The Social Construction of the Person PDF
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SSSP Springer Series in Social Psychology SSSP The Social Construction of the Person Edited by Kenneth J. Gergen Keith E. Davis ·f· Springer-Verlag ~ New York Berlin Heidelberg Tokyo Kenneth J. Gergen Keith E. Davis Department of Psychology Department of Psychology Swarthmore College University of South Carolina Swarthmore, Pennsylvania 19081 Columbia, South Carolina 29208 U.S.A. U.S.A. With 3 Figures Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Main entry under title: The social construction of the person. (Springer series in social psychology) Includes bibliographies and index. 1. Personality-Social aspects. I. Gergen, Kenneth J. II. Davis, Keith E. III. Series. BF698.9.S63S63 1985 155.2 84-23572 © 1985 by Springer-Verlag New York Inc. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1985 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form without written permission from Springer-Verlag, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010, U.S.A. The use of general descriptive names, trade names, trademarks, etc., in this publication, even if the former are not especially identified, is not to be taken as a sign that such names, as understood by the Trade Marks and Merchandise Marks Act, may accordingly be used freely by anyone. Typeset by Ampersand Publisher Services, Inc., Rutland, Vermont. 9 8 7 6 5 432 1 ISBN-13: 978-1-4612-9553-2 e-ISBN-13: 978-1-4612-5076-0 DOl: 10.1007/978-1-4612-5076-0 Preface This volume grew out of a discussion between the editors at the Society for Experimental Social Psychology meeting in Nashville in 1981. For many years the Society has played a leading role in encouraging rigorous and sophisticated research. Yet, our discussion that day was occupied with what seemed a major problem with this fmely honed tradition; namely, it was preoccupied with "accurate renderings of reality," while generally insensitive to the process by which such renderings are achieved. This tradition presumed that there were "brute facts" to be discovered about human interaction, with little consideration of the social processes through which "factuality" is established. To what degree are accounts of persons constrained by the social process of rendering as opposed to the features of those under scrutiny? This concern with the social process by which persons are constructed was hardly ours alone. In fact, within recent years such concerns have been voiced with steadily increasing clarity across a variety of disciplines. Ethno- methodologists were among the first in the social sciences to puncture the taken-for-granted realities of life. Many sociologists of science have also turned their attention to the way social organizations of scientists create the facts necessary to sustain these organizations. Historians of science have entered a similar enterprise in elucidating the social, economic and ideological conditions enabling certain formulations to flourish in the sciences while others are suppressed. Many social anthropologists have also been intrigued by cross-cultural variations in the concept of the human being. And theorists of both literary criticism and of history have increasingly turned attention toward the literary figures or forms that seem inevitably to guide the attempt to render human experience intelligible. Such concerns have also been critical for smaller numbers of social psychologists-particularly those carrying out descriptive, ethogenic, her- meneutic, analytic, historical, and ethnomethodological research. Yet these groups seemed relatively insulated from each other, and without firm vi Preface connection with like-mindl!d colleagues in neighboring disciplines. The time seemed ripe for intellectual rapproachment. The fIrst step was to explore the desirability and feasibility of a conference that would provide a forum in whichcpractitioners of the different construc- tionist and interpretative orientations could examine the implications of each other's ideas, and develop a greater appreciation of similarities and dif- ferences. After preliminary discussion, we settled on the theme "the social construction of the person," and approached scholars in Anthropology, Communications, Political Science, Psychology, and Sociology about their interest in participating. We were highly gratifIed by the enthusiasm of the participants, and we set out to make the practical arrangements for what became the Swarthmore Symposium on "The Social Construction of the Person." The Symposium, held on April 1-3, 1983 at Swarthmore College, featured more than 20 presentations by participants from the United States and England. The high quality of presentations and the liveliness of the discussions all encouraged a vision of an edited volume. It was our hope that such a work would fIrst give full expression to an emerging perspective. We sought to explore this perspective from several vantage points, to elaborate on its implications, and to explore its limits. We wished to encourage interchange among scholars from superfIcially disparate but intellectually allied domains. Further, it was our aim to challenge others to join in this stimulating endeavor. With these aims in mind, we set out to shape the various contributions into an original and integrated whole. Many of the contributions to the Sympo- sium were subsequently expanded, edited, and tailored for the volume. Others, because they were already committed elsewhere, or because they duplicated concerns, were not included. The results of these collective efforts are contained herein. In this endeavor we are especially grateful to the Cooper Foundation at Swarthmore for its support of the conference, and to Kendall Landis, Vice President, Swarthmore College, for his help in securing additional funds. We are also indebted to Didi Beebe, Department of Psychology, Swarthmore College, for her sustained efforts in both the mounting of the Symposium and the production of the fmal work. Kenneth J. Gergen Keith E. Davis Swarthmore, Pennsylvania Columbia, South Carolina Contents Preface .............................................. v Contributors .......................................... xi Part I. Introduction to the Domain 1. Social Constructionist Inquiry: Context and Implications 3 Kenneth J. Gergen The Social Constructionist Orientation ................... 3 Social Constructionism in Historical Perspective ............ 7 Constructionism and the Problematics of Psychological Explanation ....................................... 11 Constructionism and the Character of Science ............. 12 2. An Overview of Descriptive Psychology 19 Peter G. Ossorio A Budget of Problems ............................... 20 A Different Spirit ................................... 26 A Different Genre .................................. 28 Descriptive Psychology and Social Constructionism ......... 37 3. The Social Construction of the Person: How Is It Possible? 