M Billig
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 8807 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | M Billig |
| NOMBRES | M |
| APELLIDO | Billig |
| FIRMA | BILLIG M |
| AFILIACIONES | Loughborough University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0874-6419 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 47 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 363 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 47 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1978 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 7 |
Banal Nationalism, 30 Years On—A Review
Standing for Peace in a Time of Increasing Conflict
The national nature of globalization and the global nature of nationalism
It is often assumed that psychological globalization produces tolerant, cosmopolitan outlooks, which deglobalization is now replacing with intolerance and narrow nationalism. This article argues that nationalism and cosmopolitanism, rather than being simple opposites, are entangled historically and methodologically, and that the national nature of globalization and the global nature of nationalism need to be recognized. Historically, the period o…
Preventing the political manipulation of Covid-19 statistics
This article examines how the political manipulation of Covid-19 statistics was opposed in 2020. It does this by studying in detail the language used in a public exchange of letters in the UK. The exchange was between the chair of the United Kingdom Statistics Authority (UKSA), a statutory body to prevent statistical malpractice, and the Minister of Health, who had been manipulating Covid statistics. The exchange reflects the greater power of the…
Anti-racist Critique Through Racial Stereotype Humour
This article discusses the persistent deployment of racial stereotypes in contemporary stand-up comedy and its potential hegemonic or counter-hegemonic effects. It asks whether racial stereotypes should be avoided or condemned altogether, considering the risks of interpretative ambiguity and offensiveness, or, alternatively, whether there are specific performative strategies and conditions that might make racial stereotype humour a powerful weapo…
Rhetorical uses of precise numbers and semi-magical round numbers in political discourse about Covid-19
This paper examines how the British government has used statistics about COVID-19 for political ends. A distinction is made between precise and round numbers. Historically, using round numbers to estimate the spread of disease gave way in the 19th century to the sort precise, but not necessarily accurate, statistics that are now being used to record COVID-19. However, round numbers have continued to exert rhetorical, ‘semi-magical’ power by simul…
More Examples, Less Theory
In his new book, Michael Billig uses psychology's past to argue that nowadays, when we write about the mind, we should use more examples and less theory. He provides a series of historical studies, analysing how key psychological writers used examples. Billig offers new insights about famous analysts of the mind, such as Locke, James, Freud, Tajfel and Lewin. He also champions unfairly forgotten figures, like the Earl of Shaftesbury and the eccen…
Those who only know of social psychology know not social psychology
This article examines Gustav Jahoda’s late work, focussing on his historical writings which have tended to be somewhat overlooked. In many respects this later work, which needs to be understood as a whole, parallels his earlier work into culture. In his later writings, Jahoda wrote about the history of social psychology but his history served a critical purpose: he was arguing that social psychology was essentially historical. If behaviour was pr…
T ajfel, H enri
Henri Tajfel (1919–1981) was an influential social psychologist who explored the cognitive aspects of prejudice. He conducted experiments to demonstrate how categorization affected perceptual judgement and he conducted the original minimal group experiments showing how people would identify with artificial, meaningless groups. He formulated social identity theory, which has had a major impact on contemporary social psychology and he was a key fig…
Discursive and Rhetorical Psychology
Discursive psychology is a comparatively new approach to psychology using discourse analysis to recast traditional psychological questions. Rhetorical psychology is a part of discursive psychology and it stresses that thinking is often argumentative and rhetorical. Both discursive and rhetorical psychology developed as reactions against cognitive psychology and recommend the study of outward language rather than inner cognitive processes. Discurs…
The myth of Kurt Lewin and the rhetoric of collective memory in social psychology textbooks
