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The Social Construction of the Person

  • Book
  • © 1985

Overview

Editors:
  1. Kenneth J. Gergen

    1. Department of Psychology, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, USA

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    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

  2. Keith E. Davis

    1. Department of Psychology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, USA

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    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

Part of the book series: Springer Series in Social Psychology (SSSOC)

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Table of contents (14 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xii
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  2. Introduction to the Domain

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1
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    2. Social Constructionist Inquiry: Context and Implications

      • Kenneth J. Gergen
      Pages 3-18

    3. An Overview of Descriptive Psychology

      • Peter G. Ossorio
      Pages 19-40

    4. The Social Construction of the Person: How Is it Possible?

      • Richard A. Shweder, Joan G. Miller
      Pages 41-69

  3. The Structure of Intelligibility

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 71-71
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    2. Necessarily True Cultural Psychologies

      • Jan Smedslund
      Pages 73-87

    3. The Social Construction of Emotion: With Special Reference to Love

      • James R. Averill
      Pages 89-109

    4. Social Pragmatics and the Origins of Psychological Discourse

      • Kenneth J. Gergen
      Pages 111-127

    5. Two Concepts of the Mental

      • Jeff Coulter
      Pages 129-144

    6. Relationships in the Real World: The Descriptive Psychology Approach to Personal Relationships

      • Keith E. Davis, Mary K. Roberts
      Pages 145-163

  4. Social Process in Person Construction

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 165-165
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    2. Social Accountability and Self Specification

      • John Shotter
      Pages 167-189

    3. Sincerity: Feelings and Constructions in Making a Self

      • Maury Silver, John Sabini
      Pages 191-201

    4. A Dialectical View of Personal Change

      • Vernon E. Cronen, W. Barnett Pearce, Karl Tomm
      Pages 203-224

    5. How Personal Differences Can Make a Difference

      • John Kirkpatrick
      Pages 225-240

    6. Asking Taboo Questions and Doing Taboo Deeds

      • Wendy McKenna, Suzanne Kessler
      Pages 241-257

    7. The Language Game of Self-Ascription: A Note

      • R. Harré
      Pages 259-263

  5. Back Matter

    Pages 265-276
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Keywords

About this book

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.

Editors and Affiliations

  • Department of Psychology, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, USA

    Kenneth J. Gergen

  • Department of Psychology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, USA

    Keith E. Davis

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: The Social Construction of the Person

  • Editors: Kenneth J. Gergen, Keith E. Davis

  • Series Title: Springer Series in Social Psychology

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-5076-0

  • Publisher: Springer New York, NY

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

  • Copyright Information: Springer-Verlag New York Inc. 1985

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-1-4612-9553-2Published: 27 September 2011

  • eBook ISBN: 978-1-4612-5076-0Published: 06 December 2012

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: 276

  • Topics: Personality and Social Psychology, Sociology, general

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