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This is a sample essay from my University psychology degree to show students how to structure essays and use references.
How useful is the concept of a ‘Working Self’ in accounting for the functioning of autobiographical memory?
Autobiographical memories (AM) essentially come from our own lives and can vary from really important to mundane memories. These AM’s provide a personal biography for who we are and help in the formation of ‘the self’. These memories are like a giant database of ourselves which allow for continuity of our experiences. These AM’s include life changing, traumatic and emotional events which in turn help in the formation of our knowledge about us and these memories (AM) reinforce our understanding of ‘the self’. The construction of these AM is a complex challenge which has several effects on our processing. Tulving (1983) argues that the entire cognitive system enters retrieval mode, whereby attention is directed towards internal representations of knowledge and our conscious awareness. This awareness then becomes dominated by these internal representations. However, research by Kelly (2000) tested the conception of a functionally independent working self by combining electrophysiological neuro-imaging with R/K judgements and a self-reference manipulation and found a new functional component which transcends the particular retrieval mode suggested by Tulving (1983). To construct an AM requires lots of cognitive resources and Conway and Pleydell-Pearce (2000) argue that memory construction has to be controlled and therefore the ‘working self’ is seen as controller which picks memories from a hierarchy of interconnected goals such as our beliefs, values and attitudes. The ‘working self’ is an important part of what we remember and in what context we need to have memories. There is also research into a theory of mind (Keenan, 2000) which suggests that to be able to understand someone else’s view point these capabilities have emerge from self-awareness. The focus of this essay is looking at the working self as a concept and how it can account for the functioning of autobiographical memory. The working self as a concept in accounting for the functioning of autobiographical memory is a strong idea. Our AM need the working self in order to select the memories required at certain times and contexts. If there was no way of selecting an AM we would experience cognitive overload and be unable to function. AM’s are like one giant library and the working self is similar to the librarian who finds the relevant books as and when required. The working self also moderates between the demands of coherence and correspondence in the formation of memories. The research into coherence can be found in a study by Conway (1990) which shows how coherent AM’s are consistent with a person’s goals and mild or severely incoherence can impact on the self e.g. a person sees themselves as a rock star even though he cannot play the guitar. Tulving (1983) argued that our entire cognitive system enters a retrieval mode where attention is focused inwards towards internal representations knowledge and conscious awareness. However, research by Kelly (2000) tested for a functional independent working self using neuro-imaging techniques and found that a self reference manipulation produced qualitatively identical ERP effects regardless of whether memory was accessed autonoetically or noetically. Therefore, activity within a common neural sub-state is modulated irrespective of whether access to self-relevant info triggers recollection or occurs without reference to a particular experience. This evidence supports Conway’s proposal that explicit access to self-relevant information involves functionally independent executive control component (working self). In a study by Conway (1990) he asked students prior to exams to report their expected grades, hours of study, how well they had prepared and the importance of the exam. Two weeks after the results were announced the students completed the same set of questions. The findings suggested that student’s who got better than expected results later reported the same level of effort in studying and the importance of the exam. Those who did worse than expected reported less effort than originally stated and claimed the test was less important than originally stated. This shows how a coherent working self will have high self-esteem and positive sense of well being (Csikszentmihalkyi & Beattie, 1979 & Conway, Singer et al., 2004). In terms of AM retrieval there are two types 1: Generative – where deliberate recall of an AM as a result of a cue or 2: Direct or involuntary – where a cue is automatically activated. The working self is thought to inhibit those AM’s that do not fit the task or goal, therefore preventing cognitive overload than was mentioned earlier. The first major theory into speculating how AM’s are organised and retrieved came from Conway and Pleydell-Pearce (2000) and Conway (2005). They looked at a self memory system and suggested that this system has two components 1: AM’s are stored in the AM’s knowledge base and 2: AM’s are retrieved by the ‘Working Self’. It was thought that there is a hierarchy of AM’s which are organised from general to specific and that there is an order within this hierarchy which needs to be followed in order to access these memories. These