This article examines how social psychology textbooks represent Kurt Lewin and his contribution to social psychology. Many textbooks describe Lewin as the father of social psychology, using a conventional, passive-voiced trope to do so. The rhetorical meaning of this trope is analysed to show that textbooks are invoking a collective memory, which closes down views of the past, rather than making a historical argument, which opens up the past for …
K urt L ewin's Leadership Studies and His Legacy to Social Psychology
This paper re‐examines Kurt Lewin's classic leadership studies, using them as a concrete example to explore his wider legacy to social psychology. Lewin distinguished between advanced “Galileian” science, which was based on analysing particular examples, and backward “Aristotelian” science, which used statistical analyses. Close examination of the way Lewin wrote about the leadership studies reveals that he used the sort of binary, value‐laden co…
Manipulating Information and Manipulating People
Recently there has been interest in examining how language is involved in the phenomenon of ‘manipulation’. This paper suggests that investigators, rather than treating ‘manipulation’ as an entity, should examine how communicators might engage in discursive acts of manipulating. To this end a distinction is made between manipulating information and manipulating people. Examples of both types, taken from the Portuguese Parliamentary Celebration of…
Learn to Write Badly
Modern academia is increasingly competitive yet the writing style of social scientists is routinely poor and continues to deteriorate. Are social science postgraduates being taught to write poorly? What conditions adversely affect the way they write? And which linguistic features contribute towards this bad writing? Michael Billig's witty and entertaining book analyses these questions in a quest to pinpoint exactly what is going wrong with the wa…
Abraham Tucker as an 18th-century William James
This article discusses the psychological writings of the neglected 18th-century English philosopher Abraham Tucker and argues for his importance. The article explores the similarities between Tucker’s work and that of William James. It is suggested that both share a humorous and humane style, which concentrates on exploring concrete examples, especially from everyday life, rather than constructing abstract theories. Moreover, there are substantiv…
Rabbinic traditions of interpretation and the hermeneutic arc
This article responds to Bell’s notion of an Interpretive Arc, by considering his reinterpretation of Babel in the light of rabbinic traditions of interpretation. It is suggested that Bell’s interpretation of Babel is not altogether different from some rabbinic interpretations. This is particularly true of the tradition which lays great emphasis on discovering the plain sense of the text. However, there is a difference between Bell’s hermeneutic …
Metaphors and Repression
The Hidden Roots of Critical Psychology
Nominalizing and de-nominalizing
In this article, the author replies to the comments made by Van Dijk, Fairclough and Martin on 'The Language of Critical Discourse Analysis'. The author also discusses at greater length the background to his concerns with current styles of academic writing. The author suggests that the problems with 'nominalization' and 'passivization' are wider than particular cases of abuse as Van Dijk suggests. The author discusses how analysts typically use '…
Social Representations and Repression
The English edition of Moscovici's classic work on the social representation of psychoanalysis enables us to reflect on the historical origins of psychoanalytic ideas and of social representation theory itself. Moscovici claimed that science was both univocal and abstract and, in these respects, it differs from the social representations of commonsense. This paper explores these notions, especially in relation to Moscovici's claim that psychoanal…
A Psychoanalytic Discursive Psychology
This article presents the position for a Psychoanalytic Discursive Psychology. This position combines two elements: an action-theory of language, derived from Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, and a revised Freudian concept of repression. According to Wittgenstein and most contemporary discursive psychologists, language is to be understood as action, rather than being assumed to be an outward expression of inner, unobservable cognitive processes. …
Lacan's Misuse of Psychology
This article critically examines the relations between Lacan's psychoanalytic theory and more conventional psychological ideas. It does so by concentrating on Lacan's notion of the 'mirror stage'. Lacan and some of his followers have suggested that psychoanalytic theory is 'beyond psychology'. It is argued that Freud believed that psychoanalytic theory was beyond conventional psychology in a synthetic rather than rejectionist way. Lacan cited the…
Laughter and Ridicule
Tackling the assumption that laughter and humour are necessarily good in themselves, this text develops a critique of humour, proposing a social theory that places humour in the form of ridicule as central to social life.
