Abstract
This paper contributes to the study of admonishments, the operation of shaming in family interaction, and more broadly presses the virtue of a discursive psychological reconsideration of the social psychology of emotion. It examines the methodological basis of contemporary research on shame in experimental and qualitative social psychology, illustrated through the Test of Self‐Conscious Affect (TOSCA) and qualitative work using shame narratives. Doubts are raised about how these methods can throw light on shaming practices in natural situations. The study uses a collection of video recordings of family mealtimes, focusing on admonishment sequences in which parents address the interrogatives ‘what are you doing’ or ‘what did I say’ to a ‘misbehaving’ child. Despite the interrogative syntax, rather than soliciting information we show that these interrogative forms pursue behaviour change by publicly highlighting both the problem behaviour and the child’s active and intentional production of that behaviour. This is the sense in which the practice can be understood as shaming. Although this practice prosecutes shaming, ways in which the children can ignore, push back, or rework parents’ actions are highlighted. This study contributes to a broader consideration of how enduring behavioural change can be approached as a parents’ project.
Highlights
This paper introduces and contributes to a discursive psychological study of admonishments – rebukes, scolds, reproaches, and the like
Emotion and shame Discursive social psychological (DSP) work on emotion has taken two broad forms. It has focused on the way emotion terms or tropes are flexibly and rhetorically used in avowals and attributions in naturalistic discourse, and the way they are fitted into broader discursive practices (Buttny, 1993; Edwards, 1997, 1999; Locke & Edwards, 2003)
DSP maps the role of emotion language as it is rhetorically constitutive of unfolding actions; it figures in accusations and accounts, assessments, and compliments
Summary
We draw on the discursive psychological approach to analysis (Hepburn & Potter, 2004; Hepburn & Wiggins, 2007), which utilizes the methods of conversation analysis (Sacks, 1992; Schegloff, 2007). Shaming interrogative format 1 – ‘what are you doing’ In the following example from the family in the previous extract, Anna, who has so far not been eating, has been directed to eat by Mum (line 1) and responds with an upset/protesting noise on line 2 Present at this mealtime is Katherine (5) and Dad – both are eating and attending to their food. As Hepburn (forthcoming) shows in greater detail, this cline in the building of admonishments offers Anna an opportunity to remedy her problem behaviour and at the same time sustains both hers and Mum’s focus on that problem behaviour We can contrast this exposure of problem behaviour in the transition space with the following extract, in which Lisa (9) and Ellie (6) are eating an evening meal with Mum. We join the extract as Mum is grating cheese onto Lisa’s plate (line 1).
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