More Examples, Less Theory: Historical Studies of Writing Psychology

by Michael Billig

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 eccentric Abraham Tucker. There is a cautionary chapter on Lacan, warning what can happen when examples are ignored. Marie Jahoda is praised as the ultimate a psychologist from the twentieth century with a social and rhetorical imagination fit for the twenty-first. More Examples, Less Theory is an easy-to-read book that will inform and entertain academics and their students. It will particularly appeal to those who enjoy the details of examples rather than the simplifications of big theory.

Kindle Edition

Published October 25, 2019

About the author

Michael Billig is Professor of Social Sciences at Loughborough University . Working in contemporary social psychology, he trained in Bristol with Henri Tajfel as an experimental psychologist and helped design the so called minimal group experiments which were foundational to the social identity approach. He moved away from experimental work to considering issues of power, political extremism and ideology in a series of important books. His Social Psychology and Intergroup Relations (1976) offered a trenchant critique of orthodox approaches to prejudice in psychology. Fascists (1979) helped reveal the classic fascist and anti-semitic ideology underlying the UK's National Front at a time when it was bidding for political legitimacy and electoral success. In the 1980s his focus shifted to everyday thinking and the relationship between ideology and common sense. This strand of work is shown in the collectively written work Ideological Dilemmas (1988 - with Condor, Edwards, Gane, Middleton and Radley), Banal Nationalism, and in his major study of ideology and the UK royal family, Talking of the Royal Family (1998, 2nd Edition).

His influence runs across the social sciences and he has been one of the key figures highlighting and reinvigorating the use of classic rhetorical thinking in the context of social issues. For example, he shows that attitudes are best understood not as individual positions on topics, but as emergent in contexts where there is a potential argument. This perspective is introduced in his book Arguing and Thinking (2nd Edition, 1996) and has been the basis for innovative approaches to topics as diverse as psychoanalysis, humour and nationalism. It is also an important element to discursive psychology.

Billig is Professor of Social Sciences at Loughborough University where he has worked since 1985. He is a member of the internationally influential Discourse and Rhetoric Group, working with figures such as Derek Edwards and Jonathan Potter.

Reviews

[Tiago F · Rating 4 out of 5]

During my social psychology module during university, they had an interview with Michael Billing. I didn't know him but I really liked his approach and I was curious to dive into his work. In this book, Billing's thesis is that as the title clearly states, psychology needs less theory. Today's psychology and what is considered high-quality for leading journals is psychology devoided of humanity.

What makes the book interesting is that of course Billing follows his own advice, and he makes this case not just abstractly but giving many examples. Some well-known historical figures, such as Locke and William James, but also some that I never heard before and quite modern, such as Tajfel and Jahoda.

The first two chapters were my favourites. The first deals with Locke and Shaftesbury, being compared against each other. Locke tries to give an account of the human mind, but he does so mostly by theorizing. His writing is trying to be as precise as possible and tries to reduce the mind to its most basic components. Shaftesbury on the other hand is the opposite. His writing is more poetic, he avoids abstraction, and his points are made through countless relatable examples. And the examples are rich, they are "pure events" on their own right, rather than being simply posthoc additions to justify the theory, as Locke had done.

The second chapter is about William James and Abraham Tucker. Both who Billing presents of good thinking and good writing. Also related to thinking about the human mind, they gave many examples without trying to make a very comprehensive theory. For instance, both men wrote about the "stream of consciousness". This is such a famous concept now, but at the time it went against what intellectuals at the time thought the mind worked. In the spirit of science and materialism growing at that time, they looked for smaller and smaller aspects of the mind that were individualistic. They didn't think there was any "stream" because they weren't thinking of relations but rather in an atomistic isolated perspective. James and Tucker ignored the theories of the day and simply paid attention to their own experience.

Most of the chapters follow this type of structure and argumentation, although diving into the lives of each author and giving specific instances of this conflict between theory and examples. In one sense it is a bit repetitive, but in another, it fully explores the idea and gives you a very rich account of it.

Two other chapters are worth mentioning. One being about Lacan, who is given as an example of the completely prioritizing theory. However, this is done to a much larger degree to any other thinker previously covered. While in others it was mostly discussed as a bad emphasis, Lacan's writing gets close to fraud. The chapter is an extensive critique of him, but it certainly isn't done out of spite. Many good arguments and evidence is presented for such a negative view. While not an argument per se, I found it very funny to learn that Lacan had invented over 700 neologisms.

The other chapter deserving a highlight is about Jahoda. It is the last chapter, and it ends the book really well as it is given as the best example he has seen of rich, human psychology that isn't overly abstract. I also liked that Jahoda was inspired by Tajfel, a famous social psychologist, who Billing worked with, giving it a somewhat personal touch.

Jahoda's most important work was studying the effects of mass unemployment in an Austrian village in the early 1930s. But unlike most research projects, she didn't go with a hypothesis to test. She simply observed the community and described in as much detail as she could. She did gather data and numbers but also gave a deeply rich humane description of what it was like to be inside that community. The examples weren't Lockean, in the sense of serving as a specific instance of her pre-made theory and ignoring all the context.

This allowed seeing unemployment in a completely new light at the time. It became very clear how it wasn't just about economics but had a rich psychological meaning, and its consequences could be understood not only in terms of numbers but in the actual lives of depressed men, women and children. The research wasn't disconnected from everyday life, and the events weren't abstracted to some grand narrative. Her work was hugely influential, and its value was precisely in its lack of theory.

I found the idea of the book phenomenal. It reminded me a lot of Iain McGilchrist's work. While the latter is certainly more philosophical and even mystical if properly understood, nevertheless they both highlight the danger of the modern drive to reducing language to an overly strict and distinct form. Doing so is reductionist, and maintaining a more metaphoric, poetic, and holistic approach will allow reality as it is to fully manifest. Theories will only constrain it. Not that theories don't have a place and it's not what Billing is arguing for, but that there needs to be a balance, and modern psychology has certainly lost that balance.

I also enjoyed the fact that it featured so many unknown figures. It really highlighted how just because a thinker didn't get into the history books does not mean much about the quality of his writing or even its importance at the time. Nevertheless, it's certainly a niche book. It goes very deep into a particular idea about psychology research, which for many will be too specific and narrow in scope. At times I also felt it was overdone, with the biographical author introductions being too long, and perhaps too many examples being given. I do think it strengthens his point and provides a better understanding, I'm not sure if it's worth the extra time investment required.