AGAINST METAPHYSICAL SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM IN PSYCHOLOGY

Originating in postmodern interpretations of diverse intellectual disciplines, social constructionism (SC) exerts a profound influence throughout modern psychology (K. J. Gergen, 1985), including such areas as social psychology, psychoanalysis, feminist psychology, family therapy, and the psychology of knowledge. The core of SC is the proposition that humans construct knowledge through social interaction. This idea has a long history in psychology and is compatible with psychology as an empirical and objective social science. However, recent radical versions of SC threaten the empirical foundation of psychology by advancing metaphysical claims about science and reality. My aims in this paper are fourfold: (a) to examine the influence of SC in contemporary psychology, (b) to disentangle the empirical from the metaphysical versions, (c) to argue that the findings of psychology said to support metaphysical SC in fact do not, and (d) to show that an empirical SC based on an analysis of the behavior of knowers is compatible with an objective and empirical psychology. SC in Psychology SC has been adopted by a number of subdisciplines within psychology: Family Therapy. Family therapists encounter families, each member of which has a different perception of reality. Therapists have therefore found it useful to operate under the constructionist assumption that there may be multiple interpretations of reality (Filiaci, 1989). Consequently, therapists need not convince any family members that their conceptions are false because they conflict with objective reality or with the therapist’s own views (Neimeyer, 1993). Furthermore, members of the family can learn to accept and appreciate the otherwise conflicting perspectives of other family members without feeling threatened.