Discursive Psychology: A Human Foible?

Discursive psychology stands in distinction to experimental social psychology in that it seeks the deeper understanding of human behavior for emancipatory purposes rather than the confirmation of hypotheses and the certainty of prediction via nomothetic knowledge. The jury system is cited as an exemplar of consensual processes in the construction of social facts, the guilt or innocence of the defendant. The discursive mode of inquiry seeks deeper understanding, for example, the search for intentionality and normativity of behavior, by uncovering subjectively held assertions fused with their warrants (evidentials) in the open dialogue. Any mutual understanding about such evidentials creates an experienced socially constructed reality that leads to actions such as verdicts and other forms of decisions despite the absence of empirically demonstrated evidence.