Social Constructionist Approach

This is the idea that social processes rather than empirical evidence primarily influence the formation and assessment of theories.

Key Concepts of the Social Constructionist Approach

Social constructionism looks at science in terms of social processes.

It offers a substitute to the objective scientific approach in psychology suggesting that such beliefs are mistakes as there are no objective realities.

There is only socially determined knowledge and the investigations of this can be made as the purpose as the supposedly objective sciences.

Social representations are one way to study the social constructions of the world.

The quest for an objective reality is misleading.

“All human life is effort after meaning” as the significance that is placed on experience that is important rather than the experiment itself.

Social constructionism proposes that once you accept something then it become subjective.

Social constructionists do not believe that it is possible to make observations that are objective and unbiased about people, as we can only see the world as it is represented in our culture and language.

In order to understand behaviour, psychology should seek explanations in terms of social context in which behaviour occurs.

Berger and Luckmann (1986) identify three moments to the social construction process.

INTERNALISATION – (social reality constructs the person). The social world becomes part of the individual and is incorporated into their actions and beliefs.

EXTERNALISATION- (the person constructs the social world). The social world is constructed through how a person views it should be. Their actions and thoughts are incorporated into building the social world they live in.

OBJECTIFICATION-the social world constructed by people becomes a separate reality form those who constructed it.

Social constructionists believe that meanings, ideas ...

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Berger and Luckmann (1986) identify three moments to the social construction process.

INTERNALISATION – (social reality constructs the person). The social world becomes part of the individual and is incorporated into their actions and beliefs.

EXTERNALISATION- (the person constructs the social world). The social world is constructed through how a person views it should be. Their actions and thoughts are incorporated into building the social world they live in.

OBJECTIFICATION-the social world constructed by people becomes a separate reality form those who constructed it.

Social constructionists believe that meanings, ideas and values should be studied in context of culture and historical changes. This is because the social world constructed by people varies in different cultures and different time periods. For example, in some cultures people do not believe in meat eating whereas in others it is part of their daily life.

This is also the case in different times in history as in medieval Europe people used to be witch hunted if they did something extraordinary. Nowadays people who perform extraordinary things would probably be seen as geniuses.

According to this theory different people in different situations construct emotions differently.

So social constructionists research tries to identify the different social constructions that exist.

Evaluation of the Social Constructionist Approach

Methodology used by the Social Constructionist Approach

Researches are done to get a better understanding of constructions. It is usually qualitative because it deals with significance and meanings in a way that is easy to analyse as it focuses on the contexts in which meanings occur.

Transcribed interviews with individuals or groups - a method of spoken data, which is written, down and recorded. This allows for the interviewer to understand how people socially construct and how this differs within groups and individually.

Conversations between people that are naturally occur- This is a good way of again finding people’s private constructions and social realities.

Newspaper Articles and Magazines – This is a form of externalisation because this shows how people construct the social world as most newspapers and magazines try to construct the image of a perfect world where crimes are not accepted and people are expected to behave in a way that everyone find pleasing.

Cultural products such as films and books – this follows objectification where these products as created by people starts to have a separate reality from those who made them. These are treated like they are a natural part of life instead of something that was created. It is sometimes incorporated into our actions and thoughts such as the excitement over film/books like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. People often refer to these not as a book or film but just as ordinary events.

The cultural products usually portray the writer’s social constructions about different issues and beliefs, which is why this is used as a method for this approach.