Identity of psychology, psychological paradigms and constructivism: Toward a perspective social psychology

• Main Author: Janek Musek
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Slovenian Psychologists' Association 2003-09-01
• Series: Psihološka Obzorja
• Subjects: psychology; social psychology; constructivism; identity; genetics
• Online Access: http://psiholoska-obzorja.si/arhiv_clanki/2003_3/musek.pdf

Philosophical self-reflexion is a healthy practice of any science including psychology. Nevertheless, psychology has long ago outgrew the age of the search for its own identity. It is however a science sui generis, determined by a radical split into Lockean and Kantian (objective and phenomenological) paradigm, each completely legitimate but also completely different in defining the objectives as well as the methods of research. That internal splitting is presented in all psychological disciplines. In social psychology, social constructivism emerged decades ago as a typical disciplinary "paradigm" (although subordinated to both previously mentioned paradigms). The present contribution is aimed to show that social constructivism could be effectively merged with the theoretical frame of cognitivism, dominant theoretical orientation in contemporaneous psychology. On the other hand, social constructivism failed to understand the proper relationship between human nature and human cultural context. Human beings are evolutionary evolved as beings genetically programmed for the construction of the culture and social milieu. Human beings are not products of the culture in the proper sense of meaning. The truth is quite opposite: the culture is a product of human biological equipment. But this is an equipment that predisposes human individual to be a social, cultural being uniquely capable of learning, uniquely capable of receiving the influence of his own products – social environment and culture.