Qualitative Research Methods and Individual Differences in Psychology - Essay Example

 Qualitative Research Methods and Individual Differences in Psychology Membership Categorization Analysis (MCA) is a means of explaining the cultural reasoning of people on how they perceive themselves in society, and this awareness affects how they relate with one another. The most common means through which people relate to one another is communication through a language, and MCA uses language as a bearing to analyze how people use language to relate with one another, in everyday life situations. When using MCA an analyst’s main objective is to bring to light what people in a certain group or community categorize each other into roles they ought to fill in society, and how this affects their interactions. Therefore, this paper explores Membership Categorization through research on identity, reading, interpretation and evaluation by answering questions related to this subject matter. Analyzing Newspaper Reports using MCA Membership categorization loner is a social category meant to indicate a class of people who rarely interact with the rest of the group, but not explicitly everyone. The circle of interaction is deemed below the set standard that is why members of that particular group allege it to be abnormal. Explosion, in the context of this analysis, signifies an unexpected outcome of such a magnitude. Even though, there is an underlying undertone in the narrator’s words, they as a group anticipate such results from people they have seen as appropriate to be branded as loners. The relationship between the word explosion and loner in the membership category is that they both have undertones related to the group in question representing a negative phenomenon. The account is presented, using direct reported speech, to lay emphasis on the gravity of the actions committed by the subject, and it is to give the incident a personal feel and provide a face to the victims of the atrocities perpetrated by the subject. The use of direct reported speech serves to indicate and add weight to the categorization given by the heading of the article. It shows that the group, which the subject belongs to, approves of the membership category that the subject has been assigned. When account of events is relayed, by a person who actually knew the subject, it strengthens the relevance of the membership categorization device used to brand this subject, and it means that each and every member of that population can be categorized under the same class (Benwell & Stokoe, 2006). The effect that the direct categorization has on the reader is that of affirmation of the class into which that population has categorized that individual. Mr. Featherstone’s use of the words, nut and psycho, succeed in reinforcing the heading’s insinuations at the likely outcome of actions taken by an individual who has been categorized by the word loner. The categories used to describe Bryant, in this extract are loner, mongrel, joker, nut and a psycho. All of these membership categories are used to describe the subject and depict the social categories that are already in place in this population in readiness for any eventuality, which would occur in the direction taken by this individual. In the same group, there must be a directly opposite social categorizations to classify persons in the group who fall into a different category unlike that of Bryant. Membership characterization helps us to discern the sort of people, in this population, who see themselves and others in the group as rational. Through this, it is possible to gauge whether there is satisfaction in the sort of person they perceive as rational. In this case, it is obvious that Mr. Featherstone is quite content with the sort of person he sees himself being in that group because if it were not so, me would not have used such strong language to describe Bryant (Benwell & Stokoe, 2006). The use of the term mongrel portrays a brutal and merciless person out to cause insufferable pain to his victims and to the group as whole because the population in question relates such conduct to this type of social characterization. The outcome of all these words is a clear conviction of the authenticity of the subject’s character as described by the categorization. In the second extract, Bryant is not described as a cold-blooded killer dogged by tragedy because, by the mere mention of the word tragedy, it turns the whole perspective of the extract to that of depicting Bryant as a victim of circumstances and ill fortune. According to the extract, he is considered to have been a sociable person who once had friends and even acquaintances. He may not have been a cold-blooded killer because the membership characterizations used on him predispose and based his actions more on chance, and not a definite category-bound membership. The description of Bryant by his friends and acquaintances give credibility to the accuracy of the descriptions, in the abstract because those who were close and interacted with him were better suited to notice and observe what is presented by the extract (Benwell & Stokoe, 2006). The categories used to describe Bryant are slow, mentally ill and even in light of this, he was able to acquire the trust and friendship of a rich woman who lived in a mansion. This illustrates Bryant’s hidden ability to socialize positively with the elite of his population, which is not mentioned in the extract. These categories shed light on the diversity of the group, which Bryant belongs to because there is a stark contrast between the social categorization detected from the neighbor and the one offered by his friends and acquaintances. Identity The comments on the extracts are generally accurate because they provide the required evidence to conclude the extract as foreclosure. The comments do so by showing that an individual has not had a chance to explore other avenues to determine if there are other career choices that might interest him other than law. The notion that