Lecture 2: Social constructionism and language

Question 1

Perception vs Conception

Answer 1

Perceptions suggest direct access to the experienced object and physical world

•However, we are actively engaged in sense-making
–Selective attention, schemas, subjective meanings, interpersonal context, historical context etc

Question 2

George Kelly (1905 – 1967)

Answer 2

People don’t act in accordance with how the world actually is, but with constructions of it

•Informal scientists:
–Constructs are modified on the basis of experience (or conscious reflection)

•How individual are constructs?
–Our system of knowledge might extend to how others perceive something.
–Constructs may be communicated and shared

Question 3

Socially constructed knowledge

Answer 3

Knowledge arises through social interactions

•The self is a product of a social context
–it doesn’t exist independently

•Being immersed in a culture shapes the content of thought and meaning
–There are culturally available categories and ways of making sense of things

•Even things that might seem unarguably real can be constructed in different ways across history and culture

Question 4

Social Norms

Answer 4

Why do norms matter?
•Norms as statistical averages or…
•Norms as expectations / ideals
–Those who fit (or rather, approximate) a norm meet a societal ideal
–Norms privilege people in socially advantageous positions
•Sex and gender are primarily constructed in binary and dichotomous terms – male and female, and this doesn’t fit everyone
–Biological sex & gender identity are both powerful (binary) categories and norms, but both become unstable when examined critically

Question 5

Example: Gender Norms and Health

Answer 5

Social norms affect self-reported health (women typically report worse health than men) (Caroli & Weber-Baghdiguian, 2016)

• Social norms informing hegemonic masculinity influence the perceptions of risk (e.g. Morioka 2014)
• Subtle differences in self-compassion (Yarnell et al 2015)

•Body image, weight & dissatisfaction – huge range of studies, similarities and differences
–m/f both show attentional bias toward idealized bodies (Cho & Lee 2013)

Body dissatisfaction between perceived, actual and desired body size

• Female media images are increasingly extreme and implicated in shame and dissatisfaction; proliferation of similarly extreme male bodies too
• Association between thinness and +ve attributes (e.g. control, success, attractiveness); fatness = -ve attributes (e.g. self indulgence, laziness)
• Exposure to images = decreased body satisfaction
• (Ogden & Sherwood, 2008)

Question 6

Interventions in Body Image Expectations

Answer 6

Airbrushing
–Information about how pictures are altered
–Showing extent of alterations
–Enhanced awareness of image manipulation reduces negative effects of media exposure
(Ogden & Sherwood, 2008)

Question 7

Social Constructionist Research

Answer 7

Focuses on language (and symbols) – language constructs the world we live in

•Language empowers/constrains certain actions

•Does not claim to be ‘objective’
–true objectivity seen as impossible

•Can be political
–e.g. Social change & liberation – collaborative research – doing research with people, rather than on people

Question 8

Language constructs the social world

Answer 8

The ways we can talk about events and things within the world are shaped by the linguistic resources available to us

• Discourses are words/phrases that construct a particular understanding
• Our speech is seen as a “tissue of quotations” where we draw upon discourses that exist within our culture (cf Roland Barthes, 1967)
• Discourses can and do change over time – by tracing the history of a discourse, the changes reveal that it is a social construct rather than a simple reflection of reality

Question 9

Discourses

Answer 9

Discourses are culturally available ways of talking about people, objects, events…

•An effect of discourses is to position people in certain ways – these subject positions confer responsibility and power on some people and disempower others
–e.g. a traditional biomedical discourse positions some people as experts (doctors, nurses, surgeons…) who are expected to do the treating, and patients who are subjected to the treatment
–This can position the patient passively

Question 10

Analysing language, why bother?

Answer 10

1. Deconstruct the ‘taken-for-granted’
   –The ‘commonsense’, the ‘hegemonic’ discourses
2. Understand how power operates within texts
   –Who/what is given ‘power’, ‘dominance’, ‘prominence’
   –who/what is ‘oppressed’, ‘silenced’, ‘marginalised’, ‘othered’
3. Discuss the potential effects of language and constructions
   –What is normalised? What behaviour is un/acceptable?
4. Focus on how things are said as well what is said
   –How are accounts set up to e.g. justify, blame, apologise, marginalise, endorse…
   –“It is about unpacking and rendering visible the business of talk” (Potter 2004, p 609)
5. Pick up transferable skills
   –e.g. analytical skills, the ability to think critically about any text and phenomenon, the ability to unpick arguments, logic and reason

Question 11

Discourse analysis in psychology

Answer 11

The importance of the ‘turn to language’ 1970’s & 80’s in social psychology
–Wide ranging critique of ‘hypothetico-deductivism’
–Wide ranging critique of ‘cognitivism’
–Wide ranging examination of the social/political/historical production of ‘knowledge’ [‘knowledges’] i.e. context

•‘Social constructionist’ approach
–As you’ve seen, it’s not just mountains & hills, cats & dogs
–Potentially everything can be seen as socially constructed through language
–E.g. identities, gender, race, dis/ability, age, prejudice, stereotypes, emotions, love, norms…