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Kenneth J. Gergen (born 1935) is an American social psychologist and emeritus professor at Swarthmore College. He obtained his Bachelor of Arts from Yale University (1957) and his PhD from Duke University (1962).
The son of John Jay Gergen, the chair of the Mathematics Department at Duke University, and Aubigne Munger (née Lermond), Gergen grew up in Durham, North Carolina. He had three brothers, one of whom is David Gergen, the prominent political analyst. After completing public schooling, he attended Yale University. Graduating in 1957, he subsequently became an officer in the U.S. Navy. He then returned to graduate school at Duke University, where he received his PhD in psychology in 1963. His dissertation advisor was Edward E. Jones. Gergen went on to become an assistant professor in the Department of Social Relations at Harvard University, where he also became the chairman of the board of tutors and advisors for the department and representative to the university's Council on Educational Policy.
In 1967, Gergen took a position as chair of the Department of Psychology at Swarthmore College, a position he held for ten years. Subsequently, he became the Gil and Frank Mustin Professor in Psychology. After his retirement (emeritus) in 2006, he took the position of Senior Research Professor. At various intervals, he served as visiting professor at the University of Heidelberg, the University of Marburg, the Sorbonne, the University of Rome, Kyoto University, and Adolfo Ibanez University. At Swarthmore, he spearheaded the development of the academic concentration in interpretation theory. In an attempt to link his academic work to societal practices, he collaborated with colleagues to create the Taos Institute in 1993. He now serves as the president of the institute.
Gergen is married to Mary M. Gergen, professor emeritus at Penn State University, and a major contributor to feminist psychology and performance inquiry. She is the author of over 50 articles and is the co-author (with Ken Gergen) of books on social construction, and performative social science. They publish the Positive Aging Newsletter with a readership of around 20,000 [1]
Gergen's earliest studies challenged the presumption of a unified or coherent self.[ clarification needed ] He then raised questions about the value of altruism, by exploring the ways in which helping others leads to the recipient's resentment and alienation.
A major point in Gergen's career was his 1973 article "Social Psychology as History". In the article, he argues that while empirical research attempts to establish general laws or principles, the empirical support is always derived from historically situated observations. Yet, because patterns of human action undergo continuous change, support for any principle may wax or wane over time. Further, the scientific knowledge the laws and principles of social interaction are variable over time, and that the scientific knowledge generated by social psychologists actually influences the phenomena it is meant to passively describe. For example, studying obedience to authority may reduce the likelihood of obedience. He argued therefore that social psychology was not fundamentally a cumulative science, but was effectively engaged in the recording and transformation of cultural life. The article proved widely controversial, and was ultimately listed as a "citation classic" in the Social Science Citation Index. Also contributing to what was called "the crisis in social psychology"[3] was Gergen's subsequent publication on generative theory. Here he proposed that, because theoretical suppositions were not so much recordings of social life as creators, theories should not be judged so much by their integration of "what is" as their potential to open new spaces of action.
Combining these ideas with developments in literary and critical theory, along with the history of science, Gergen went on to develop a radical view of socially constructed knowledge. This view was proposed as a successor project to what Gergen considered an inherently flawed positivist conception of knowledge. From Gergen's perspective, all human intelligibility (including claims to knowledge) is generated within relationships. It is from relationships that humans derive their conceptions of what is real, rational, and good. From this perspective, scientific theories, like all other reality posits, should not be assessed in terms of truth, but in terms of pragmatic outcomes. Such assessments are inevitably wedded to values, and thus all science is morally and politically weighted in implication. As he saw it, this same form of assessment also applies to social constructionist theory. The question is not its accuracy, but its potentials for humankind.
This latter conclusion informed most of Gergen's subsequent work, in areas including therapy and counseling, education, organizational change, technology, conflict reduction, civil society, and qualitative inquiry. In one form or another, this work is concerned with transforming social life. For the most part, his preferred direction of change is toward more collaborative and participatory relationships. Additionally, he has been concerned with fostering a "relational" view of the self, where the "traditional emphasis on the individual mind is replaced by a concern with the relational processes from which rationality and morality emerge." [2] He is also known for his comment "I am linked therefore I am" as an answer to Descartes' proposition "I think, therefore I am". [3] Most of these developments are summarized in Relational Being, Beyond the Individual and Community, which attempts to demonstrate that what are considered mental processes are not so much "in the head" as in relationships. It also attempts to answer charges of moral relativism with a non-foundational morality of collaborative practice, and to outline a way to bring science together with concerns for the sacred.
