Paste your essay in here…Kuhn (1962) introduced the idea of a paradigm to the philosophy of science. He described it as a framework under which scientific discovery operates, dictating what data is legitimate, which methods are used, how results are presented and shapes interpretation (Bem & Looren de Jong, 2013). The individualist paradigm in Science is centred around the belief that there is one objective truth of the world accessible through observation. Experimental social psychology encompasses this attitude and contends that through the use of empirical scientific techniques universal characteristics and processes of human behaviour can be uncovered. Conversely, critical social psychology operates within a social constructionist paradigm, rejecting the assertion that human behaviour can be separated from the context in which it occurs. According to this view, human processes are intrinsically linked to the environmental stimuli which influence them, and are constructed through interpersonal interactions (Gergen, 1985). This essay will critically compare individualist and social constructionist paradigms and the different research agendas associated with them. Furthermore, how the individual is constructed in each approach will be considered with reference to the ‘self’, personality theory and emotion.
The Individualist paradigm reflects the ideas of logical positivism, which is centred on the belief that science is the embodiment of rationality, objectivity and truth (Bem & Looren de Jong, 2013). When this philosophy is applied to Psychology, it is thought that studies should focus on intrinsic, physical and psychological states of individuals, with little reference to anything beyond this (Wilson, 2004). Experimental social psychology is hence based on the assumption that we can objectively understand human experience in a social setting (Rogers, 2003). Researchers operating within this paradigm seek to establish experimental settings to examine relatively unchanging internal processes enabling individuals to function in their social world (Tuffin, 2004). The psychological subject is viewed as a unit of analysis and intervention. The effects of stimuli on samples of the population are measured and statistically analysed, and findings are then thought to be generalizable to the population at large. Language is generally viewed as an unbiased platform used to express our thoughts and ideas. When one talks about themselves, their thoughts or emotions, it is assumed that these entities exist independently of the words used to describe them.
For constructionists, the human behaviour is best understood in the context of how people interact with others (Moghaddam, 2005). They criticise individualist research methods as reductionist, claiming the measures used by this paradigm restrict and limit how meaningful findings are (Parker, 2014). It is argued that in order to gain a rich understanding of someone’s social psychological processes, you cannot condense experiences to their score on questionnaire, or how they behave in a lab based environment. When trying to understand the social behaviour of an individual, it is fundamentally flawed to ignore the society, structures and institutions which influence them (Vico, 1744/1961). Gergen (1996) goes as far as to argue that social psychological knowledge cannot withstand the test of time, as human social life is not stable. In critical social psychology, it is believed the study of language provides a unique insight into a culturally defined framework through which individuals understand the world (Burr, 2003). As people’s social patterns evolve the language they use mirrors this change. It is thought that the conceptual categories provided by language shape how we perceive entities, and structure our thoughts and feelings (Bruffe, 1986; Stibbe, 2001). Because of the importance placed on language, qualitative methods are favoured by constructionists. In order to maintain valuable contextual information, linguistic data is analysed using methods referred to as discourse analysis (Potter, 1996).
As discussed, the individualist paradigm approach’s main tenet is a desire for objectivity in their examination of the human condition. Social constructionists contend that as well as context and culture affecting psychological phenomena, research itself is highly influenced by the political, social and economic climate in which it occurs. Constructionist's deny the possibility of objective psychological research. This often provokes critics of the movement to brand them with being subjective and biased (Rogers, 2003). However, social constructionists claim that experimental research is equally subjective and biased, and recent evidence has emerged in support of this view. Inbar and Lammers (2012) reported the vast majority of large sample of social and personality psychologists prescribe to liberal political views. Furthermore, the small conservative minority in this discipline reported a reluctance to openly express their political beliefs. It has been argued, when there is a lack of diversity amongst those conducting it, this limits the level of scrutiny studies are subject to (Haidt, 2011). Since there is unbalanced political representation among social psychologists, studies are being reviewed by academics with predominantly left leaning views, and hence research is more likely to be biased. Therefore, experimental studies claiming to be objective, are subject to implicit biases of the researchers. Critical social psychology makes no claim of objectivity, and often constructionist research openly declares the context and social processes which are hypothesised to be affecting the collection of data.
