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.