, within a post-modern world of mass societies and globalization, which increase existential anxiety and ethnic insecurity (Douzinas, 2004, p.34), theories which maintain either individual or social extremes of duality fail in their ability to offer the psychosocial understandings necessary for such complexity. An alternative method of analysis may therefore be required, inspired perhaps, by psychoanalytic principles.
Article by Sinead Spearing. Website: www.sineadspearing.com
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