Social Construct

A Social Construct is a construct that is a social phenomena (created and maintained through social interaction and social communication within a society).

• AKA: Societal Construction.
• Context:
  • It can typically shape Social Reality through collective agreements.
  • It can typically influence Social Behavior through social norms.
  • It can typically guide Social Interaction through shared meanings.
  • It can typically evolve through Social Change Processes.
  • It can often apply to a Social Group through cultural practices.
  • It can often be studied by Social Constructionism through sociological analysis.
  • It can often be created by a Social Construction Process through collective actions.
  • It can often be internalized by Individuals through socialization processes.
  • ...
  • It can range from being a Simple Social Construct to being a Complex Social Construct, depending on its social complexity.
  • It can range from being a Local Social Construct to being a Global Social Construct, depending on its cultural scope.
  • It can range from being a Traditional Social Construct to being a Modern Social Construct, depending on its historical evolution.
  • ...
  • It can interact with Social Institutions for societal organization.
  • It can influence Social Values for cultural development.
  • It can shape Social Identity for group formation.
  • ...
• Examples:
  • Political Social Constructs, such as:
    • Governance Constructs, such as:
      • The State for territorial organization.
      • Democracy for popular sovereignty.
    • Membership Constructs, such as:
      • Citizenship for national belonging.
      • Nationalism for national identity.
  • Cultural Social Constructs, such as:
    • Identity Constructs, such as:
      • Gender for social roles.
      • Race for social classification.
    • Status Constructs, such as:
      • Class for social stratification.
      • Prestige for social standing.
  • Behavioral Social Constructs, such as:
    • Role Constructs, such as:
      • Good Girl Social Construct for gender expectations.
      • Professional Role for occupational behaviors.
    • Prejudice Constructs, such as:
      • Racism Social Construct for racial discrimination.
      • Social Bias for group stereotypes.
  • ...
• Counter-Examples:
  • Physical Laws, which exist independently of human perception.
  • Natural Phenomenona, which occur without social agreement.
  • Biological Processes, which function through natural mechanisms.
  • Universal Truths, which persist across all social contexts.
  • Personal Constructs, which are individual creations rather than collective agreements.
• See: Theory of Knowledge, Sociology, Communication Theory, Social Reality, Essentialism, Interpretivism, Social Institution, Cultural System, Collective Behavior.

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References

2023

• GBard
  • A social construct is an idea or category that is created and maintained through social interaction. This means that social constructs are not inherent or natural, but are instead created by humans and can change over time.
  • Some examples of social constructs include:
    • Gender: Gender is a social construct that is used to classify people as male, female, or other. Gender roles are the expectations and behaviors that are associated with each gender.
    • Race: Race is a social construct that is used to classify people based on their physical appearance, ancestry, or cultural background.
    • Class: Class is a social construct that is used to divide people into groups based on their socioeconomic status.
    • Money: Money is a social construct that is used as a medium of exchange. It is not a physical object, but is instead a symbol that has value because people agree that it does.

2014

• (Wikipedia, 2014) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_constructionism#Definition Retrieved:2014-11-22.
  • Social constructs are the by-products of countless human choices, rather than laws related to human judgment. Social constructionism is not related to anti-determinism, though. Social constructionism is typically positioned in opposition to essentialism, which sees phenomena in terms of inherent, transhistorical essences independent of human judgment. 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 created, institutionalized, known, and made into tradition by humans. The social construction of reality is an ongoing, dynamic process that is (and must be) reproduced by people acting on their interpretations and their knowledge of it. Because social constructs as facets of reality and objects of knowledge are not "given" by nature, they must be constantly maintained and re-affirmed in order to persist. This process also introduces the possibility of change: what "justice" is and what it means shifts from one generation to the next. Ian Hacking noted in The Social Construction of What? that social construction talk is often in reference not only to worldly items, like things and facts – but also to beliefs about them.

2014

• (Wikipedia, 2014) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_constructionism Retrieved:2014-8-6.
  • Social constructionism, or the social construction of reality, is a theory of knowledge in sociology and communication theory that examines the development of jointly constructed understandings of the world. It assumes that understanding, significance, and meaning are developed not separately within the individual, but in coordination with other human beings. The elements most important to the theory are (a) the assumption that human beings rationalize their experience by creating a model of the social world and how it functions and, (b) that language is the most essential system through which humans construct reality.

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