it is not fashionable to admit that a person is pursuing a certain career choice because of influence sourced from his or her parents is beyond what can be evident in the data from the extract. On this part, the comments do not give evidence why it is not fashionable to pursue a career similar to an individual’s parent. In the comments, there is an example of cause and effect where the lack of specificity instigates the basis of a foreclosure. There is no certainty that the interpretation is accurate, but according to the definition of foreclosure, the extract meets almost all the necessary conditions required construing a foreclosure. In ISI, the use of data as a tool to look for evidence of categories in a sample might be disadvantageous because the categories inserted into the sample might not fit or correctly address the subject matter (Have, 2004). Conditioning categories to a set of data might cloud the judgment of the results obtained after analysis because there would be no room for the occasion of a true defining identity category. Individuals can only be assigned identity categories in a controlled or closed environment because an open or dynamic environment brings with it parameters, which would not have been accounted for when assigning an identity category, in the first place. A fixed identity category can only suffice in a static environment. Ethnomethodology is a move towards understanding interactions that exist in their society in an effort to create a sense of order socially, and how individuals get to understand how their environment affects their day-to-day interactions (Have, 2004). According to Have, ethnomethodology is based on the supposition that people’s agreement to agree with one another is the foundation of social reality and means that ordinary people use to accomplish their day-to-day needs. In order to discover the rules that guide our society on how we relate to each other, ethnomethodology requires that a group’s daily life be interrupted in order to establish the identity of these set parameters that a community abides by. Ethnomethodologists use experiments, participant observation, case studies and interviews to explore the unique nature of the development of each creative achievement (Have, 2004). An ethnomethodologist might use the breaching experiment to disrupt the social identity of an individual in order to observe its creation because the natural order of nature is to restore balance where an imbalance has been encountered (Have, 2004). The interruption must be severe enough to generate the chaos desired in an individual’s identity for them to believe that their identity has been comprised. In doing so, the researcher is in a position to observe, through conversational analysis, how the subject attempts to reconstruct their identity from the confusion caused by the disruption. This method is bound to succeed because production of social life, in this case, identity is an ongoing affair and the people involved are not aware that they are contributors to the construction of their own social reality and identity. The questions that an ethnomethodological analysis on identity would seek to answer are those for the desire of identity preservation or whether, in the midst of all the confusion and uncertainty caused by the breach experiment, the subject discovers a new identity and whether they are willing to embrace the new identity or cling to an old familiar one. Foucauldian Discourse Analysis (FDA) is an analysis based on a discourse that focuses on power relationships in a population, and how it is conveyed through language among people of a given population. Power is the central aspect of FDA, and it determines how people relate to its consequences (Mills, 2012). According to Foucault’s discourse, power is recognized as core constituents of all discourses because they are the producers of power and they have the ability to destroy it. Foucault’s concept of discourse shows some of the fundamental realities of modern societies and how to improve on them. There exist differences between ethnomethodological approaches to identity and Foucauldian discourse analysis. The first difference is that ethnomethodological approaches to identity involve an actual study on a group or an individual who is put through an empirical module, and their reactions are observed, and inferences made depending on what the subject matter is (Mills, 2012). On the other hand, Foucauldian discourse analysis is interested in how individual(s) define and understand self and what roles they play when participating in the construction of their social identity (Mills, 2012). This is evident from Foucault’s argument that views are legitimate contributions and whether individuals are allowed to participate or not. Unlike ethnomethodological approaches that show discourses as continuous development, FDA tries to show the rationality of discourses by demonstrating their characters as events (Mills, 2012). Ethnomethodological approaches rely more on what subjects say when communicating to one another or talking about others amongst the group while FDA shows that communication cannot be used by just about anyone, but by only those who perform the rituals associated with communicating with one another. The other difference is that FDA has the power as its central aspect that is brought out by any form of discourse through the meaning we give to terminologies, and in turn, bestow unto them a power that we eventually come to fear and respect. Additionally, terminologies are central to the functioning of discourses, but they are not neutral. However, the power to define terms determines the outcome of discourses while ethnomethodological approaches rely on a definition or a response from a subject to draw an inference or a conclusion (Mills, 2012). The fact that Foucauldian discourse has been widely accepted as a concept, in social sciences and business studies, is an indication that its use can be applied to deduce inferences that can be applied in other