Sally Wiggins

The purpose and function of humour in health, health care and nursing: A narrative review.

AIM This paper is a report of a review conducted to identify, critically analyse and synthesize the humour literature across a number of fields related to health, health care and nursing. BACKGROUND The humour-health hypothesis suggests that there is a positive link between humour and health. Humour has been a focus of much contention and deliberation for centuries, with three theories dominating the field: the superiority or tendentious theory, the incongruity theory and the relief theory. DATA SOURCES A comprehensive literature search was carried out in January 2007 using a number of databases, keywords, manual recursive searching and journal alerts (January 1980-2007) cross-referenced with the bibliographic databases of the International Society of Humor Studies. An inclusion and exclusion criterion was identified. REVIEW METHODS A narrative review of evidence- and non-evidence-based papers was conducted, using a relevant methodological framework with additional scrutiny of secondary data sources in the latter. Humour theories, incorporating definition, process and impact constituted a significant part of the appraisal process. RESULTS A total of 1630 papers were identified, with 220 fully sourced and 88 included in the final review. There is a dearth of humour research within nursing yet, ironically, an abundance of non-evidence-based opinion citing prerequisites and exclusion zones. Examination of physician-patient interaction and the humour-health hypothesis demonstrates that use of humour by patients is both challenging and revealing, particularly with regard to self-deprecating humour. CONCLUSION Nurses and nursing should adopt a circumspect and evidenced-based approach to humour use in their work.

Developments in discursive psychology

Discursive psychology is the broad title for a range of research done in different disciplinary contexts – communication, language, sociology and psychology. It moves the theoretical and analytic f ...

Good for you: generic and individual healthy eating advice in family mealtimes

Healthy eating is one of the main concerns for health organizations in the UK, and has been widely promoted in recent decades. Yet despite the amount of nutritional information available, levels of obesity, heart disease and other food-related diseases remain high. Existing research in this area often uses individual accounts of consumption to examine the reasons why people may not be eating ‘healthily’. An alternative way to approach this issue is to examine how healthy eating advice is constructed and used in everyday interaction. This research uses tape-recorded family mealtimes to examine instances where nutritional advice is embedded and managed in conversational activities. A distinction between generic and individually focused healthy eating talk is illustrated, and the implications for further research are discussed.

Construction and action in food evaluation : conversational data

This study engages both social psychological research on “attitudes” and discursive work on “evaluative practices.” Methodological constraints in both of these fields have resulted in a relative lack of attention to everyday interaction. By using conversational data, the current study extends discursive research and highlights the constructive and constructed nature of food evaluations. Family mealtimes were audiotaped, transcribed, and analyzed using discursive and conversational analytic procedures. Direct evaluative expressions such as “like” and “nice” were examined in terms of their construction and placement in the talk. The rhetorical organization of these expressions highlighted the extent to which food evaluations are oriented to actions such as accounts, compliments, and offers of food. Examples of these activities are discussed in relation to the interactional construction of evaluations. Implications of the study for the fields of food preferences and health promotion are also addressed.

Finishing the family meal. The interactional organisation of satiety

This paper provides an extended review of psychological, sociological and interactional research on mealtimes and satiety (fullness), arguing for a focus on how fullness and finishing a meal is interactionally achieved. Drawing on three specimen data fragments from contrasting family settings, routinely used resources for pursuing completion and expressing satiety are described. We show how checks on completion are tailored to children according to their age, the intimate knowledge family members have of one another and attuned to contingencies, such as, whether there is a further course to be offered. Equally, that in teaching children how to eat together with others, the family also transmits and transforms all manner of other eating practices such as how to comply, or not, with requests to finish. A central aim of the article is to complement the many studies of satiety that have explained its physiological aspects by providing the familial logics that are expressed in bringing the meal to a close. We offer a suggestive analysis, based on conversation analytic principles, to illustrate our argument and to provide a starting point for further work in this field. Where bodies of work have previously used mealtimes as a convenient setting for accessing other social practices, this article turns its focus back toward the tasks of dining together.

Size matters: Constructing accountable bodies in NSPCC helpline interaction

The focus on body size or weight has become an increasing source of concern in western society, yet few studies have looked at how people invoke body size in various settings, and the practices to which such talk might be related. Hence this study examines instances in everyday and institutional interaction in which body size is treated as a relevant concern for speakers. A discursive psychological approach is used to examine five extracts from telephone calls to a National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) helpline. The analysis focuses on how the weight or body size of others is constructed and managed, and how these descriptions can be involved in various activities. Three analytic themes emerge – the focus on how formulations of size and embodiment are drawn upon in practice; the relationship between issues of size and issues of knowledge; and the activities in which different size descriptions are enrolled, in particular, the way these activities relate to the institutional practices of the NSPCC helpline. The empirical claims about the data are also related back to basic theoretical questions, raising profound issues about the way traditional psychology has constructed eating and embodiment.

