An example of a social construct is
money or the concept of currency
, as people in society have agreed to give it importance/value. … Strong social constructs rely on the human perspective and knowledge that does not just exist, but is rather constructed by society.
John Spacey, August 31, 2019. Social constructs are things that emerge with the shared experiences of a civilization or society. These include
shared knowledge and systems
that are the basis for communication, cooperation, productivity, peaceful coexistence and quality of life.
Social constructionists believe that
things that are generally viewed as natural or normal in society
, such as understandings of gender, race, class, and disability, are socially constructed, and consequently aren’t an accurate reflection of reality.
A major focus of social constructionism is
to uncover the ways in which individuals and groups participate in the construction of their perceived social reality
. It involves looking at the ways social phenomena are developed, institutionalized, known, and made into tradition by humans.
Reflecting the affordances of contemporary technology and the psychological underpinnings of social influence, Crystallization suggests that social media
facilitates information produced or relayed by the members of our social networks
, who become neo agenda setters.
- Government.
- Race. “Race is not biological…
- Gender.
- Femininity/Masculinity.
- Illness.
- Marriage.
- Family.
- Organized Religions.
What are human constructs?
Construct, also called hypothetical construct or psychological construct, in psychology,
a tool used to facilitate understanding of human behaviour
. … Likewise, the behavioral sciences use constructs such as conscientiousness, intelligence, political power, self-esteem, and group culture.
Social norms are unwritten rules of behavior shared by members of a given group or society. Examples from western culture include:
forming a line at store counters
, saying ‘bless you’ when someone sneezes, or holding the door to someone entering a building right after you.
Social constructionism is
the notion that people’s understanding of reality is partially, if not entirely, socially situated
. Gender is a social identity that needs to be contextualized. Individuals internalize social expectations for gender norms and behave accordingly.
The main criticisms levelled against social constructionism can be summarised by its perceived conceptualisation of realism and relativism. It is accused of
being anti-realist
, in denying that knowledge is a direct perception of reality (Craib 1997).
Medical sociologists use social constructionist theory
to interpret the social experience of illness
. Social constructionism holds that individuals and groups produce their own conceptions of reality, and that knowledge itself is the product of social dynamics. … Illness can reshape an individual’s identity.
A social construct is
something that exists not in objective reality, but as a result of human interaction
. It exists because humans agree that it exists.
The news is
a socially manufactured product
, rather than an objective ‘window on the world’. … ‘The News is Socially Constructed’ = the news is a manufactured product, the result of decisions made by media professionals about what to include and how to present what is included.
Despite the calls for establishing theory-driven multidimensional formative conceptualization and operationalization of information systems (IS) usage, social media usage is conventionally modeled as a
unidimensional reflective construct
.
- The notion that women were incapable of performing some of the same jobs as men was a social construct, with no real basis in reality.
- The outdated and awful idea of a person’s worth being based on their race is a social construct, created by humans and with no merit at all.
Social construction theory is about how we make sense of things. It assumes that we ‘construct’ mental representations, using collective notions as building blocks. In this view,
happiness is regarded as a social construction
, comparable to notions like ‘beauty’ and ‘fairness’.
