social construction pres
TRANSCRIPT
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Social Constructionism
in Psychology
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All knowledge, includingpsychological
knowledge, ishistorically andculturally specific.
Common feature constant change
Social processes thefoundation of reality
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Implications for Psychology
Mental Illness
Social psychology
Cultural psychology
The Social Construction of Sex andGender
Language and culture
Deafhood
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Kenneth Gergen
the social process is the foundation ofreality (1985)
Feral humans
Language Knowledge transferred from one person to
another
Effective communication of knowledge: bothparties have a social agreement on theprinciples of the language as well as thecontext in which it is used
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Historicalbias
Cultural bias
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People attach meaning towords and situations and
these are exhibited throughlanguage
Is mental illness a modernphenomena?
Cultural understanding Impossible to have a
completely objectiveconversation of mental
illness because the wordssurrounding mental illnessare often negative (e.g.Mad, crazy etc)
Gadamer: understandingmeanin
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Mental Illness:recognised asreal only when
rooted in bio-physiology orindividual factors(NAMI)
Socially derived
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Social construction of self
Gergen (1996): our moment-to-moment decisions may depend onwhat we think of ourselves
Individuals shaped by othersexpressive behaviour towards self
Positive feedback effect
Unstable social patterns
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Socially Constructed Gender
Why do gender differences andinequalities exist?
Sociobiology: different reproductive
strategies Natural behaviours? marriage, abuse
of step-children, rape, adultery?
Sex/Gender if gendered traits dictatedby sex
We wouldnt need to learn them
We wouldnt need to punish those whodeviated from them
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Social interaction
Fausto-Sterling (2000)
There exists more than two sexes
We fix those who have ambiguous
genitals
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Why follow the rules?
Social control?
Cultural embeddedness?
We decide how to look and act? Subcultures?
Rewards/punishments?
Gender Identity Disorder
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Discourse
Comparing of individualsrealities
Reality is internal (External
behaviourism and person asmachine) Reality created by the mind Mind interacts with reality
through language
Opponents: subjective truthdestroys anything that
resembles tautological fact, oruniversal fact.
Chairhair
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Those who do not accept generallyaccepted norms and realities areoft labelled with psychopathological
diseases such as schizophrenia anddementia
Reality created by mind
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Additional alterations to ourconstructed reality in psychology
Deafhood
Deaf people use a different languageand have different culture than themajority of hearing people (2006)
Parietal and temporal lobe utilised
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Summary
Are you convinced that you aresocially constructed?
Social construction theory hasinteresting approaches and relevantinsights in psychology, that could
benefit from further investigation
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Further information
http://jhenner.wordpress.com/2006/09/29/115957439647402397/