In the Individualist paradigm the psychological subject is a product of innate, biological processes, moulded by social and cultural interactions throughout life (Rogers, 2011). They do not believe that one's environment and culture simply impacts who the person is, as this supports an essentialist argument that individuals have a definable nature (Potter, 1996). Social constructionism opposes this idea, contending that people do not have any true nature, and "who they are" and how they behave is purely socially constructed by their environment. The remainder of this essay aims to critically analyse how the individual is constructed differently according to the two paradigms of interest.
In experimental social psychology, the ‘self’ is seen as existing within the individual as a feature of universal and biologically based processes of mental functioning (Gergen, 1996). A strict individualist will assume the psychological subject is an autonomous entity with unaffected, fixed attributes determining their behaviour (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Conversely, Constructionists deny the existence of objective, context-independent ‘self’. A prominent idea of constructionists is the “dialogical self” in which one’s sense of self is based on the discourse which has historically surrounded them (Hermans, Kempen & van Loon, 1992). One’s understanding of who they are is deeply embedded in their past interactions, history and culture, which together have constructed the individual themselves (Bruner, 1990). Some critical social psychologists have examined how the self is conceptualised differently across various cultures. Gergen (1996) argued that the individualist approach to social psychology, perpetuates a purely Western centralisation of the self. The focus of psychological investigation is on individualised processes rather than communal interactions. However, people in different cultures self-conceptualise in strikingly different ways (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Using a sample of University students in Japan and USA, Cousins (1989) reported that American students used more individualised language when self-conceptualising, whereas Japanese students were more relational.
In Non-Western cultures, there appears to be a more interconnected concept of the self, characterised by a belief in a fundamental connectedness of human behaviour. People’s cognitions and behaviours are closely related to the thoughts, feelings and actions of others in the group. However, this claim does not necessarily translate into all relational contexts. Coşkan, Phalet, Güngör and Mesquita (2016) compared self-construals in the context of either their mother or their teacher, among collectivist (Turkish) and individualist (Belgian) students. In keeping with previous research, they found Belgian students were more autonomous and less related in their self-construal’s related to their teacher. However, there was no difference between the groups in how they described their behaviour towards their mother. The difference between the two groups was grounded in context exemplifying the inconsistencies of human behaviour depending on circumstance. Constructionists argue if we are to truly understand behaviour we must take into account the contextual, cultural and political climate in which it occurs.
Both paradigms have conflicting assumptions and practices surrounding personality theory. The Individualist approach views an individual’s personality as cohesive, unified and stable. Empirical measures of personality encompass this view, and claim to predict how a person will behave. A commonly used measure of personality, the five factor model, claims to evaluate one's personality in terms of 5 dimension: Extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience (McCrae & John, 1992). This view encourages us to believe who we are is condensable to a score on 5 traits, and how we are likely to behave can be determined accordingly. Social constructionists are less concerned with the nature of one's personality, and question whether people even have personalities. They suggest that people interact with different people in their social circle in entirely different ways which do not align with their given 'personality' (Branney, 2008). They argue that one’s personality primarily exists in relation to others, and does not exist when a person is in isolation (Karasik & Gillespie 2014) . They reject the idea of essential traits governing our cognitive structures and dictating our behaviour in society (Karasik & Gillespie, 2014). To constructionists, the personal qualities we have are intrinsically linked to the context in which they occurred. Hence, attributing people’s behaviour to their personalities, is essentially meaningless in this paradigm.
As well as divergent ideas surrounding the self and personality, the two paradigms hold different conceptualisations of emotions. Experimental social psychology assumes there are innate emotions, such as anger, envy and hatred which are shared amongst all people. Darwin's seminal work 'The expression of emotions in man and animals' introduced a theory of universal "basic emotions" shared between all people in all cultures around the world (Darwin & Prodger, 1998). This theory is built on the idea that specific movements in the face and body are biologically based, evolved adaptions that occur in response to internal emotional states. Social constructionists are more interested in emotions as linguistic concepts which have been historically and culturally brought about. Our experiences of the world and our internal states, depend on the language we use which guide this experience. Consistent with this view Barrett (2006; 2011) proposed that emotional experience is an act of categorisation directed by embodied knowledge. When people experience an emotion they categorise using concepts driven by prior experience, context and culture. In recent years, there has been some evidence of the experience of emotion being influenced by context.