Barons, Brokers, and Buyers
Michael Billig, Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2003, 320 pages.Sally Ann Ness, Where Asia Smiles: An Ethnography of Philippine Tourism, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003, xvii + 301 pages.Reviewer: Lisa M. Mitchell University of VictoriaThere is considerable anthropological interest at the moment in the transnational flows of capital, humans, and goods and in the consequences of these forces for local groups. The two bo…
The emergence of antisemitic conspiracy theories in Yugoslavia during the war with Nato
Byford and Billig examine the emergence of antisemitic conspiracy theories in the Yugoslav media during the war with NATO. The analysis focuses mainly on Politika, a mainstream daily newspaper without a history of antisemitism. During the war, there was a proliferation of conspiratorial explanations of western policies both in the mainstream Serbian media and in statements by the Yugoslav political establishment. For the most part such conspiracy…
Accounts of health and illness
This paper argues that people's views of health and illness are best understood as accounts that they give to others. In that sense, such beliefs are neither the expression of fixed inner attitudes, nor evidence for shared social representations. Instead, we emphasise the importance of seeing health talk as both ideological and dilemmatic. The paper explores the way in which individuals who speak of health (or illness) in general must also give a…
Humour and Embarrassment
This article suggests that there are intrinsic links between humour and embarrassment and that both are crucial for the maintenance of social life. Goffman and others have claimed that embarrassment plays a key role in the maintenance of social order. However, it is argued that Goffman overlooked the role of ridicule in embarrassment. In consequence, he formulated a 'nice-guy' theory of embarrassment, suggesting that onlookers empathize with the …
Conversation Analysis and the Claims of Naivety
The argumentative nature of holding strong views
Recently a number of critics of traditional approaches to the study of attitudes have stressed the need to study the ways in which people express views in natural discourse. The present study examines the rhetorical aspects of holding strong views by providing a detailed case study. It focuses on the discourse of a family discussing the British Royal Family, where one member of the family is recognized to hold strong views. A number of rhetorical…
The Political Psychology of Contemporary Anti‐Politics
This article advocates a discursive approach for examining political rhetoric. Such an approach is particularly useful for studying contemporary political ideology. The current political climate, especially in Britain, has been described as exemplifying a “Third Way,” which is said to have replaced the old ideological division between “left” and “right” by a consensual, non‐ideological politics. TThe discursive approach allow the analyst to look …
Rhetorical uses of precise numbers and semi-magical round numbers in political discourse about Covid-19
This paper examines how the British government has used statistics about COVID-19 for political ends. A distinction is made between precise and round numbers. Historically, using round numbers to estimate the spread of disease gave way in the 19th century to the sort precise, but not necessarily accurate, statistics that are now being used to record COVID-19. However, round numbers have continued to exert rhetorical, ‘semi-magical’ power by simul…
The emergence of antisemitic conspiracy theories in Yugoslavia during the war with Nato
Byford and Billig examine the emergence of antisemitic conspiracy theories in the Yugoslav media during the war with NATO. The analysis focuses mainly on Politika, a mainstream daily newspaper without a history of antisemitism. During the war, there was a proliferation of conspiratorial explanations of western policies both in the mainstream Serbian media and in statements by the Yugoslav political establishment. For the most part such conspiracy…
A Psychoanalytic Discursive Psychology
This article presents the position for a Psychoanalytic Discursive Psychology. This position combines two elements: an action-theory of language, derived from Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, and a revised Freudian concept of repression. According to Wittgenstein and most contemporary discursive psychologists, language is to be understood as action, rather than being assumed to be an outward expression of inner, unobservable cognitive processes. …
Conservatism and the rhetoric of rhetoric
