Social Constructionist Critique of Experimental Methods in Psychology

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Social Constructionist Critique of Experimental Methods in Psychology

IntroductionIn today's modern psychology, the concept of Social Constructionism and Experimental Psychology can be seen as two complementary models that are used to understand human behavior. However, it is also a fact that, these two models remained unnecessarily separated from one another in last few decades. It can be seen that, the field of Psychology is mainly dominated by people with experimental nature who believe that their own methods are capable enough to collect knowledge and produce effective results about human behaviour. They assume that experimentation is the main method for psychology. Social constructionists, on the other hand, believe that every method offers an epistemologically privileged view of reality as the constructionist approach is less associated the idea of own set of methods. It has also been seen that, Social constructionists have criticized researchers with experimental approach on both methodological and ideological grounds. Although the differences are found in both the approaches, it is also argued that the complementarities of social constructionism and experimental psychology have linkages to each other. Further, it is also assumed that analysis of their joint-potential could enormously contribute to the field of psychology to conduct in-depth researches in future (Gergen, 1973).DiscussionThe intellectual concepts of experimental psychology and social constructionism are initially introduced by some researchers including Hegel, Marx, Weber, Dewey and Mead and are considered to share similar origin. Their initial work consisted of the objective and scientific analysis of human behavior as well as the persistent study of subjective dimensions of the human mind. In the earlier research, the socially constituted nature of reality was projected, and the intertwining nature of the relationship of individuals to their society was also addresses (Markus and Zajonc, 1985). However, it is also a fact that both the worlds of social constructionism and experimental psychology are derived from the same origin which is also endorsed by the earlier opinions. In addition, the modern and existing research in psychology is found to be agreed with the opinions of earlier researchers who focused on the different ways or environments in which children start their journey of intellectual life within the framework of reality and social interaction. This approach also presents a developmental foundation in which people are viewed as active storage of social environments that are changing in nature. At this point, the view of social constructionists and experimental researchers is found to be similar as they believe that the cognitive perspective in social psychology can be seen as the constructive nature of social cognition (Markus and Zajonc, 1985). These self-governing efforts of researchers produced a common concern focusing on the subjective and social outcome of cultural forms, which allowed researchers to use social as well as psychological theories in order to address the social and cognitive outcomes.Gergen's (1973) distinguished research is considered as a major input of criticism in this area in which he places both the concepts of social constructionism and experimental psychology in a side by side comparison. His key findings included that researchers of psychology were mainly involved in conducting research on the historically contingent social and cultural practices. Researchers, due to this approach, were mainly focusing ...