The perspective also emphasizes the dynamic and ongoing nature of gender construction. It clearly underlines that discourses about femininity and masculinity change during a century or the own stage of life and personal context. This is in line with the development of the roles of men and women between the 1930s and 2000s. As in the 1930s the men were the breadwinners and women were responsible for child-rearing, the picture has changed today and there is not any more a typical family life as in the 1930s. Also, the roles of a woman in her 30s and her 60s may be different. If the personal context may allow, a woman in her 30s is pretty more likely to get children than a woman in her 60s.
The perspective highlights further differences between males and females, not only in their own behaviour but how other people behave towards each gender. Different discourses about gender-appropriate positions for girls and boys are incorporated into every aspect of life (Hollway, Cooper, Johnston and Stevens, 2007b). The same is true for adult women and men. On the one hand, this supports the significance of the example of Albania, on the other hand it explains many of the differences in the behaviour towards men or women in different situations such as occupation, responsibility for child-rearing and other social processes. Social constructionists argue that we construct the world to have two basic types of people, men and women, who are then produced as different in all kinds of other ways (Hollway, Cooper, Johnston and Stevens, 2007c). This explanation of the two gender along a dimension is not true at all. It would mean that, if women are, for example, always small and loyal, men have to be tall and disloyal which is surely not true. Accordingly, men and women cannot be seen as contrary to each other in every aspect and this theory cannot be said to have contributed to a realistic understanding of sex and gender and their differences.
Another social process in which the social perspective is interested is language and (its) meaning. Psychologists working in this field argue that language is inherently social and it is essential for it to take place between two people or more. It is only the communication between the (at least) two humans that provides meaning for language. Further, they argue that the aim of language is never to carry information neutrally. Rather the purpose lies in an underlying action to be accomplished. It supports the notion that it is not the syntax nor semantics which make the meaning of language. The goals and purposes of the speaker as well as the interpretation of the listener are more important than scripts and schemata. This explains many misunderstandings in people´s communication. The theory is a strength of the social perspective because other perspectives´ focus is mainly on cognitive processes in meaning making which are not sufficient to explain how humans make meaning of spoken or written words and the reason why different people interpret the same piece of text or utterances differently. It is this different interpretation which is significant.
Nevertheless, cognitive psychologists argue, lexical, semantic and syntactic information, and also knowledge of what typically happens in our world, are all important for understanding. In order to engage successfully in a conversation, participants need knowledge of each other´s representations and intensions (Cooper and Kaye, 2007b). This is a very important point in understanding and constructing language and meaning. Without the correct use of the rules of syntax and semantics and lexica nobody would be able to understand a sequence of words in cognitive and intellectual terms. The meaning of the words “meaning” and “understanding” seem to be different in cognitive and social psychology. The social psychology has its strength in explaining how people construct meaning, while the cognitive psychology explains how meaning of single words and sentences is understood.
Another important point is that discourses are chosen to construct an own reality with the aim to support needs or interests. This understanding of language and the process of meaning-making is unique in psychology. It can be understood as complementary with other perspectives such as the cognitive and the evolutionary approach. Each perspective is looking at different aspects of the same thing and is contributing to a great body of knowledge. As the perspectives cannot tell everything about language and meaning, the social perspective is extremely important. Meaning-making does not only happen through the parallel processing of syntax, semantics, contextual and social information. Would it happen this way, misunderstandings and different interpretations could not occur. In addition, a reason may also lie in the different methodologies used, each with its own strengths and limitations. What is unique of the social perspective is the information about how meaning is made of spoken or written words between at least two people. However, this perspective lacks explanations how humans perceive language and what is going on in the brain. In contrast to the experimental social psychology, it does not investigate the brain. Therefore the social perspective cannot tell us anything about that which could be nevertheless extremely important.
An additional limitation is methodological reflexivity. That means in order to investigate language it is also used itself. It is still not clear to what extent spoken or written words, particularly in studies, predetermines what is said, e.g. by the participants.
This confusion challenges the theories of the social perspective. They claim that language never conveys information neutrally, i.e. there is the possibility of introducing biases in studies. Further, it is also the human to which the words are intended who produces his very own meaning. The difficulty of studying language in the social perspective can be described by the perspective itself. Through a transmission of information which is not neutral and a meaning-making process by the other which could in turn produce a very different meaning as was intended initially, biases, misunderstandings and other failures could lead to a theory which is simply not right.
The biological perspective works differently. For language and meaning as well as the psychology of sex and gender a different methodology is used which provides material data, for example brain imaging techniques which could not be influenced by the experimenter as much as it could be the case in the hermeneutic approach. The cognitive approach often uses vignettes in experiments to avoid intersubjectivity. Although vignettes are likely to cause low ecological validity there is still the possibility to gain an independent view on the described social processes. To focus only on the social world can, hence, not provide a full understanding.
In summary, the social perspective has provide a rich understanding of language and meaning and sex and gender. Nevertheless, the focus is only on social influences such as other people and discourses. It therefore lacks a general understanding of a whole topic. In every case other perspectives are needed to see the full picture of both, sex and gender and language and meaning.
Also in terms of the methodology the experimental approach could be helpful to support or disprove the results which are gained from the hermeneutic approach.
Overall, in terms of social influences and discourses, the social perspective has contributed to a great body of knowledge which is very important to understand all aspects of any topic. The other side of the coin is that the focus is only on social influences, the social environment and social constructions which limit a full understanding of different processes involved in the same topic, such as meaning-making of language.
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References:
Buchanan, K., Anand, P., Joffe, H. & Thomas, K. (2007). Perceiving and understanding the social world. In D. Miell, A. Phoenix & K. Thomas (Eds.), Mapping Psychology (2nd ed., p. 109). Milton Keynes: The Open University
Cooper, T, & Kaye, H. (2007a). Language and meaning. In T. Cooper & I. Roth (Eds.), Challenging Psychological Issues (2nd ed., p. 113). Milton Keynes: The Open University
Cooper, T, & Kaye, H. (2007b). Language and meaning. In T. Cooper & I. Roth (Eds.), Challenging Psychological Issues (2nd ed., p. 100). Milton Keynes: The Open University
Hollway, W., Cooper, T., Johnston, A. & Stevens, R., (2007a). The psychology of sex and gender. In T. Cooper & I. Roth (Eds.), Challenging Psychological Issues (2nd ed., p. 152). Milton Keynes: The Open University
Hollway, W., Cooper, T., Johnston, A. & Stevens, R., (2007b). The psychology of sex and gender. In T. Cooper & I. Roth (Eds.), Challenging Psychological Issues (2nd ed., p. 152). Milton Keynes: The Open University
Hollway, W., Cooper, T., Johnston, A. & Stevens, R., (2007c). The psychology of sex and gender. In T. Cooper & I. Roth (Eds.), Challenging Psychological Issues (2nd ed., p. 151). Milton Keynes: The Open University