memories form part of the life story which is split into themes for example at the top of the hierarchy would be work, leisure and education. These themes also form part of our lifetime periods which could be associated with general events or episodic memories. When recalling events we start at the top of the themes and work downwards to these episodic memories. Some supporting evidence comes from Conway and Fthenaki (2000) who reviewed work on amnesia and found that loss of AM’s is often in terms of a structural level in the hierarchy e.g. maintenance of the life story but complete loss of episodic memory. Further support for the working self and amnesia suggests that our goal hierarchy and self-conceptions first emerge around the second year of the infant’s life, as the infant develops the ability for objective and subjective self-awareness e.g. ‘I’ and ‘Me’. Fivush (1996) found that children as young as 30 months have detailed AMs although they are not always available in adulthood. This suggests that the working self in relation to AM changes over the course of childhood and Erikson (1982) argues that it doesn’t stabilize until early adulthood. Further evidence that the working self is controlling AMs comes from lifespan retrieval curves (Franklin and Holding, 1977; Fitzgerald and Lawrence, 1984; Rubin et al., 1986; Rubin et al., 1998) which show the development of the self over time. The lifespan retrieval curve consists of three components (1) the period of childhood amnesia (2) the period of the reminiscence bump (3) period of recency. An example of this is show below in Figure 14.1 As the period of childhood amnesia shows there are little memories before the age of five and there are many theoretical explanations for this. From Conway and Pleydell-Pearce (2000) model of AM this early period is seen to reflect changes in the working self’s goal hierarchy. They argue that the goals of the infant (through which experience is encoded into memory) are so different from the adult, that the adult working self is unable to access those memories. Another argument comes from Freud (1955) who suggests that the working self of infancy/early childhood is much less able to control the occurrence and intensity of emotional experience. Episodic memories encoded during this stage are then saturated with intense emotions, and if recalled in maturity, could destabilise the adults working self by reinstating intense infant emotions. This view suggests that access to AMs encoded during this period might be quite powerfully limited by the adult working self, leading to lack of memories from this period. However, this is a psychoanalytic perspective and not a cognitive one. Theory of mind by Keenan (2000) found that these capabilities emerge after the acquisition of self-awareness which develops around the ages of 36-48 months. Further, the relationship appears to be invariant, such that in almost all cases an individual must possess self-recognition before have theory of mind abilities. To conclude, the working self as a concept is a good idea and makes logical sense. There is lots of supporting evidence for the working self and without this people would be working with cognitive overload. Our autobiographical memories tend to change as we develop from children into adults and vary from really important memories to the more mundane types. Conway (2000) argued that memory construction has to be controlled and the working self is the controller who picks out the relevant memories depending on the goals and tasks of the individual. This appears to happen through a hierarchy of themes (Conway and Pleydell-Pearce, 2000) goals and values. The working self is important in terms of what we remember and in what context which supports the notion of a working self as a concept for the functioning of autobiographical memory. Further supporting evidence for the working self as a concept for the functioning of autobiographical memories came from studies into amnesia in children. Evidence from Fivush (1996) found that children aged 30 months have detailed AM’s which are not available in adulthood. This is evident when looking at reminiscence bumps from life span curves (Franklin and Holding, 1977; Fitzgerald and Lawrence, 1984; Rubin et al., 1986; Rubin et al., 1998), which is a good way to view the working self of a lifetime. The AM’s from early childhood (Freud, 1955) suggested that the working self in early childhood is much less able to control the occurrence and intensity of their emotional experience. This suggests that these early AM’s may become limited by the adult working self, leading to a lack of memories for these specific periods in life. Word count: 1585
References Braisby, N., and Gellatly, A. (2005) Cognitive Psychology, The Open University, Milton Keynes. Conway, M.A. and Holmes, E.A. (2005) Autobiographical memory and the working self, Cognitive Psychology, The Open University, Milton Keynes. Hayes, P. (2010) Autobiographical memory and working self, The Open University, Milton Keynes. Keenan, P.J., Wheeler, M.A., Gallup, Jr, G.G. and Pascual-Leone, A. (2000) Self-recognition and the right prefrontal cortex, The Open University, Milton Keynes. Magno, E. and Allan, K. (2007) Self-reference during explicit memory retrieval, An event-related potential analysis, The Open University, Milton Keynes. Pechey, A. (2010) Remembering things, The Open University, Milton Keynes.
