Identity categories and the dilemma of calling police about family violence

IF 3.2 2区心理学 Q1 PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIAL

British Journal of Social Psychology Pub Date : 2024-12-14 DOI:10.1111/bjso.12839

Emma Tennent, Ann Weatherall

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

The under-reporting of family violence is a global problem. Multiple barriers to help-seeking have been identified, including some associated with social identities like race, age and gender. This discursive psychology study examines identity and help-seeking in social interaction. We analysed 200 calls classified by police call-takers as family harm using conversation analysis and membership categorization analysis. We found that callers oriented to a locally generated identity category ‘the one who called police’ as problematic. Callers sought anonymity or proposed cover stories to avoid being identified by others. Anonymity raised practical problems for recording callers' names and cover stories raised questions about the legitimacy of alternative accounts for police contact. We found callers' concerns with being identified create a dilemma produced through competing moral judgements tied to coexisting institutional and relational identity categories. Participants display understandings that calling the police may be the right thing to do as a help-seeker, but the wrong thing to do as a friend or family member. Our findings reveal how a locally generated identity category was observable as a force shaping help-seeking in real-time high-stakes encounters.

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身份类别与家庭暴力报警的两难选择

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来源期刊

British Journal of Social Psychology PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIAL-

CiteScore

9.50

自引率

7.40%

发文量

期刊介绍： The British Journal of Social Psychology publishes work from scholars based in all parts of the world, and manuscripts that present data on a wide range of populations inside and outside the UK. It publishes original papers in all areas of social psychology including: • social cognition • attitudes • group processes • social influence • intergroup relations • self and identity • nonverbal communication • social psychological aspects of personality, affect and emotion • language and discourse Submissions addressing these topics from a variety of approaches and methods, both quantitative and qualitative are welcomed. We publish papers of the following kinds: • empirical papers that address theoretical issues; • theoretical papers, including analyses of existing social psychological theories and presentations of theoretical innovations, extensions, or integrations; • review papers that provide an evaluation of work within a given area of social psychology and that present proposals for further research in that area; • methodological papers concerning issues that are particularly relevant to a wide range of social psychologists; • an invited agenda article as the first article in the first part of every volume. The editorial team aims to handle papers as efficiently as possible. In 2016, papers were triaged within less than a week, and the average turnaround time from receipt of the manuscript to first decision sent back to the authors was 47 days.