Approaches to knowledge have varied over the centuries, with reliance on combinations of superstition, animism, religion, or meditation, and, more recently, rationality, logic, and empiricism. Each approach is characterized by certain kinds of procedures, rules of inference, and values regarding what constitutes the most compelling source of information or data. In some cultures, for example, altered states of consciousness are thought to be the process by which the most valuable knowledge is revealed to an individual. Revelations usually occur during periods of isolation and involve a disciplined passivity by the recipient of knowledge. Approaches to knowledge, otherwise known as epistemology, have embedded within them elements of the host culture, including values, expectations, and politics. Thus, the kinds of questions that are asked, the kinds of information sought, and the subsequent interpretation and use of knowledge all are shaped and colored by the social and political context. Because of this confounding of culture, values, and politics, it is more accurate to say that knowledge is created, received, or constructed rather than discovered.
Modernism has been the prevailing epistemology of the 20th century. The signature belief of modernism is that objective reality can be discovered, given the right tools. Related features of modernism include the search for universal, unchanging laws that govern events, laws that can be used to reliably predict and eventually control events. This approach has worked with moderate success in the natural and physical sciences, although even here there is considerably more variability than is commonly appreciated. Early efforts at self-reflection on this modem scientific tradition suggested that scientific progress is linear (i. e., logical) within, but not between, paradigms (Kuhn, 1970). However, even within a paradigm, “pure science” is much messier and more nonlinear than claimed by modernist science (Latour & Woolgar, 1979).
In an effort to reach success and cultural stature similar to the physical sciences, the social sciences have adopted modernist approaches. Virtually all American psychologists have been trained in traditional modernist perspectives, such as logical positivism. There is, however, a growing unease with modernist assumptions about the nature of science. There is a growing, postmodern challenge arguing that reality is not objective, static, or separate from the observer.
Mary Gergen (1988) and Janis Bohan (1990a, 1990b) have articulated many of the basic problems of modernist approaches to knowledge:
1. Facts are not independent of theory or method.
2. The scientist and the subject of study are not independent.
3. Value-free, neutral science does not exist.
4- Knowledge cannot be understood separate from the context in which it is embedded.
5. Knowledge or truth cannot be gained through disengaged observation.
6. Traditional modern science limits the vision and usefulness of psychology.
A full examination of the critiques of modernism is beyond the scope of this chapter. Thus, to provide a basic foundation for understanding the social constructionist approach to sexuality, we will briefly discuss just two critiques: the independence of scientist and participant, with the assumption of the value-free nature of science, and context-free knowledge.
Although objectivity is the cornerstone of the modern scientific tradition, postmodernism suggests that objective understanding of the world is impossible because each individual must view the world from a particular vantage point. The methods of science do not protect scientists from their own subjectivity or bias. Since the researcher must choose the topic of study, methodology to use, and the interpretation of results, there are many opportunities for subjectivity to enter objective research. The researcher and the researched cannot be separated in scientific inquiry (Wallston & Grady, 1985). This lack of objectivity can be seen in numerous scientific endeavors. Researcher bias and social consensus are major, although often unrecognized, influences on science. Modernistic approaches tend to disguise the value-laden underpinnings of hypotheses, methods, and interpretations. This results in a blurring of that which is descriptive and that which is prescriptive (Bohan, 1990b). Thus, it is really more appropriate to view knowledge as socially constructed rather than discovered.
Furthermore, a focus on the atomistic, derived from models in the natural and physical sciences, and the search for unchanging facts have encouraged psychologists to strip behavior of its context. All too often, larger social and political frameworks are ignored. For modernism, context is a source of confound and error. For example, Lederman and Teresi (1993) state that “nature hides the simplicity in a thicket of complicating circumstances, and the experiment’s job is to prune away these complications” (p. 71). They conclude that famous scientists of history were successful because they could “strip complications away from simplicity.” However, modernism doesn’t work particularly well for many areas of psychology, precisely because the social context of behavior is key to understanding thoughts, feelings, and behavior.
Social constructionism argues that not only knowledge but reality itself is created in an interactive process. Constructionism recognizes knowledge as embedded in social context and that language reflects that embeddedness. Constructionism sees human thoughts, feelings, language, and behavior as the result of interchanges with the external world, a world that is social and political. Because knowledge is socially constructed, only views of reality on which the most powerful agree are accorded the status of truth. Other constructions are marginalized or denied. The emphasis on process allows the influence of power relations in the construction of knowledge to become visible. Indeed, examining the nature of power is part of social constructionism.
Social constructionism encourages the examination of researcher subjectivity, the underlying social processes, and power relations that determine which truths will be accepted by the dominant (more powerful) group. Stephanie Riger (1992) points out that “the fact that Helen Thompson Woolley’s data about women’s intellectual competence have had to be repeatedly rediscovered (reinvented) demonstrates that power, not truth, determines which version of reality will prevail” (p. 736). In a similar vein, Celia Kitzinger (1990) argues that the acceptance or rejection of scientific evidence depends not on the quality of the experimental design and data collection techniques, but on whether the results serve a useful ideological and political function. She suggests that deconstructing the role of ideology and politics in the scientific method is a more fruitful avenue for feminists than reliance on the scientific method to refute oppressive theories.
Social constructionism additionally argues that there is no separation between subjectivity and objectivity and that the dichotomy between the person and the situation is false. The person is intimately and intricately bound within social, cultural, and historical forces and cannot be understood fully without consideration of these social forces. The analysis of variance techniques that separately examine person, situation, and their interaction are seen as inappropriate because of the assumption of the statistical independence of person and situation.
Social constructionism highlights the role of language in the creation of meaning. Traditional language and usual categories are derived from the experiences of the dominant group. Deconstruction is a tool used by social constructionists to analyze texts (Derrida, 1976; Foucault, 1979, 1982). Deconstruction examines text for contradictions between rhetoric and logic, as well as what is left out or silenced, that which is not said. Derrida (1976) asserts that knowledge is constructed out of differences, between what a text means to say and what it is construed to mean. When a text is searched for omissions and contradictions, the hidden assumptions and meanings become clearer. The expectations and judgments of others are reflected in language and constitute part of the context (Unger, 1988). Thus it is helpful to clarify and publicly identify the group or entity implicitly represented as the voice of authority within a text. One can then make apparent the implicit assumptions and hidden voice of authority (Brown, 1997): Deconstruction challenges us to ask: “Supposed” by whom? “Different” in what ways? “Opposite” to what? “Truth” according to whose authority?
This approach can be applied instructively to many essentialist statements about gender. For example, in his popular press book about Venutian women and Martian men, John Gray (1992) states that “without the awareness that we are supposed to be different, men and women are at odds with each other. We usually become angry or frustrated with the opposite sex because we have forgotten this important truth.” (p. 10).