This is a social psychology essay I wrote for my degree.
Introduction This essay aims to evaluate the contribution of social psychological research in terms of its ability to inform social policies aimed at reducing prejudice and inter-group conflict. Early research on prejudice and conflict came from world War One because this forced psychologists to think about ‘irrational prejudice’ in order to explain Fascism and Nazism. Two responses emerged from this, firstly, one that saw prejudice as abnormal or aberrationist and the other viewed it as part of ordinary cognition. The analysis came from three levels, intra-psychological, inter-psychological and extra-psychological such as culture, politics and history. The first section focuses on the ‘contact hypothesis’ by (Allport, 1954) and evaluates the idea that under certain conditions contact leads to a reduction in prejudice and conflict. This argument is developed by looking at the De-categorisation Model of Contact by (Brewer and Miller, 1984) which argues that contact works best when it happens in groups where differences are de-emphasised. The second section of this essay focuses on how the contribution of social psychological research can inform social policies aimed at reducing prejudice and conflict and evaluates the ‘Cantle Report’ (2001) which looked at the race riots violence in several North West towns in England. In the next section this essay moves onto to evaluate the work of Potter and Wetherell (1987) and Henriques (1984) which focuses on a discursive approach to conflict and then moves onto to looking at conflict from a phenomenological perspective. Following on from this I evaluate research on intra-group processes and inter-group processes, in particular ‘Realistic Conflict Theory’ by Sherif (1967) and the famous Robbers Cave experiment and then follows onto to evaluate ‘Social Identity Theory’ by Tajfel and Turner (1978, 1986) which focuses on Northern Ireland and identity and then progresses onto St Pauls riots and crowds using the Elaborated Social Identity Model. This argument is developed by Reicher (2004) who findings suggest there are patterns of interactions between the police and crowds which formed the basis of Elaborated Social Identity Theory. Finally, weaving in and out throughout the whole essay the main interrogative themes will be highlighted. Main content Having covered some of the background and research this essay will now look at the different approaches of reducing prejudice and inter-group conflict. One approach called ‘contact hypothesis’ suggest that under certain condition contact leads to reduction in misunderstanding and prejudice. These conditions are 1: contact should be regular and frequent 2: occur between equals 3: be organised around co-operation 4: be genuine etc... As Allport (1954) points out ‘our interactions with others may either increase or reduce our prejudice towards them’. Firstly, research into ‘contact hypothesis’ has found that positive effects were attributed to a vague process of education. This idea was based on the principle that interaction overcomes ignorance and allows us to be aware of similarities and differences between us. Secondly, by using this model we can come to know each other as individuals rather than social representatives of categories. This means that contact can be personalised, involve intimacy which enables different information to be attended to rather than just categorises. Further research by Brewer and Brown recently described contact hypothesis as ‘one of the most successful and long-lived ideas in the history of social psychology’ they also go onto to say ‘the contact hypothesis is now firmly established as one of psychology’s most effective strategies for improving intergroup relations’ (Dovidio, 2003). Next I will look at weaknesses of the ‘contact hypotheis’. Firstly, contact hypothesis is ‘idealistic’ and because it requires optimal conditions for success this makes it hard to create in real life and fails to explain how these ideal conditions may be formulated in everyday life (Dixon, 2005). Another criticism of contact theory is its focus on theoretical individualism. Research has found that the effects of contact o interpersonal perceptions may not be generalised to mould inter-group perceptions. Another challenge to this hypothesis is the processes which govern conflict between groups are relatively autonomous from interactions between individuals and that these processes maybe grounded in members collectively constructed sense of their groups positioning (Blumer, 1958). The ‘contact theory’ does have limitations, for example, Brewer and Miller (1984) argue that contact works best when it happens in groups where differences are de-emphasised, known as the ‘Decategorisation Model of Contact’. Conversely Hewstone and Brown (1986) argue that the ‘Decategorisation Model of Contact’ misinterprets the implications of social identity theory for understanding contact. They argue that group members cannot simply put aside their collective identities and values. There position is in direct conflict with Brewer and Miller (1984) and they argue that for contact to be a success it must be an ‘intergroup’ process where participants view each other as representatives and not individuals of their social categories (Pluralist Model of contact). This leads onto how the