There is currently a revival of the intellectual tradition of rhetoric as a reaction to modernism. Because of rhetoric’s links with conservatism, this revival’s own rhetoric needs to be examined. A revival of an aesthetic rhetoric could easily be backward-looking and draw upon the backward-looking, conservative traditions within the history of rhetoric. On the other hand, if the revival stresses the pragmatic features of rhetoric it might be seen…
Nominalizing and de-nominalizing
In this article, the author replies to the comments made by Van Dijk, Fairclough and Martin on 'The Language of Critical Discourse Analysis'. The author also discusses at greater length the background to his concerns with current styles of academic writing. The author suggests that the problems with 'nominalization' and 'passivization' are wider than particular cases of abuse as Van Dijk suggests. The author discusses how analysts typically use '…
K urt L ewin's Leadership Studies and His Legacy to Social Psychology
This paper re‐examines Kurt Lewin's classic leadership studies, using them as a concrete example to explore his wider legacy to social psychology. Lewin distinguished between advanced “Galileian” science, which was based on analysing particular examples, and backward “Aristotelian” science, which used statistical analyses. Close examination of the way Lewin wrote about the leadership studies reveals that he used the sort of binary, value‐laden co…
Between fear and loathing
Psychology, rhetoric, and cognition
Manipulating Information and Manipulating People
Recently there has been interest in examining how language is involved in the phenomenon of ‘manipulation’. This paper suggests that investigators, rather than treating ‘manipulation’ as an entity, should examine how communicators might engage in discursive acts of manipulating. To this end a distinction is made between manipulating information and manipulating people. Examples of both types, taken from the Portuguese Parliamentary Celebration of…
Social Representations and Repression
The English edition of Moscovici's classic work on the social representation of psychoanalysis enables us to reflect on the historical origins of psychoanalytic ideas and of social representation theory itself. Moscovici claimed that science was both univocal and abstract and, in these respects, it differs from the social representations of commonsense. This paper explores these notions, especially in relation to Moscovici's claim that psychoanal…
Lacan's Misuse of Psychology
This article critically examines the relations between Lacan's psychoanalytic theory and more conventional psychological ideas. It does so by concentrating on Lacan's notion of the 'mirror stage'. Lacan and some of his followers have suggested that psychoanalytic theory is 'beyond psychology'. It is argued that Freud believed that psychoanalytic theory was beyond conventional psychology in a synthetic rather than rejectionist way. Lacan cited the…
Preventing the political manipulation of Covid-19 statistics
This article examines how the political manipulation of Covid-19 statistics was opposed in 2020. It does this by studying in detail the language used in a public exchange of letters in the UK. The exchange was between the chair of the United Kingdom Statistics Authority (UKSA), a statutory body to prevent statistical malpractice, and the Minister of Health, who had been manipulating Covid statistics. The exchange reflects the greater power of the…
Dialogic Repression and the Oedipus Complex
This paper offers a discursive reinterpretation of the psychoanalytic concept of repression. Language is both expressive and repressive, and, therefore, children, in acquiring language, learn to repress rhetorically. The sort of repressions which, according to classic Freudian theory, occur as a result of the Oedipus Complex are themselves dialogically and socially constituted. In consequence, the processes of repression can be examined by extend…
Social Identity Theory
An introduction to the social identity approach, Dominic Abrams and Michael A.Hogg self-categorization and social identity, Michael A.Hogg and Craig McCarthy social motivation, self esteem and social identity, Michael A.Hogg and Dominic Abrams intergroup comparisons and social identity - some links and lacunae, Steve Hinkle and Rupert A.Brown levels of explanation, levels of categorization and self-categorization theory (SCT), Fabio Lorenzi-Ciold…
Psychological Aspects of Fascism
The terrible bizarreness of the beliefs and behaviour of fascists seems to cry out for an analysis rooted in individual psychology. But, argues the author, this is both to ignore the strength of fascism's ideology and ideas, particularly the appeal to fascists of a theory of world fewish conspiracy, and to let those complicit with fascist regimes off the hook
