Читать книгу How to Write Brilliant Psychology Essays - Paul Dickerson - Страница 92

The previous attempt could be a useful stepping stone for something stronger – something that interrogates arguments as well as detailing facts. Attempt two asks questions of the material with the essay title in mind, which informs what should be done in terms of finding other resources and planning the essay itself. By questioning the abbreviated summary that we have, the possibility of something much stronger can be built.

Billig (1987, 1991, 1996) argued that attitudes are shaped or designed for argument addressing just those issues that are up for debate within a specific culture at a particular period of time.

This could be developed as a perspective which can be contrasted with alternative understandings of attitudes. To develop this, it is worth considering the sorts of understandings of attitudes that Billig’s work questions and critiques. In the essay, it could be worth bringing this perspective in after some other, perhaps more traditional, approaches to attitudes – there seems little on this in these notes so far.

Wiggins and Potter (2003) show how displays of food preferences can be examined in terms of what the talk might do or accomplish, for example in terms of giving and receiving compliments appropriately.

These ideas form another sort of critique. This may fit with Billig’s work. This is at a greater level of specificity and may exemplify an approach or perspective (in this case, that of Discursive Psychology).

Greenwald, McGee and Schwartz (1998) developed the implicit attitude measure to address the fact that people might attempt to conceal their ‘real’ attitudes.

This may be relevant if it can be used within an argumentative essay concerning how attitudes have been understood. Care would have to be taken to ensure that the essay does not slide into a discussion of how attitudes have been measured, and that instead all that is included informs our thinking about how attitudes have been understood.

Elliot, Armitage and Baughan (2007) found that self-reported behaviour could be found to differ from observations of the person’s behaviour.

This may be relevant to the essay title but runs the risk of getting into how attitudes are measured. It may be best to place this information on one side for now to see if and how it can really inform an argumentative essay concerning how attitudes have been understood.

Wicker (1969) questioned whether attitudes were in fact a useful construct.

This might be useful earlier on in your notes or essay planning as it raises a general questioning of attitudes as a construct. This might open up the different ways in which that construct has been developed. While chronology is not king, the fact that this is a relatively early critique does support the idea of considering this point earlier on. Again, it is important to keep your notes focused on evaluating how attitudes have been understood, rather than getting side-tracked into whether attitudes predict behaviour or not.