TY - JOUR

T1 - 'We all had an experience in there together'

T2 - a discursive psychological analysis of collaborative paranormal accounts by paranormal investigation team members

AU - Childs, Carrie

AU - Murray, Craig

PY - 2010

Y1 - 2010

N2 - This is a study of the verbal accounts of paranormal investigators. The focus of analysis is upon the rhetorical organization of event descriptions in ways that establish the factual status of reports in order to highlight the inherent problems associated with current understandings of reports of spontaneous cases. Drawing upon a corpus of interviews conducted with six investigation group members, analysis was conducted using discursive psychology, in particular the rhetorical approach, with an examination of the ways in which accounts were presented and the interactional consequences of describing events in particular ways. Analysis revealed how speakers worked to imply the paranormal status of events while avoiding explicitly labelling experiences as “paranormal.” By focussing upon the production of event descriptions, the construction of intersubjectivity and the importance of the context in which accounts are elicited, the current work has implications for the way in which parapsychologists currently utilize and understand accounts of spontaneous cases.

AB - This is a study of the verbal accounts of paranormal investigators. The focus of analysis is upon the rhetorical organization of event descriptions in ways that establish the factual status of reports in order to highlight the inherent problems associated with current understandings of reports of spontaneous cases. Drawing upon a corpus of interviews conducted with six investigation group members, analysis was conducted using discursive psychology, in particular the rhetorical approach, with an examination of the ways in which accounts were presented and the interactional consequences of describing events in particular ways. Analysis revealed how speakers worked to imply the paranormal status of events while avoiding explicitly labelling experiences as “paranormal.” By focussing upon the production of event descriptions, the construction of intersubjectivity and the importance of the context in which accounts are elicited, the current work has implications for the way in which parapsychologists currently utilize and understand accounts of spontaneous cases.

KW - accounts

KW - collaborative

KW - discourse analysis

KW - discursive psychology

KW - memory

KW - paranormal

U2 - 10.1080/14780880903304543

DO - 10.1080/14780880903304543

M3 - Journal article

VL - 7

SP - 21

EP - 33

JO - Qualitative Research in Psychology

JF - Qualitative Research in Psychology

SN - 1478-0895

IS - 1

ER -