Discursive Research in Practice: Discursive research: themes and debates

There has been a quiet revolution in the social sciences. Over the past few decades new ways of working and new ways of conceiving the relation between people, practices and institutions have been developed. These have started to make possible an understanding of human conduct in complex situations that is distinct from the traditional conceptions offered by disciplines such as psychology and sociology. This distinctiveness is derived from the sophisticated analytic approach to social action that has been developed by conversation analysis combined with the fresh treatment of mind, cognition and personality developed in discursive psychology. Both of these approaches work with the displayed perspectives of participants in interaction, perspectives embodied in peoples constructions and orientations. In addition, this research has exploited the new recording technology and representational forms that enable it to engage more immediately with human practices; that is, to study ‘the world as it happens’ (Boden, 1990) instead of working through the mediation of interviews, questionnaires or ethnographic field notes. This work offers a sophisticated and theoretically nuanced empiricism that focuses on discourse as the central medium for action, psychology and understanding. This book brings together researchers who have been doing discourse research in this new tradition. It features well-known contributors, some of them pioneers in their field, as well as exciting new researchers who are still early in their careers. Most come from the fields of discursive psychology and conversation analysis.

Perceptions of cosmesis and function in adults with upper limb prostheses: a systematic literature review

Background: Technological developments in prosthesis design of upper limb devices are improving rapidly, and understandings of user’s perceptions are important to reduce device abandonment and improve user satisfaction rates. Objectives: The purpose of this review was to establish what is known about adult user’s perceptions of upper limb prostheses in terms of both cosmesis and function. Study Design: Systematic review. Methods: A search of the literature between 1990 and 2010 identified over 600 possible citations; these were reduced to 15 citations based on selection criteria. Results: The main themes arising from the review were user satisfaction ratings with current prostheses, priorities for future design and the social implications of wearing a prosthetic limb. While users of cosmetic prostheses were mostly satisfied with their prostheses, satisfaction rates vary considerably across studies, due to variability in demographics of users and an ambiguity over the definitions of cosmesis and function. Design priorities also varied, though overall there is a slight trend toward prioritising function over cosmesis. The qualitative studies noted the importance users placed on presenting a ‘normal’ appearance and ‘not standing out’. Conclusions: The reviewed studies mostly examine functionality and cosmesis as separate constructs, and conclusions are limited due to the disparity of user groups studied. Recommendations are made for further work to explore understandings of these constructs in relation to upper limb prosthesis use.

Research Methods in Practice: The Development of Problem-Based Learning Materials for Teaching Qualitative Research Methods to Undergraduate Students:

Research methods is often considered one of the more challenging subjects to teach (and learn), yet it is arguably the most important; to equip students with the skills to carry out their own research is a fundamental aspect of many psychology courses. The issues raised by qualitative research methods teaching in particular – differing epistemologies, challenging ‘objectivity’ and alternative validation practices – pose further challenges for students. In this article, we report on a project that applies problem-based learning (PBL) principles to qualitative research methods teaching. PBL has already been effectively used in many other disciplines as a way to encourage student autonomy within the learning process and to deepen understanding of key issues, and there is a huge potential for its application within research methods teaching. We report on each stage of the project: a review of PBL and research methods teaching literature, a preliminary survey of current PBL use in UK psychology departments, and an outline of the drafted PBL materials.

Food abuse : Mealtimes, helplines and 'troubled' eating

Feeding children can be one of the most challenging and frustrating aspects of raising a family. This is often exacerbated by conflicting guidelines over what the ‘correct’ amount of food and ‘proper’ eating actually entails. The issue becomes muddier still when parents are accused of mistreating their children by not feeding them properly, or when eating becomes troubled in some way. Yet how are parents to ‘know’ how much food is enough and when their child is ‘full’? How is food negotiated on a daily level? In this chapter, we show how discursive psychology can provide a way of understanding these issues that goes beyond guidelines and measurements. It enables us to examine the practices within which food is negotiated and used to hold others accountable. Like the other chapters in this section of the book, eating practices can also be situations in which an asymmetry of competence is produced; where one party is treated as being a less-than-valid person (in the case of family practices, this is often the child). As we shall see later, the asymmetry can also be reversed, where one person (adult or child) can claim to have greater ‘access’ to concepts such as ‘appetite’ and ‘hunger’. Not only does this help us to understand the complexity of eating practices; it also highlights features of the parent/child relationshipi and the institutionality of families.