Social Construction of Reality Flashcards

Chapter 4: Social Construction of Reality

Module Learning Outcomes

• Describe social construction.
• Analyze the different types of social constructs.
• Explain social construction on identity.

What is Social Construction?

• Social construction is based on the concept that events are open to interpretation.
• Because interpretations differ, a common base of communication must be found.
• This common base is known as social reality and is developed based on the most common interpretation of physical reality within a society.

Types of Reality

1. Physical (or Material) Reality: Refers to the concrete and can be proven.
   • Example: On Sept 11th 2001, two planes flew into the World Trade Centre. This fact (the event itself) is concrete.
2. Social Reality: Is not concrete. It is open to interpretation
   • Example: Who caused the 9/11 attacks? What was the reason? How did it happen? These aspects are not concrete and are open to interpretation.

Types of Social Constructs

• Reality is shaped by shared social constructs:
  • Language
  • Food
  • Gestures
  • Colour
  • People Construct: concept/category

Language Construct

• There is only one material world (the physical place in which we live).
• There are innumerable cultures and societies throughout the physical place – each with their own unique understanding of the material world.
• Material Reality = The physical world which precedes language.
• Without language and outside mediation; Material Reality remains without meaning.
• Language is a system of sounds, to which we, collectively attach meaning. It is a system of representation.
• Certain sounds mean certain things.
• Language neutrally describes a world that exists independently of language.
• Language, then, is nothing more than a way of describing a world that already exists.
• We describe differently based on the language we speak.
• We experience things differently depending on the language we speak.
• Language determines how we experience the world around us.
• Language constructs the world through naming it.
• The world is only understood through language and concepts.
• Even our experiences of the world are only rendered meaningful through language.

Colour Construct

• Colour is socially constructed when certain colours are associated with certain ideas, things, or groups of people/gender/race.
• Historically, blue was considered more suitable for boys and pink for girls, based on the idea that blue is a stronger colour and pink is more delicate.
• The NAZIs used a pink triangle to identify homosexuals in concentration camps, suggesting that by the 1930s, pink was associated with girls in Germany.
• Colours are also associated with certain qualities, many businesses use them to attract customers.

Gesture Construct

• Many bodily gestures are socially constructed.
• Examples of gestures that have different meanings in different cultures:
  1. Peace sign with palm facing inward: Avoid using in the United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand. In these countries, this is equivalent to the middle finger.
  2. The OK sign: Avoid using in Turkey, Brazil, Venezuela, and France. This is a vulgar slang.
  3. The stop sign: Avoid Using In Greece. This is seen as an insult to Greeks — a stigma that apparently dates back to Byzantine times, when shackled criminals were paraded through the streets and gawkers were allowed to smear charcoal or excrement in their faces using their open palms.
  4. Rock on: Avoid using in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, and Colombia. To do this in these countries means to tell someone that his wife has been unfaithful.
• Social Constructions do and can change.
• Groups may actively try to renegotiate meanings.

Social Construction on Identity

• The ‘looking-glass self ‘ [Charles Horton Cooley, 1902]
• As children grow up, they learn to develop a sense of themselves – their self-concept – and the qualities they have that make them different from others.
• As they relate to (or interact with) other people, they begin to develop ideas about how others see them.
• By seeing how people respond to them, they may modify their self-concept and sense of identity and begin to see themselves as others see them.
• This means the self-concepts and identities of individuals are changing and developing all the time as they go through daily life in society.
• Therefore, our self-concept or our individual identity is a social construction, and not a purely individual one.

Review of Learning Outcomes

1. Describe social construction.
2. Analyze the different types of social constructs.
3. Explain social construction on identity.