The development of social constructionist, relational theory, and their professional applications is associated with relations between, ethics in a pluralistic world, qualitative inquiry in the social sciences, explanations of human action, and reconstructing the conception of ageing. He also served as a co-founder of the journals, Theory and Psychology, and Qualitative Inquiry in Psychology.
Concepts that Gergen has written about include:
Gergen has received research grants from the National Science Foundation, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and the Barra Foundation. His work has merited awards from the American Psychological Association, the National Communication Association, the University of Buenos Aires, Adolfo Ibanez University in Santiago, Nanjing Normal University, and Absalon University College in Denmark. Gergen received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Graduate School of Duke University in 2017, and in 2018 was listed as amount the 50 most influential living psychologists in the world (The Best Schools). He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Fulbright Foundation, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He also holds honorary degrees from Tilburg University, Saybrook Graduate School, and the University of Athens.
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) ISBN 0-203-26727-3 (Adobe eReader Format). Essay originally published 1996. See article listing below.{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) See also chapter in book, listed above.
Social psychology is the scientific study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people or by social norms. Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the relationship between mental states and social situations, studying the social conditions under which thoughts, feelings, and behaviors occur, and how these variables influence social interactions.
Deception or falsehood is an act or statement that misleads, hides the truth, or promotes a belief, concept, or idea that is not true. It is often done for personal gain or advantage. Deception can involve dissimulation, propaganda and sleight of hand as well as distraction, camouflage or concealment. There is also self-deception, as in bad faith. It can also be called, with varying subjective implications, beguilement, deceit, bluff, mystification, ruse, or subterfuge.
Interpersonal relationship define a social association, connection, or affiliation between two or more persons. They vary in degrees of intimacy, self-disclosure, duration, reciprocity, and power distribution. The main themes or purposes of the interpersonal relations are: family, kinship, friendship, love, marriage, business, employment, clubs, neighborhoods, ethical values, support and solidarity. Interpersonal relations may be regulated by law, custom, or mutual agreement, and form the basis of social groups and societies. They appear when people communicate or act with each other within specific social contexts, and they thrive on equitable and reciprocal compromises.
Positive psychology is the scientific study of what makes life most worth living, focusing on both individual and societal well-being. It studies "positive subjective experience, positive individual traits, and positive institutions...it aims to improve quality of life." It is a field of study that has been growing steadily throughout the years as individuals and researchers look for common ground on better well-being.
In the fields of sociology, social ontology, and communication theory, social constructionism proposes that certain ideas about physical reality arise from collaborative consensus, instead of the pure observation of said physical reality. The theory of social constructionism proposes that people collectively develop the meanings of social constructs. Social constructionism has been characterised as neo-Marxian theory and as a neo-Kantian theory, proposing that social constructionism replaces the transcendental subject with a societal concept that is descriptive and normative.
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Albert Bandura was a Canadian-American psychologist who was the David Starr Jordan Professor Emeritus of Social Science in Psychology at Stanford University.
Qualitative research is a type of research that aims to gather and analyse non-numerical (descriptive) data in order to gain an understanding of individuals' social reality, including understanding their attitudes, beliefs, and motivation. This type of research typically involves in-depth interviews, focus groups, or observations in order to collect data that is rich in detail and context. Qualitative research is often used to explore complex phenomena or to gain insight into people's experiences and perspectives on a particular topic. It is particularly useful when researchers want to understand the meaning that people attach to their experiences or when they want to uncover the underlying reasons for people's behavior. Qualitative methods include ethnography, grounded theory, discourse analysis, and interpretative phenomenological analysis. Qualitative research methods have been used in sociology, anthropology, political science, psychology, social work, folklore, educational research and software engineering research.
Social cognition is a topic within psychology that focuses on how people process, store, and apply information about other people and social situations. It focuses on the role that cognitive processes play in social interactions.
In the psychology of self, one's self-concept is a collection of beliefs about oneself. Generally, self-concept embodies the answer to the question "Who am I?".