disciplines. In contrary, ethnomethodological approaches to identity can only be used in sociology and psychology as empirical formulas that are used to deduce identities membership categories that people create. The focus of the analysis is how people represent themselves to self and the rest of the population they socialize with. The analysis extrapolates, on the society’s necessity to use membership categorization so that a balance is maintained in their social identity. The central research question in this analysis is what influences or motivates people to use membership categorization, and this is evidenced by the extract on Martin Bryant, which shows that people already have set membership categories that they assign to each other depending on the sort of people they perceive and interpret each other to be. Bryant is characterized as deviant by the use of the membership characterization words massacre and inexplicable. In addition to these two, the use of the expression lone gunman is also used to group Bryant into these categories, which all coalesce into a completely descriptive identity. The psychiatric and psychological production of Bryant is that of a deviant personality that has been under suspicion by his identity group, which readily brands him with membership categories that they see fit for such a person. This implies that every society has unknowingly constructed membership categories, which match every person depending on the type of person that the other members of that society see as being, and their understanding of self and the categories they have defined themselves to belong. Diagnostic categories are those that are put in place by a person who is involved in an empirical research so that they serve as guidelines towards the study’s goals, and to help in establishing the type of categorization is applied in that population (Benwell & Stoke, 2006). This extract shows how membership categories are used to elucidate the character branding that exists in set populations. Traditional approaches to categorization in this extract are shown to rely on fundamental moral codes and the moral ground that a person attests to. This implies that these traditional approaches can lead to unrewarding and challenging circumstances in relation to how research on identity can be conducted and lead to false inferences. The methodology, in the paper, is clearly stated because the writer makes an obvious distinction between, which methodologies he is using as the source of his findings by terming other techniques as traditional. Moreover, his inferences are against them making a clear division on which among group he is using. Through this, the scope and objective of the analysis are able to be conveyed to the reader in a clear and precise manner because of the distinction created on which methodology is being used. This enables the reader to follow and discern the differences intended. The analytic procedure, in this extract, is not evidently outlined because it only mentions devices that can be used to determine congruence, and not how they were actually used to come to the conclusion forwarded by the extract. The analysis adheres to the fore mentioned aims by illustrating the cause of the congruency between the lay and the professional methods. The researcher achieves this by referring to what he terms as reasons behind the production of every day moral accounts, and proceeds to give examples of devices that can be used to establish these observations. The analysis is sparingly convincing because the themes are not supported with enough extracts, which would have contributed to the inclusion of more evidence and examples making the themes more compelling (Benwell & Stokoe, 2006). The analysis is linked to the extract, but to a limited extent because the majority of the extract is mostly analytical and does not offer examples of the traditional categories mentioned. The analytic claims are not clearly evidenced in the extract because most of the extract is composed of the analytical aspect of the subject matter. The analysis is a coherent dissertation because it highlights the themes through a clear presentation of the story by including examples and providing comparisons between two methodologies. The paper fits well together because, from the onset, the extract declares its intent and focuses on delivering its purpose. The conclusions are indirectly linked to the main theme, but it clearly brings out the facts that support the analysis. I have learnt that morality has a part to play in the membership categories that a particular population creates. It also shows that the way an individual perceives self and others in society is under the influence of that person’s moral standing. Individual differences in psychology are realized by employing different research methods on the same subject to determine if all methods applied get the same results. The results obtained through different qualitative research methods can appear to be the same, but upon further analysis using varying parameters required for each method, distinct deductions are obtained that have differing outcomes. Ethnomethodology approaches to identity seek to make generalized claims about the nature of social interactions based upon specific research that is driven by theoretical motivations, which have been described as diagnostic categories. Another qualitative research method is FAD that delves to highlight the power that exists in defining terminologies, which govern the way we communicate and relate with each other. This also affects our perception of self and others in the society. In summary, individual differences in psychology are influenced mainly by our moral values. References Have P. T. (2004). Understanding Qualitative Research and Ethnomethodology. Sage, 2004. Mills S. (20120. Michael Foucault: Routleg Critical Thinkers. 2nd Revised Edition. Routleg, 2012. Benwell B and Stokoe E. (2006). Discourse and Identity. Illustrated Reprint Edition. Edinburg University Press, 2006. Read More