Kitayama, Markus and Kurokawa (2000) compared the experience of positive feeling between Japanese and American students. For Japanese students, positive emotions were associated with interpersonally engaged emotions, such as feeling friendly. However, in the US similar ratings of feeling good, were linked to interpersonally disengaged emotions such as pride. Furthermore, research has demonstrated that some cultures have conceptualizations of emotions not experienced by others. For example, Lutz (1990) describes the Ifaluk people who experience and express emotions in relation to events and other people, rather than internal, personal experiences. Stearns (1995) contended there are numerous emotional states recognised and expressed in the East which are not experienced by people in Western cultures. For example, the word “Amae” in Japanese culture refers to the 'feeling of sweet dependence on another person'. Although you cannot say that people outside of the culture have not experienced this subjective feeling our internal conceptualisation would be different as we do not have a definition. These examples provide evidence for the constructionist claim that one’s language and culture implicate how they experience the world. Therefore, when a study is being designed to examine people’s emotions, researchers should be cautious that they do not limit the cultural information they gather. For example, if an experiment claims to be measuring a sample of people’s emotional responses to a stimulus, but the designs conceptualisation of emotions differs from that of the participants, the results lose validity and meaning. A constructionist approach would aim to capture a fuller picture of someone’s subjective emotional experience and the social factors surrounding it.
The Constructionist approach undoubtedly contributed great value to social psychology. However, this paradigm does not come without faults. Social constructionists claim that all features of a person, are entirely made by their prior experiences and culture. According to this view, there are no processes operating purely at the level of the individual. Yet, when we compare people from wholly different cultures, it is clear that despite very different social circumstances, there are still many similarities in how we interact with each other (Harter, 2015). Furthermore, if we are entirely constructed by our environment, how can we explain individual differences in responses to the same stimuli? A constructionist could claim these divergent responses are due to prior experience affecting a person’s construction of reality. However, child family members who've had similar environmental experiences, often respond in dissimilar and often opposing fashions. The denial of the existence of a self-contained, independent self, is a difficult assertion for psychology researchers to reconcile with, and removes the focus of research away from the person in question, and toward an analyses of society (Burr, 2003). This leads many critics to question whether this paradigm has any place in Psychology at all. However, the constructionist approach does not require total agreement with all of its tenets to reap its benefits. One can encompass a person’s social circumstances and history when theorising about their behaviour, without accepting that who they are ceases to exist without these social influences.
The question of which paradigm in social psychology is more appropriate is contingent on two considerations. Firstly, as humans do we each have a context-independent, discoverable true nature? Secondly, does objectivity truly exist? The individualist paradigm operates under the assumption that both of these assertions are true. Conversely, the constructionist paradigm holds the opinion that neither of them are. These questions are not easily answered, and we currently do not have conclusive, concrete evidence in favour of either side being completely right or wrong. When examining the epistemological and ontological discourse surrounding the two paradigms, it appears that social psychology as a discipline has become extremely polarised with research either being hard-line individualist or constructionist. However, in practise studies often encompass both experimental and constructionist methods. There is value in both approaches, and to dismiss one in favour of the other does a disservice to the complexities of human social behaviour. Nonetheless, the emergence of critical social psychology enabled a long overdue re-evaluation of previously unquestioned techniques. One's culture and environment has a major influence on how that person constructs the world around them, and how they behave in accordance to this. Furthermore, social psychologists are equally susceptible to societal influences affecting their judgement which can then hinder the objectivity of research designs. Hence, it is imperative that researchers whether operating within experimental or constructionist paradigms, openly recognise the political and social climate their data is being collected in, and contemplate how this might skew their research.