Theoretical psychology is concerned with theoretical and philosophical aspects of psychology. It is an interdisciplinary field with a wide scope of study. It focuses on combining and incorporating existing and developing theories of psychology non-experimentally. Theoretical psychology originated from the philosophy of science, with logic and rationality at the base of each new idea. It existed before empirical or experimental psychology. Theoretical psychology is an interdisciplinary field involving psychologists specializing in a wide variety of psychological branches. There have been a few prominent pioneers of theoretical psychology such as Wilhelm Wundt, William James, Sigmund Freud, and John B. Watson. There has also been a number of notable contributors which include Jerome Kagan, Alan E. Kazdin, Robert Sternberg, Kenneth J. Gergen, and Ulric Neisser. These contributors may publish in a variety of journals, including journals for general psychology, like American Psychologist. There are several journals dedicated specifically to theoretical psychology, like Theory & Psychology and Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology. Many other organizations are beginning to recognize theoretical psychology as a formal subdivision of psychology.
Cultural psychology is the study of how cultures reflect and shape the psychological processes of their members.
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Susan Tufts Fiske is the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs in the Department of Psychology at Princeton University. She is a social psychologist known for her work on social cognition, stereotypes, and prejudice. Fiske leads the Intergroup Relations, Social Cognition, and Social Neuroscience Lab at Princeton University. Her theoretical contributions include the development of the stereotype content model, ambivalent sexism theory, power as control theory, and the continuum model of impression formation.
Mary McCanney Gergen was an American social psychologist specializing in feminist studies women's studies and social constructionism. She is known for her contributions to the field of feminist studies, organization development, and social process.
Cross-cultural psychology is the scientific study of human behavior and mental processes, including both their variability and invariance, under diverse cultural conditions. Through expanding research methodologies to recognize cultural variance in behavior, language, and meaning it seeks to extend and develop psychology. Since psychology as an academic discipline was developed largely in North America and Europe, some psychologists became concerned that constructs and phenomena accepted as universal were not as invariant as previously assumed, especially since many attempts to replicate notable experiments in other cultures had varying success. Since there are questions as to whether theories dealing with central themes, such as affect, cognition, conceptions of the self, and issues such as psychopathology, anxiety, and depression, may lack external validity when "exported" to other cultural contexts, cross-cultural psychology re-examines them using methodologies designed to factor in cultural differences so as to account for cultural variance. Some critics have pointed to methodological flaws in cross-cultural psychological research, and claim that serious shortcomings in the theoretical and methodological bases used impede, rather than help the scientific search for universal principles in psychology. Cross-cultural psychologists are turning more to the study of how differences (variance) occur, rather than searching for universals in the style of physics or chemistry.
Sheila McNamee is an American academic known for her work in human communication and social constructionism theory and practice. She is a Professor of Communication at the University of New Hampshire and founding member, Vice President and board member of the Taos Institute. She has authored numerous, books, chapters, and journal articles. Her work focuses on appreciative dialogic transformation within a variety of social and institutional contexts including psychotherapy, organizations, education, healthcare, and local communities. She engages constructionist practices in a variety of contexts to bring communities of participants with diametrically opposing viewpoints together to create livable futures.
Black psychology, also known as African-American psychology and African/Black psychology, is a scientific field that focuses on how people of African descent know and experience the world. The field, particularly in the United States, largely emerged as a result of the lack of understanding of the psychology of Black people under traditional, Westernized notions of psychology. Overall, the field combines perspectives from both Black studies and traditional psychology encapsulating a range of definitions and approaches while simultaneously proposing its own framework of understanding.
Psychology encompasses a vast domain, and includes many different approaches to the study of mental processes and behavior. Below are the major areas of inquiry that taken together constitute psychology. A comprehensive list of the sub-fields and areas within psychology can be found at the list of psychology topics and list of psychology disciplines.
Ethogenics is an interdisciplinary social scientific approach that attempts to understand the systems of belief or means through which individuals attach significance to their actions and form their identities by linking these to the larger structure of rules (norms) and cultural resources in society. For Rom Harré, the founder of ethogenics, it represents a radical innovation in traditional psychology, even a completely "new psychology" that should take its place..
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