Social Constructionism | Great Ideas in Psychology: Part 20

#Psychology #SocialConstructionism #Positivism

[chrisschuck]

No more Great Ideas in the world, I guess; what a shame. Thank you for sticking it out all the way and keeping the quality so high This one probably require an extra 2 hours to do justice because it's such a thorny topic in psychology especially. You focused mostly on ontology but in psychology you hear a lot about constructed knowledge. I wish you had explained the difference between constructionism and constructivism, as that sometimes confuses me. E.g., personal construct theory.

Constructionism is tricky because there's a weak trivial version and then a strong version, and you never know exactly what the disagreement is about and what's at stake! For me it's useful more as a mental exercise to shake the cobwebs out of our ossified realities every now and then (What is a "father, " really?).

[peyman]

A social construct came to me as a big surprise. I would always think of ick factor toward insects an innate feature of human nature, and would consider those people from other cultures who consume those little critters as strange!
Confounded, I was; after realization that our ancestors used to eat insects with great gusto as a staple food. I wondered what else? What else factors we deem innate albeit there are not? What implications does it have on studying human behavior? We are almost blind to our habituations and constructs and it barely budges.


Recommended books for review:

Don't Trust Your Gut: Using Data to Get What You Really Want in LIfe
by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz (2022)

Plays Well with Others: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Relationships Is (Mostly) Wrong
by Eric Barker (2022)

I enjoyed these two a lot.

A book for you ;) :
How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence
by Michael Pollan (2018)