Bringing Cultural Constructivism to Bear on the Practice of Psychology

The fields and theories of cultural psychology, sociocultural psychology, activity theory, and certain types of cognitive science and anthropology have in common a basic theory of cultural constructivism. This holds that the meanings that we see in the world reflect certain symbolic distinctions that have been arrived at and given forth meaning through social interaction. This view can be more clearly understood by summarizing its opposite: the concepts that we use to make sense of the world (especially people's activity) reflect actual parts of the real world, and are therefore the only appropriate/available ways we can make sense of the world.

What I will refer to generally as cultural constructivism has made great strides in making sense of the world, especially differences between people's ways of thinking. I believe that its most important application may be psychology itself. By applying theories of cultural constructivism to psychology, we can examine how the concepts that psychology uses have been developed for specific purposes (often outside of psychology as a formal discipline) and have a specific utility. More importantly, we can learn to create new concepts that may be more appropriate for the demands of the fields, since these are different from everyday life contexts where existing concepts have been developed.

The field of cognitive psychology, and particularly cognitive development shows most clearly the need for new concepts. Work over the last two decades has focused on the question of "what children know" and when they know it. For example, "when do children know about objects?" "when do children understand the distinction between fantasy and reality?", etc. These inquiries have resulted in an abundance of empirical findings showing both proficiencies and deficits in young children's understanding. The problem is that the empirical findings (which are often compelling) are interpreted within a conceptual framework drawn from normative adult ways of thinking and conceptualizing others.

THE ADULTIFICATION OF CHILDREN'S KNOWLEDGE
The use of this conceptual framework results in a characterization of developing knowledge in terms of what is known or unknown. This is problematic for two separate reasons. First of all, it overlooks the very real possibility of qualitative differences in knowledge. By this I mean that the difference between children's and adult's knowledge is not a matter of one knowing things that the other doesn't. Children's knowledge about a given area is not a subset of adult knowledge, but is qualitatively different and cannot be expressed in terms of some combination of adult concepts.

While characterizing children's knowledge in terms of adult concepts may account for empirical findings, and allow for behavioral predictions, researchers run the risk that the important parts of children's knowledge are not characterized, or are characterized in misleading ways. This issue is has come up in anthropology and cross-cultural psychology and is conceptualized in terms of the difference between forced-etic and emic descriptions.

UNCONCEPTUALIZED DIFFERENCES IN KNOWLEDGE
The second problem with the use of the known/unknown dichotomy is that it conceals the many different ways in which something may be known or unknown. For example, let's consider someone who "knows how to build a car," which we will take to mean someone who, when presented with the appropriate materials and asked to "build a car" will do so. For many practical purposes this may be sufficient, since it may distinguish between people who will and will not produce a car in a given situation.

However, if our purpose is not to have a car, but to understand the knowledge required to build a car, the characterization is unclear. A person who "knows how to build a car" might be a severely handicapped person who has been trained (perhaps via conditioning with rewards) to construct a car by following a specific set of procedures using specified materials. Alternatively, we might be dealing with a retired mechanic turned hobbyist with extensive knowledge of cars and how they work. Clearly, these two cases are different. What the former mechanic knows allows for a flexible approach to construction, one that adapts to unforseen challenges, such as the having the wrong sized part. The handicapped person might be less flexible. Their knowledge may not allow them to adapt to unforseen problems that come up. These problems may bring construction to a halt, or may be ignored because their significance is not recognized.

Poorly conceptualized differences in ways of knowing extend beyond procedural knowledge. Consider the knowledge that "heroin is a destructive drug that is ultimately not worth taking." Thinking that this is the case does not imply that a person is not a drug user, as heroin users may be well aware of the negative effects of their drug use, and wish to stop using. At the same time, ex-drug users may attribute their continued abstinence to this knowledge.

EXPLANATION
The problem above results from the use of an epistemological system that has emerged to satisfy certain needs in the human social world. This problem is not inherent to the epistemological system, but results from its use in contexts where it is not appropriate. When dealing with practical matters in familiar contexts, such as "will the car get built," characterizing someone as knowing or not knowing [how to build cars] is a useful. The fact that it glosses over different ways of knowing is irrelevant for these purposes.

What appears to have happened is that the relativity of these distinctions to certain purposes has been unrealized and the concepts have been reified within psychological research. Researchers studying cognition have assumed that received ways of characterizing cognition reflect the actual nature of psychological processes (or are the ideal way to study these processes). As a result, they have blindly shaped certain problems to fit these characterizations, even when this leads to problems like the two described above.

To do better work, psychologists must examine their conceptions and ways of making sense of phenomena, recognizing that these are simply cultural constructs. The logical next step is the formulation of better characterizations that reflect the phenomena at hand. In the next post, I will look at a further effect of applying the theories of cultural constructivism to psychology. In short, I argue that culturally received ways of talking about knowing reflect types of knowing that are specific to cultural activity and don't apply to non-cultural activity, such as that seen in infants and animals.