Collectivism versus individualism
David B Cooper in Ethics in Mental Health–Substance Use, 2017
The controversial term race must be addressed when learning about culture. Race is genetic in origin and includes physical characteristics that are similar among members of the group, such as skin color, blood type, and hair and eye color. Although there is less than a 1 percent difference among the races, this difference can be significant when conducting physical assessments and prescribing medication (Human Genome Project, 2012). People from a given racial group may, but not necessarily, share a common culture. Race is also seen as a social concept and is sometimes more important than race as a biological concept. Race can assign status, limit or increase opportunities depending on the setting, and influences interactions between people and professionals in mental health and substance use.
New intellectual energies The emergence and basis of non-representational theory
Gavin J. Andrews in Non-Representational Theory & Health, 2018
The fourth critique is centred on life as ever constructing. This argues that social constructionism deals in fundamental understandings on constructed categories – such as race, health, sex, nation and place – but that these constitute general and premature conclusions that researchers adhere to (Taussig, 1993; Anderson and Harrison, 2010). The theoretical point here is that even if we were to believe that life can reach a constructed state, this necessarily has to come after earlier states of existence that were less constructed and constructing; that were far more fluid, messy, raw and acted (Taussig, 1993; Anderson and Harrison, 2010). These need to be in some way addressed in research, rather than leading empirical inquiry straight into the collection of data on a constructed subject (moreover into human opinions that are always subjective, relational, and often result from personal emotional (over)amplification). In sum, in contrast to social constructionism, NRT does not perceive there to be a constructed world requiring representation. The idea is instead that, in its purest form, the lived world is an ongoing performance; a physical never ending (re)construction (Thrift, 2004a).
Narrative ethics and primary care
Andrew Papanikitas, John Spicer in Handbook of Primary Care Ethics, 2017
Over the last 50 years, a wide range of academic and practical disciplines have undergone what has generally been called a ‘narrative turn’. In its broadest characterisation, one could describe this as a move from asking the question ‘what is really going on here?’ to asking ‘what kinds of accounts or stories are people telling about it?’. The origins of this intellectual shift lie with many different influences, including social constructionism and postmodernism, together with gender and cultural studies. Narrative studies or ‘narratology’ has now diversified into many different streams, but all are united by the view expressed by philosopher Charles Taylor: ‘We understand ourselves inescapably in narrative’,1 and the psychologist Jerome Bruner, who has written: ‘To be in a culture is to be bound in a set of connecting stories’.2 Story-telling, according to such thinkers, is the way we as humans experience, communicate and indeed create ourselves. It is the way we try to influence others and are in turn influenced by them. Such ideas are now central in the social sciences and humanities, and have affected almost every area of academic study, including medicine and law. (In common with most writers nowadays, I use the words ‘narrative’ and ‘story’ interchangeably.)
Transgender Military Experiences: From Obama to Trump
Published in Journal of Homosexuality, 2023
Michelle Dietert, Dianne Dentice
Within the discipline of sociology, social constructionism helps social scientists understand how societies segregate individuals into social groups based on gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity, and other variables that define humankind. Although specific social definitions are slowly changing, the social construction of gender, or more specifically, gender binary arrangements, rely heavily on the idea that one’s sex determines gender. Many societies follow a strict male/female binary that identifies people as either male or female in an effort to maintain gender conformity and limit non-binary gender identities. For instance, some transgender people embrace masculine and/or feminine characteristics depending on their gender self-identification, while others, redefine gender identity in a non-binary manner. Each individual is unique with regard to gender identification and expression.
Love’s place in the spectrum of affect, one of 24 secondary emotions: implications for psychiatry
Published in International Review of Psychiatry, 2023
In emotion theory, love has been conceptualised as (i) a socially-constructed affective state whose meaning varies across cultures, language, and history, or (ii) a biologically-based adaptive reaction that addresses fundamental problems of social life. Social constructionism is far from a unified theory, but in broad outline it holds that the elicitation and differentiation of emotions are based on a process of cognitive evaluation, enabling individuals to determine which social stimuli are relevant for their personal, physical, and psychological well-being, and what range of responses are called forth. In social-constructionist theory, emotions function as signals that something of importance is happening, with the consequent affective state arising dependent largely on how the situation is cognitively appraised (Wranik & Scherer, 2010). Social-constructionist theory holds that emotional experiences are so nuanced, fluid, and cognitively sophisticated that they cannot be reduced to a set of discrete compartments. Complex emotions such as indignation and resentment are seen as products of ‘cultural conceptions concerning the notions of identity, guilt, property, sexual and sentimental interactions’ (as described, but not endorsed, by Williams, 2017, p. 2). Accordingly, emotions are seen as improvised interpretations of ongoing social situations, existing as cognitive structures or schemata used to appraise social experiences and organise appropriate behavioural responses in ongoing social interactions.
Testosterone and cortisol are more predictive of choice behavior than a social nudge in adult males on a simple gift give-get task
Published in Stress, 2021
Benjamin G. Serpell, Christian J. Cook
Lack of reproducibility in social research may be assisted by employing more objective variables of measurement. Psychophysiology measures, such as testosterone and cortisol are two examples. This study showed that even a simple nudge, a social concept used to influence decision making and enable choice prediction, is extremely complex. Therefore, we support the theory that nudge effectiveness, on its own, is contentious. When combined with the proxy markers of stress (testosterone and cortisol) the nudge did become more predictive of behavior. That is, nudge response was predictable at an individual level when the nudge accompanied increases in testosterone or T:C, while with increases in cortisol the larger reward was always chosen. We speculate that testosterone may focus an individual on the nature of the question (nudge), while cortisol may focus more on self-need irrespective of the nudge.
Related Knowledge Centers
- Social Environment
- Social Norm
- Belief
- Value
- Self-Concept
- Stereotype
- Personal Construct Theory
- Meaning-Making
- Narrative Therapy
- Solution-Focused Brief Therapy