contribution of social psychological research can inform social policies which are aimed at reducing prejudice and conflict. One study known as the ‘Cantle Report’ does just that. In terms of reducing prejudice and informing public policy, the ‘Cantle Report’ looked at summer violence in several towns in the North-West of England. In July 2001, these so called ‘race riots’ resulted in hundreds of injuries and cost millions of pounds in damage. This report made several key recommendations for improving inter-group relations in British society. These were 1: proposal of interventions that encourage interaction and exchange between ethnic communities – including the promotion of cross-cultural contact between different communities at all levels, foster understanding and respect and break down barriers 2: recommended the creation of a common sense of national and local citizenship. This report found that they need to find a sense of common identity and values for all concerned. This now leads onto how different perspectives in social psychology approach prejudice and conflict and I will be linking the interrogative themes to this. I will be looking at the discursive and phenomenological approaches, starting with the discursive approach. The Discursive approach to conflict looks at the work of Potter & Wetherell (1987) where language was the centre stage for many social psychologists. The resources available to us in terms of linguistics and the subject positions we take along with the types of arguments we use to persuade others, becomes the key to our identity, and how we make sense of the world. Our accounts are therefore active constructions of meaning and not simply reflections of and already given state of affairs. Discursive analysis tries to improve our understanding of categorisation by showing flexibility and varies functions that these categories serve. An example of power-relations in categorisation would be a tutor – student relationship. A discursive approach tends to give a better grasp of the ‘contact hypothesis’ because Discursive it claims that the ‘shopping list’ of optimal conditions is an artificial way of looking at everyday life. Discursive analysis also criticises ‘contact hypothesis’ for being individualistic and prefers to look at conflict in terms of ‘collective subject positions’ taken by groups. Discursive analysis also wants to highlight the narrow research of prejudice because it gives the impression that all conflict is bad and ignores the progressive aspect that some conflicts can play. One limitation of the discursive perspective is that it neglects the inner world of cognition and emotion and is literally all talk. Next I will look at the perspective from a phenomenological viewpoint which does look at the life-world of individuals. If a researcher from a phenomenological perspective was reviewing this rather than from a discursive position, they would look at the life-worlds of the individuals as phenomenology doesn’t look at the social. They would evaluate it as being about the individuals own experiences and not as a social group and the theme individual-social dualism would be evident. Phenomenology also would seek to understand the experiences of conflict and prejudice from individuals using the key features such as temporality, spatiality, inter-subjectivity and bracketing. In the next section the focus is on reducing prejudice and informing public policy. Group based approaches to conflict showed the limits of intra-psychological approaches and so psychologists added the intra-psychological dimension to their perspectives of conflict. There are two main responses in this time period 1: Realistic Conflict Theory (RCT) (Sherif) and 2: Social Identity Theory (SIT) (Tajfel). RCT suggested that competition for scarce resources leads to conflicts and not any intra-psychological abnormality or cognitive rigidity. Once prejudice and conflict has been established it is very difficult to return to harmonious relationships. However, one classic study by (Sherif, 1961) was the Robbers Cave which looked at war, peace and the role of power, showed that groups can be brought back together. This study looked at prejudice and conflict and involved twenty-two 11 year old boys that were taken to a summer camp in Robbers Cave Sate Park, Oklahoma. In phase one, the groups were hosed separately, and were unaware of the other groups existence. The second phase allowed the two groups to find out about each other and this soon leads to signs of conflict in the form of verbal abuse. The two teams were put into a competing situation to escalate the conflict. The next phase was to see if the two groups could ‘kiss and make up’ and they were given tasks to do where they had to work together. The conclusion that Sherif reached was that groups naturally develop their own cultures, status structures and boundaries. The two groups were like tiny countries, each having its own culture, government, legal system and its boundaries to differentiate itself from other countries. It is from these internal structures that the conflicts are created and interrogative themes such as structure-agency and power-relations are evident. In order to bring the two groups back together the focus was on super-ordinate goals which stretched beyond the boundaries of the group itself and this were found to bring the groups back