3. Social Constructivism

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this lecture, we think about social constructivism, focusing in particular on: (i) the impact of our environment and culture on the development of the mental framework we use to make sense of the world; (ii) the modern construct of nation states, which links to modern views of nationalism; (iii) the theoretical potential for the self-creation of social constructs, limited by the ability of these constructs to achieve anything; (iv) further limitations of self-created social categories, including an inability to communicate identity to others, due to their lack of understanding of that social category’s parameters; (v) a key constraint of established social categories being the slow pace at which they develop.

Course

In this course, Dr Metodi Siromahov (University College London) explores some historic debates in psychology. In the first lecture, we think about the history of the free will versus determinism debate and the origins of psychological theory. In the second lecture, we think about some modern viewpoints on this debate, including drawing similarities between behaviourism with cognitive psychology. In the third lecture, we think about social constructivism and the impact of culture and environment on our thought processes. Next, we think about reductionism versus holism, including a contrast between Freudian theory and humanistic psychology. In the fifth lecture, we think about religion as an example for which holistic and reductionist theories can be applied. In the sixth lecture, we think about the definitions and impacts of nomothetic and idiographic approaches to research. In the seventh lecture, we think further about these research approaches, including some key criticisms and examples. In the eighth and final lecture, we review two studies which approach the topic of nationalism from a nomothetic and idiographic view respectively.

Lecturer

Dr Metodi Siromahov is a lecturer in the Division of Psychology and Language Sciences at University College London. Dr Siromahov’s research interests are in historical controversies and debates within social psychology, and the application of these to understanding political ideologies. Dr Siromahov’s recent publications include 'Beliefs in national continuity are related to essentialist thinking and to perceptions of the nation as a family' (2020) and 'Mapping visual spatial prototypes: Multiple reference frames shape visual memory' (2020).