41 Richard A. Shweder and Joan G. Miller Oriya Conceptions of the Person, Society, and Nature: A Primer ......................................... 42 From Conceptions of the Person to Social Cognition ........ 53 Social Construction: How Is It Possible? ................. 56 viii Contents Part n. The Structure of Intelligibility 4. Necessarily True Cultural Psychologies 73 Jan Smedslund The Meaning of Reflexivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Broadening the Range of Facts to Be Considered ........... 74 Broadening the Range of Problems to Be Solved. . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Commonsense Psychology ............................ 76 How to Describe, Explain, and So On, a Description of Behavior ....................................... 78 Traditional Empirical Psychology ....................... 79 Problems of Necessarily True Cultural Psychologies ......... 81 Concluding Remarks ................................ 85 5. The Social Construction of Emotion: With Special Reference to Love .......................................... 89 James R. Averill On Falling in Love in Conformance with the Romantic Ideal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Henry Theophilus Finck and His Critics .................. 95 Love as an Emotional Syndrome ....................... 98 Concluding Observations ............................. 106 6. Social Pragmatics and the Origins of Psychological Discourse ......................................... 111 Kenneth J. Gergen Treacherous Invitations to a Theory of Origins ............. 112 Discourse and the Pragmatics of Relationship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 The Principle of Intentionality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 The Principles of Seriation and Singularity ................ 119 The Principle of Pandemonium ......................... 121 Mental Testing and Interpretative Pandemonium ........... 123 Summary ......................................... 125 7. Two Concepts of the Mental 129 Jeff Coulter Forgetting ........................................ 130 Halfway House Data ................................ 135 Willing ........................................... 137 Conclusion ........................................ 142 8. Relationships in the Real World: The Descriptive Psychology Approach to Personal Relationships ..................... 145 Keith E. Davis and Mary K. Roberts Status Assignment and World Creations .................. 145 Contents ix I-Thou Relationships as the Paradigm for Personal Relationships ...................................... 146 Social Practices and Insiders Versus Outsiders ............. 149 Types of Personal Relationships: Friends, Lovers, and Others ........................................... 152 Individual Differences in Conceptions .................... 155 Appreciation of Overt Performance Versus Significance ...... 156 Role of Personal Relationships in Health, Mental Health, and Life Satisfaction .................................... 156 Conclusions ....................................... 159 Part III. Social Process in Person Construction 9. Social Accountability and Self Specification 167 John Shotter Social Accountability ................................ 167 The Social Accountability of Conduct ................... 168 Being Held Captive by a Picture ................... . . . . . 171 Routine Accountability ............. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Theories, Models, and Accounts ........................ 174 Applications ....................................... 177 The Metaphorical Nature of Our Self-Talk ................ 178 The Situated and Hermeneutical Nature of Selfhood ......... 181 Weiss's Depiction of "You" ........................... 183 Conclusions ....................................... 186 10. Sincerity: Feelings and Constructions in Making a Self. . . . . . . 191 Maury Silver and John Sabini Pain ............................................. 192 Impulses ........................ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 Emotion .......................................... 195 Feelings, the Self, and the Will ......................... 196 Feelings as Beliefs: Intuitions .......................... 197 A Summary of the Dramaturgic Model, Sincerity, and Feelings .......................................... 199 A Postscript on the Self .............................. 199 11. A Dialectical View of Personal Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 Vernon E. Cronen, W. Barnett Pearce, and Karl Tomm The Coordinated Management of Meaning ................ 205 The A Family: A Case Study .......................... 208 Conclusion and Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220 x Contents 12. How Personal Differences Can Make a Difference 225 John Kirkpatrick The Marquesas Islands ............................... 227 Personal Distinctiveness .............................. 228 Singling Persons Out: Names .......................... 229 Singling Persons Out: Physical Distinctiveness ............. 230 The Place of Distinctive Hakatu in Interaction ............. 230 Setting Differences Aside ............................. 233 Human Careers .................................... 234 Personal Distinctiveness in the Electoral Process ............ 235 Discussion ........................................ 236 Toward Cross-Cultural Understandings .................. 237 13. Asking Taboo Questions and Doing Taboo Deeds 241 Wendy McKenna and Suzanne Kessler Our Commitments .................................. 243 The Prohibition Against Researching Childhood Sexuality .... 245 Traditionalists Versus Libertarians ...................... 247 An Alternative Model of the Child and the Adult ........... 250 Positivism's Dilemma ................................ 252 Conclusion ........................................ 254 14. The Language Game of Self-Ascription: A Note 259 Rom Harre Author Index 265 Subject Index 273 Contributors James R. Averill, Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, U.S.A. Jeff Coulter, Department of Sociology, Boston University, Boston, Massa- chusetts, 02215, U.S.A. Vernon E. Cronen, Department of Communication Studies, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, U.S.A. Keith E. Davis, Department of Psychology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina 29208, U.S.A. Kenneth J. Gergen, Department of Psychology, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania 19081, U.S.A. Rom Harre, Sub-Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford, Oxford OXI 4JJ, England Suzanne Kessler, Department of Psychology, State University of New York, Purchase, New York 10577, U.S.A. John Kirkpatrick, 2223 Aupuni Street, Honolulu, Hawaii 96817, U.S.A. Wendy McKenna, Department of Psychology, Barnard College, New York, New York 10027, U.S.A. Joan G. Miller, Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, U.S.A.
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