Social Construction of Reality Term Paper

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INTRODUCTION

People are social beings: they seek out others for conversation, support, love, communication, and even for contention. They adapt, conform, criticize, change and reflect and project the values and norms that flow in between and around them, from person to person, society to society, culture to culture. As a result, people and their identities are constantly undergoing revision, which most call natural development or growth—but “we forget that these things that appear natural were actually socially constructed” as DeLamater, Myers and Collett (2015:6) put it. This paper will explain how people are socially constructed, both inside and out—i.e., in the way they construct their internal identities to the way they behave outwardly, dress, and either conform to societal expectations and norms or reject them by conforming to a subculture or “non-conformist” social group. It the end, the same phenomenon is occurring: the social construction of human identities and norms.

THE SOCIALLY CONSTRUCTED HUMAN BEING

So much of the way in which people behave, think of themselves, and imagine within themselves what is important is an effect of the world around them that it has become a staple of sociological thought that media, peers and groups are the primary input providers when it comes to the construction of one’s identity. For example, Schweingruber, Anahita and Berns (2004) show that people who intend to “pop the question”—i.e., ask someone to marry them—will do so in a way that generally conforms to the societal standards and expectations of their culture and society. It is a ritual that people adhere to because there is the sense that they must perform this part so as to make others happy. They perceive that they are being judged on how they go about the proposal and they want to be judged acceptable. They construct their performance based upon their understanding of the part and what is anticipated. They socially construct themselves to fit into that part—and so they become the character (person) they think they are supposed to be that falls in line with the impressions of the part (the character) required for the proposal.

By extension, it can be seen that all human behavior is predicated on the idea that what one does is in conformity with some idea inside the person’s mind of what one should be. If one conforms to conventional norms, one does so because this is the part that he believes he should play. If one rejects those same norms and embraces standards other than the conventional ones, the same justification applies. Justification and excuses are what people use—accounts is what Scott and Lyman (1968) call them—to explain their behavior, choices, actions, and identity. The give accounts to themselves and to others to rationalize their social construction of identity.

Life is not so simple that accounts can be given flawlessly, which is why Festinger developed his cognitive dissonance theory, which essentially states that “people try to make sense out of their environment and their behavior—and thus try to lead lives that are (at least in their own minds) sensible and meaningful” (Aronson 1999:220).

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The social construction of the human identity is based on people’s need to make sense of their own lives, and what is known as development of human life is really the reaction that people have to their own cognitive dissonance. They want consistency, but when consistency does not happen they must change something to resolve the dissonance that they experience. So they change a perception, change themselves, or change the reality by influencing it in some way.…

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…so deliberately sets out to construct. The image that has in one’s head of oneself is not always the same as how others see one, either. Thus, in a relationship, one partner may feel he is being fair and kind to the other, while the other may feel as though he is being cruel and uncaring. The perception of actions and their meanings can be over-focused on or missed altogether because inside the mind people are dealing with their own construction of self and their own cognitive dissonance. Unless conformity or alignment can be reached between the two, there is likely to be a break-up.

CONCLUSION

The social-construction of human beings is part of life. People receive inputs from all around them about who they are, who others are, who they should be, why they are the way they are, and so on. They receive or reject these inputs based on others that were there beforehand—ones that came from books or parents or teachers or peers from one’s past. These notions may be traded or confirmed over time or altered so as to resolve some feeling cognitive dissonance—but all the while the person is constructing an image of the self in the mind. That person is conforming to an image or ideal that has been projected by bits and pieces of information absorbed from media, peers and groups and used to construct an overall picture of what that person should be. Behavior is constructed to fit that mold and people are judged according to pre-conceived notions and stereotypes. People project their socially constructed identities onto others and vice versa. Social interaction is a two-way street in which one is constantly in a state of construction or becoming, as some sociologists have stated in the past. People….....

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