Standing for Peace in a Time of Increasing Conflict
Postmodernism as Normal Science
Patterns of racism
We publish here an extract adapted from Michael Billig's forthcoming book, Fascists: a social psychological view of the National Front ( Academic Press, Autumn 1978 ) . This analysis is taken from a larger section, based on in-depth interviews with eleven NF members, all of whom were activists, nine having either held official positions in their local branches or stood as official election candidates. This is not claimed to be a representative sa…
Patterns of racism
We publish here an extract adapted from Michael Billig's forthcoming book, Fascists: a social psychological view of the National Front ( Academic Press, Autumn 1978 ) . This analysis is taken from a larger section, based on in-depth interviews with eleven NF members, all of whom were activists, nine having either held official positions in their local branches or stood as official election candidates. This is not claimed to be a representative sa…
Professor Eysenck's political psychology
The origins of race psychology—I
The first part of Dr Billig's article deals with the racial theories of two important British psychologists, Francis Galton and Karl Pearson. Their ideas, which had a significant influence on the eugenics movement in Britain, were passed off as ‘scientific’ but were derived from preconceived notions about the inherent racial inferiority of ‘the lower races of man’
L'internationale raciste. De la psychologie à la ' science ' des races
The origins of race psychology—II
The works of the London School of Psychology continued the racist presuppositions of Francis Galton and Karl Pearson discussed in the first part of Michael Billig's article. The eugenicists manipulated the evidence of IQ tests to prove their theories about racial inferiority and said those who disagreed were not scientists
Psychology, rhetoric, and cognition
Short reviews
Edward Kolodziej, EMIGRACJA Z ZIEM POLSKICH I POLONIA 1865–1939, Krakow: Nakladem Uniwersytetu Jagiellonskiego, 1988, 237 pp., 540 zl. Lena Dominelli, ANTI‐RACIST SOCIAL WORK, London: Macmillan Education, 1988, 189 pp., £20. Jeffrey T. Sammons, BEYOND THE RING: THE ROLE OF BOXING IN AMERICAN SOCIETY, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988, 319 pp., £24.95. J. A. Mangan (ed.), ’BENEFITS BESTOWED'? EDUCATION AND BRITISH IMPERIALISM, Manchester:…
The argumentative nature of holding strong views
Recently a number of critics of traditional approaches to the study of attitudes have stressed the need to study the ways in which people express views in natural discourse. The present study examines the rhetorical aspects of holding strong views by providing a detailed case study. It focuses on the discourse of a family discussing the British Royal Family, where one member of the family is recognized to hold strong views. A number of rhetorical…
Conservatism and the rhetoric of rhetoric
There is currently a revival of the intellectual tradition of rhetoric as a reaction to modernism. Because of rhetoric’s links with conservatism, this revival’s own rhetoric needs to be examined. A revival of an aesthetic rhetoric could easily be backward-looking and draw upon the backward-looking, conservative traditions within the history of rhetoric. On the other hand, if the revival stresses the pragmatic features of rhetoric it might be seen…
Psychological Aspects of Fascism
The terrible bizarreness of the beliefs and behaviour of fascists seems to cry out for an analysis rooted in individual psychology. But, argues the author, this is both to ignore the strength of fascism's ideology and ideas, particularly the appeal to fascists of a theory of world fewish conspiracy, and to let those complicit with fascist regimes off the hook
Social Identity Theory
An introduction to the social identity approach, Dominic Abrams and Michael A.Hogg self-categorization and social identity, Michael A.Hogg and Craig McCarthy social motivation, self esteem and social identity, Michael A.Hogg and Dominic Abrams intergroup comparisons and social identity - some links and lacunae, Steve Hinkle and Rupert A.Brown levels of explanation, levels of categorization and self-categorization theory (SCT), Fabio Lorenzi-Ciold…
Discourse Dynamics
In this new textbook Ian Parker provides a systematic introduction to discourse research and the essential theoretical debates of the area. It defends a realist position, discusses accounts of postmodernity and sets out criteria for the identification of discourses. Discourse Dynamics is addressed to both undergraduate students in psychology, and postgraduates and researchers new to discourse theory. It should offer useful reading for anyone inte…
