Journal Articles

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/7915

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Author: search.filters.author.Morison T

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    Extending sexual scripting theory through critical discursive psychology: An analytical approach to explore the performance of sexual identities.
    (SAGE Publications, 2024-09-23) Healy-Cullen S; Morison T
    Sexual scripting theory, a widely used tool in sexuality research, was originally developed by Gagnon and Simon to illuminate the social nature of sexual practices and identity construction. Later, they sought to develop the theory further to align with a social constructionist perspective. However, vestiges of individualism and cognitivism haunt sexual scripting theory largely due to the use of the symbolic interactionist concept of performance. To address this, we draw on the performance–performativity approach in critical discursive psychology that develops the notion of performance from a discursive perspective and offers a way of extending sexual scripting theory that offers a truly social explication of sexual identity construction. We provide a practical illustration of this extended theorising, drawing on data from a project about young people’s online engagement with pornography. We demonstrate how developing the notion of sexual scripts as discursive resources that enable the performance of sexual identities allows us to illuminate the social and situated nature of identity construction. This framework enhances understanding of the process of sexual identity construction and provides a valuable tool for studying how broader sexual scripts that are sociohistorically specific provide a scaffolding for the ways an individual can construct sexual identities. Overall, this paper offers a valuable contribution to discursive scholarship in psychology by presenting a nuanced analytical framework that coheres with a constructionist, performative view of identity.
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    Supporting Intellectually Disabled Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights: A Qualitative Study With Support Workers in Aotearoa New Zealand
    (Taylor and Francis Group, 2023-11-16) Bloom O; Morison T
    This article presents findings from a qualitative study of support worker responses to intellectually disabled women’s sex and reproductive health. Drawing on reproductive justice theory, interviews with seven support workers from various disability service providers in New Zealand were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. The findings point to the persistence of a sexual risk discourse, which undermines progressive perspectives, including the rights-based approach that is usually advocated for in sexual and reproductive health, and ultimately constrains intellectually disabled women’s sexual agency. The value of a reproductive justice framework for countering risk-oriented framings in favor of a social justice perspective that expands the notions of individual rights is discussed. The findings support a growing global evidence base and have implications for national and international policy and practice.
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    Youth, Pornography, and Addiction: A Critical Review
    (Springer Nature Switzerland AG, 2024-04) Healy-Cullen S; Taylor K; Morison T
    Purpose of Review: In this article, we dig more deeply into the assumptions underpinning common-sense understandings about youth “exposure” to pornography and the ostensible “effects” of this exposure, specifically “pornography addiction”. We trace the emergence of the notion of “pornography addiction”, highlighting how cultural conditions have allowed for its realisation as a socially recognisable and intelligible narrative. Recent Findings: Media effects research on the issue of youth “exposure” to pornography is not conclusive, nor is pornography addiction officially recognised as a diagnosable disorder. Moreover, an emerging body of multidisciplinary qualitative research, which, importantly, includes the perspectives and experiences of young people themselves, raises questions about some of the assumptions and conclusions of effects-focused research. Summary: Despite inconclusive and contrasting findings, the social narrative of pornography addiction persists both within and beyond academe. We make sense of this persistence in relation to the broader problematisation of youth sexuality, which includes unease and moral objection to young people viewing pornography. It is important to recognise the broader socio-cultural systems supporting the cultural narrative of pornography addiction, and the social functions that this narrative serves, that is, the need for adult intervention into the sexual lives of youth.
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    Performing smart sexual selves: A sexual scripting analysis of youth talk about internet pornography
    (SAGE Publications, 2023-01-22) Healy-Cullen S; Morison T; Taylor J; Taylor K
    In this article, we explore young New Zealanders’ use of sexual scripts in talk about Internet pornography (IP) to perform ‘smart’ sexual selves. Using sexual scripting theory, as developed by feminist discursive psychologists, our analysis of interview data generated with 10 youth (aged 16–18 years) highlights two commonly constructed sexual identities across youth talk; (i) the proficient Internet pornography user, and (ii) the astute Internet pornography viewer. The way these young people talk about portrayals of sexuality and gender in IP – and their ability to discern its artifice – suggests they are savvy consumers who are capable of using IP as a cultural resource (e.g. for learning, entertainment) while at the same time acknowledging it as a flawed representation of sex and sexuality. We discuss the implications of our findings for strengths-based sexuality education that supports sexual agency, proposing a justice-orientated approach grounded in the notion of ethical sexual citizenship.
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    Women’s perspectives on long-acting reversible contraception: a critical scoping review of qualitative research
    (Taylor and Francis Group LLC, 2021-05-18) Morison T; Eagar D
    Long-acting Reversible Contraception (LARC) has significant promise both from a public health outlook and a social justice perspective. However, if women’s empowerment is to be supported, then perspectives and experiences of LARC must be considered. This scoping review assesses research about contraceptive users’ perspectives and experiences of contraceptive decision-making and practices. A content analysis was conducted to identify research trends in qualitative studies of contraceptive-user perspectives (n = 54), located by means of a systematic search. Interpreting findings through a reproductive justice lens, three main limitations in the scholarship were identified, viz., (1) an instrumentalist, individual-level focus; (2) a lack of consideration for diverse perspectives; and (3) an uncritical focus on young women. While the small body of qualitative research on LARC offers some valuable insights, when viewed from a sexual and reproductive justice perspective, it is not sufficiently user-centered or grounded within the reproductive politics surrounding contraceptive care and provision. Research is needed that draws on appropriate social theory; widens its focus beyond dominant groups; and is cognizant of the multi-level power relations surrounding LARC. Such work provides a nuanced picture of the complex social and contextual factors at play and inform person-centered approaches in sexual and reproductive health policy and programming.
