Dialogical Approaches to Psychology and Ethics

A dialogical conceptualisation of the self was originally developed in psychology by Hermans and colleagues (1992; Hermans, 2001) to provide an understanding of the self as multi-vocal and created in dialogue within the self and between the self and the other. Today, research in disciplines other than psychology has increasingly been influenced by this body of work. In particular, a strand of research analysing the dynamics of contemporary multicultural societies from a dialogical perspective is emerging (e.g. Bhatia and Ram, 2001; Harre and Moghaddam, 2003; Kinnvall and Linden, 2010). Related to this work, a number of scholars are developing an approach to ethics where difference is seen as neither threatening nor abnormal but rather as a normal condition of being (e.g. Arnett, 2001; Nesbitt-Larking, 2009; Scuzzarello, 2009, 2010). Taken together, these studies point at possible linkages between psychology and politics, and they are good examples of what can be achieved within the framework of political psychology.