Repopulating the Depopulated Pages of Social Psychology
The author of this academic article writes about the way that psychology, especially social psychology, is written in academic journals. It is argued that the journals are `depopulated' texts; strategies for `repopulating' them are discussed. Two issues of the European Journal of Social Psychology are examined in detail, in order to show how social psychological texts rhetorically transform individuals into interchangeable subjects. Several rheto…
Postmodernism as Normal Science
Accounts of health and illness
This paper argues that people's views of health and illness are best understood as accounts that they give to others. In that sense, such beliefs are neither the expression of fixed inner attitudes, nor evidence for shared social representations. Instead, we emphasise the importance of seeing health talk as both ideological and dilemmatic. The paper explores the way in which individuals who speak of health (or illness) in general must also give a…
The dialogic unconscious
This paper explores possible links between discursive psychology and psychoanalytic theory. At first sight, the two approaches would seem to be incompatible. Discursive psychology, in keeping with its Wittgensteinian and conversation analytic background, concentrates upon the social and discursive constitution of psychological phenomena rather than on supposed inner motivations. However, the notion of the ‘dialogic unconscious’ is introduced in o…
Beyond the Production and Consumption of Nationalism
Between fear and loathing
Dialogic Repression and the Oedipus Complex
This paper offers a discursive reinterpretation of the psychoanalytic concept of repression. Language is both expressive and repressive, and, therefore, children, in acquiring language, learn to repress rhetorically. The sort of repressions which, according to classic Freudian theory, occur as a result of the Oedipus Complex are themselves dialogically and socially constituted. In consequence, the processes of repression can be examined by extend…
Conversation Analysis and the Claims of Naivety
The emergence of antisemitic conspiracy theories in Yugoslavia during the war with Nato
Byford and Billig examine the emergence of antisemitic conspiracy theories in the Yugoslav media during the war with NATO. The analysis focuses mainly on Politika, a mainstream daily newspaper without a history of antisemitism. During the war, there was a proliferation of conspiratorial explanations of western policies both in the mainstream Serbian media and in statements by the Yugoslav political establishment. For the most part such conspiracy…
The Political Psychology of Contemporary Anti‐Politics
This article advocates a discursive approach for examining political rhetoric. Such an approach is particularly useful for studying contemporary political ideology. The current political climate, especially in Britain, has been described as exemplifying a “Third Way,” which is said to have replaced the old ideological division between “left” and “right” by a consensual, non‐ideological politics. TThe discursive approach allow the analyst to look …
Humour and Embarrassment
This article suggests that there are intrinsic links between humour and embarrassment and that both are crucial for the maintenance of social life. Goffman and others have claimed that embarrassment plays a key role in the maintenance of social order. However, it is argued that Goffman overlooked the role of ridicule in embarrassment. In consequence, he formulated a 'nice-guy' theory of embarrassment, suggesting that onlookers empathize with the …
Barons, Brokers, and Buyers
Michael Billig, Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2003, 320 pages.Sally Ann Ness, Where Asia Smiles: An Ethnography of Philippine Tourism, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003, xvii + 301 pages.Reviewer: Lisa M. Mitchell University of VictoriaThere is considerable anthropological interest at the moment in the transnational flows of capital, humans, and goods and in the consequences of these forces for local groups. The two bo…
Laughter and Ridicule
Tackling the assumption that laughter and humour are necessarily good in themselves, this text develops a critique of humour, proposing a social theory that places humour in the form of ridicule as central to social life.
Sociology (36 obras) · Philosophy (30 obras) · Psychology (29 obras) · Epistemology (28 obras) · Political science (23 obras) · Law (20 obras) · Law (18 obras) · Linguistics (18 obras) · Philosophy (18 obras) · Politics (17 obras)