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    Patient-provider power relations in counselling on long-acting reversible contraception: a discursive study of provider perspectives
    (Taylor and Francis Group, 2022-05-06) Morison T
    Contraceptive providers play an essential role in shaping contraceptive decision-making and care, with the potential to constrain patients' agency. This is a particular concern given the rising hegemony of Long-Acting Reversible Contraception (LARC) and growing evidence of negative patient experiences of LARC promotion and provision. Despite this evidence, little research has considered health providers' perspectives. Drawing on interviews with 22 contraceptive health providers in Aotearoa New Zealand, this paper explored their professional identity construction, focusing on meaning-making in instances of conflict between providers' and patients' priorities and agendas. Guided by feminist poststructuralist theory, the discursive analysis highlights common rhetorical strategies used by participants to (1) justify the use of coercive practices to encourage LARC uptake, and (2) in turn, negotiate positive identities. Findings show how participants grapple with the reproductive politics structuring contraceptive care, including established understandings of the purpose of (long-acting) contraception and contraceptive providers' roles vis-à-vis provision and promotion. The findings point to limitations on contraceptive agency, despite the unanimous endorsement of rights-based voluntary care. Extending the critical literature on LARC and contributing to the under-researched area of contraceptive coercion and agency, the findings of this study have important implications for the delivery of contraceptive care.
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    Reproductive justice: A radical framework for researching sexual and reproductive issues in psychology
    (John Wiley and Sons Ltd, 2021-05-13) Morison T
    The reproductive justice framework holds much promise for guiding research that can contribute to social change. Its limited integration and use in social psychology therefore represents a missed opportunity for justice-oriented social researchers. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the reproductive justice framework and demonstrate its value for social psychologists studying sexual and reproductive issues. Using the example of contraceptive provision, rights-based sexual and reproductive health research is contrasted with reproductive justice-oriented research to demonstrate how a reproductive justice lens can extend the analytical focus to illuminate the complex roots of an issue. This is crucial for developing policy and interventions that contribute toward longer-term systemic change and, ultimately, social transformation.
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    Youth Encounters with Internet Pornography: A Survey of Youth, Caregiver, and Educator Perspectives
    (Springer Science+Business Media LLC, 2022-04-01) Healy-Cullen S; Taylor JE; Ross K; Morison T
    Despite international inquiry regarding young people’s encounters with Internet pornography (IP), there is a lack of knowledge about how their caregivers (parents or guardians) and educators perceive these encounters in comparison to young people. Such knowledge is critical to understanding the synergies and discrepancies that might exist between these key stakeholder groups (youth, caregivers and educators) and across genders, to subsequently inform how to best support youth in navigating IP. To this end, the present study describes youth (16–18-year olds) encounters with IP, as well as caregiver and educator perceptions of these encounters. An online survey was completed by 256 youth and 217 caregivers and educators recruited from nine schools with an existing investment in sexuality education in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Similar to global trends, this group of young New Zealanders were familiar with IP and patterns of encounters were gendered. However, there were varied understandings between stakeholder groups and across genders as to why and how these encounters occur. Understanding the ways youth encounter IP—and exploring how caregivers and educators perceive these encounters—serves as a springboard for future research that considers the broader socio-cultural context within which these perspectives are constructed.
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    How do youth, parents, and educators use discursive sexual scripts to make sense of youth engagement with internet pornography?
    (Taylor and Francis Group, 2022-12) Healy-Cullen S; Morison T; Ross K; Taylor JE
    In this article, we explore how culturally available sexual scripts are drawn on to make meaning of young people’s engagement with internet pornography (IP). We draw on a version of sexual scripting theory developed by feminist discursive scholars to perform a critical thematic analysis of 24 interviews with parents, educators, and young people. We identify three main scripts commonly drawn on by participants to make sense of youth engagement with IP, namely: a script of harm, a heterosexual script, and a developmentalist script. These scripts, often interweaving with one another, were deployed in various ways, firstly, as ‘risk talk’ and, secondly, as ‘resistant talk’. While both adults and youth engaged with dominant (‘risk’) and alternative (‘resistant’) talk, adults primarily positioned youth within ‘risk talk’. We show how alternative ‘resistant talk’ disrupts common, scripted ways of accounting for youth engagement with IP in a way that demonstrates more nuanced sexual subjectivities – particularly among youth – than the traditional media effects paradigm acknowledges. Importantly, our findings show how, within discursive restraints, essentialized gender constructions can be resisted to position youth as agentic sexual subjects.
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    Using reproductive justice as a theoretical lens in qualitative research in psychology
    (Taylor and Francis Group LLC, 2023) Morison T
    Reproductive Justice has become somewhat of a buzzword, inspiring qualitative research on a range of sexual and reproductive issues. However, uptake in psychology has been somewhat slow, in part due to the absence of well-defined methodology and rigorous methods for applying a Reproductive Justice framework. Psychology research claiming a Reproductive Justice approach often lacks specificity regarding its underlying theoretical assumptions and how the chosen methodology enables Reproductive Justice analysis. Failing to engage with the theoretical foundations of Reproductive Justice or explicate how these inform one’s work can lead to underdeveloped application, deviation from the central principles, and misappropriation of Reproductive Justice Theory, thus failing to realise its radical potential. Accordingly, focusing on the application of Reproductive Justice in qualitative psychology research, I discuss three core theoretical antecedents of Reproductive Justice and present three corresponding approaches to application, illustrated with examples. The objective is to offer concrete analytical strategies for applying Reproductive Justice theory and to stimulate further thinking and discussion regarding how the theory might be fruitfully and rigorously used in qualitative research in psychology.