together. This knowledge produced by this experiment is also situated in a time and a place and if repeated today could produce different findings. The next theory evaluated in this section will be Social Identity Theory. Social Identity Theory by Tajfel and Turner believed individuals define themselves individually and in terms of their identification with social groups such as class, ethnicity, religion, gender etc... For example, in Northern Ireland the identity ‘Catholic’ needs its ‘Protestant’ counterpart to give it its social identity. A prerequisite of conflict is perceived injustice by the lower status group when ‘ideological belief systems’ discussed by Tajfel, pushes an identity struggle into direct confrontation. Drawing o the Elaborated Social Identity Model (ESIM) and the analysis of the St Pauls riots which showed a snapshot, examining the nature of crowd targets, but not really looking in detail how conflict actually emerged from relations with the police and without including this perspective of the police as a possible contribution to the events. Further studies by (Reicher) began to look at these issues and found a pattern of interaction between the police and the crowd. This pattern of interaction formed the basis of the ESIM of crown conflict. These findings showed there is asymmetry of categorical representations between the crowd participants and the out-group such as the police. For example, the crowd may see their behaviour as legitimate and the police define it as public order. There will also be asymmetry of power-relations such that the police out-group is able to impose its definition of legitimate practice on the in-group of crowd participants e.g. forming cordons or making baton charges. There may be attributional biases where systematic or distortions in judgement lead psychologists to misinterpret events and behave in ways that are personally maladaptive, socially pernicious and puzzling to social scientists who want to understand behaviour (p.82, Bk2). Conclusion As I have shown the key points and debates are centred on the ‘contact hypothesis’ for reducing conflict and prejudice and that by using this model we can come to know each other as individuals rather than social categories. Contact hypothesis is firmly established as one of psychologies most effective ways of improving inter-group relations. This viewpoint is also evident from Hewstone and Brown (1986) who argued that the De-categorisation Model of Contact misinterprets the implications of social identity theory for understanding conflict. The next section of this essay then moved onto looking at how the contribution of social psychological research can inform social policies which are aimed at reducing conflict and prejudice. The example of the ‘Cantle Report’ was highlighted which looked at summer violence and race riots in Northern England and showed ways that inter-group relations could be improved in British society. This leads onto different perspectives in social psychology and how these approach conflict and prejudice. The two themes focused on in this essay were discursive and phenomenological approaches. The discursive approach focused on language, talk and texts and the phenomenological approach focused on the individual’s life-world experiences. This demonstrated the differences between the two perspectives and how knowledge production would be different. Two theories were then looked at, firstly, Realistic Conflict theory which used the Robbers Cave which studied conflict and prejudice and found that even small groups were like tiny countries with their own culture, legal system and government etc...Researchers also found that by using super-ordinate goals the two teams would kiss and make up. Secondly, the Social Identity Theory is evaluated and the example of Northern Ireland was given, in particular the identity of ‘Catholic’ and ‘Protestant’ which give identity to one another. I the final part of the essay the focus moved to the Elaborated social Identity Model and the analysis of St Pauls riots which looked at crowds and the police. There are indeed absences in this essay and maybe for further research I could use the social psychoanalytic and cognitive social perspectives. Also, there are limitations in terms of the material I can select with their being a word limit. For future work it would be interesting to look at conflict and prejudice from all four perspectives and see what the findings are. Also to do the research in today’s society because the research in this essay is all situated-knowledge and some is over 30 years old. Word Count: 2356
References Brown, D,S. (2007) Critical Readings in Social Psychology, Intergroup processes: social identity theory, The Open University, Milton Keynes Dixon, J. (2007) Social Psychology Matters, Prejudice, conflict and conflict reduction, The open University, Milton Keynes Hollway, W., Lucey, H. and Phoenix A. (2007) Social Psychology Matters, The Open University, Milton Keynes Hollway, W. (2007) Social Psychology Matters, Social psychology: past and present, The open University, Milton Keynes Hollway, W. (2007) Social Psychology Matters, Methods and Knowledge in social psychology, The open University, Milton Keynes Langridge, D and Taylor, S. (2007) Critical Readings in Social Psychology, The Open University, Milton Keynes.
Copyright Stephen Renwick 2009 |