Billig's Evaluation and Assessment of Discursive Psychological Approach

TMA 05

Write an essay of 2000 words on the following:
Billig has evaluated Tajfel and Turner’s theorising of intergroup conflict as limited because of the emphasis placed on cognitive processes. Discuss Billig’s evaluation and assess his arguments for a discursive psychological approach.

The study of prejudice and intergroup conflict within social psychology became a priority in response to the experiences of genocide in the Second World War (Dixon, 2007, p.147). Examples of prejudice and the intergroup conflict are used in this essay to find out whether the statement given by Billig that the intergroup conflict mentioned (Tajfel and Turner, 1979) is limited or not because it emphasizes on the cognitive processes. By considering the examples of minimal group paradigm (MGP) studies done by Tajfel and Billig (1973) (cited Brown, 2007, p.146) and Potter and Reicher’s presentations of St Paul’s riots (Potter and Reicher, 1987 cited Phoenix, 2007, p.115-117), it will be shown that a discursive approach to intergroup conflict recognises the powerful role of modern myths and discourses in the maintenance of violence and it is preferable than the cognitive approaches. In his studies of MGP, Tajfel outlined a social cognitive approach to the study of ‘prejudice’ and also refuted the ‘blood-and-guts’ approach. Tajfel proposed that social psychology is not value free; this essay examines the moral and political view of ‘Cognitive aspects’ and also the gaps in his approach to the study of prejudice.

There are two researched explanations of prejudice. They are the Realistic conflict theory and the Social identity theory. Tajfel and Turner (1979), did a research on groups in which two groups were placed in a competitive situation where each group was aware that they can only achieve a certain goal when members of the group work together and against the other group, a conflict then raised between them. They were given rewards for working against the other group.

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