GSE Publications

Document Type

Journal Article

Date of this Version

January 1996

Comments

Postprint version. Published in Theory & Psychology, Volume 6, Issue 1, 1996, pages 79-84.

NOTE: At the time of publication, the author Stanton Wortham was affiliated with Bates College. Currently June 2007, he is a faculty member in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania.

Abstract

Mancuso (1996) accurately identifies some similarities between personal construct psychology and social constructionism. These two traditions agree that experience is mediated, and that humans have no access to the absolute truth about themselves or the world. Against Mancuso, however, I argue that the two traditions have different accounts of what is constructed and how it is constructed. Mancuso's proposed synthesis stays too close to traditional cognitive psychology, by focusing on individuals' cognitions and by ignoring the social and relational context in which meaning is constructed.


Date Posted: 01 June 2007

This document has been peer reviewed.