Social Constructivism The Self according to George Mead, Lev Vygotsky Margaret Donaldson and Richard Stevens essays

Social Constructivism The Self according to George Mead, Lev Vygotsky Margaret Donaldson and Richard Stevens essays In the interactionist tradition, humans are seen as constantly and dynamically changing and giving meanings to their social realities. As people interact with one another, the process of giving meanings to activities conducted is inevitable, thereby resulting to new constructs' that alters or modifies the individual's social reality. Indeed, in the social construction of reality, "our meanings and understandings arise from our communication with others, a notion of reality deeply embedded in sociological thought" (Littlejohn, 1998:175). Furthermore, in the social construction of reality, the individual, or the self, knowledge obtained is considered a "social product" and is understood in the context in which this knowledge or reality is experienced. Studies on the phenomenon of the social construction of the self has become rampant, and has produced theories that explain in various dimensions how the concept of the "self" is constructed by the individual, as influenced by his/her social environment. These theorists and social scientists are George Herbert Mead, Lev Vygostky, Margaret Donaldson, and Richard Stevens. Knowledge as a social product is the common premise subsisted to by these theorists, but they differ in the perspective and approach that they use in explaining the construction of the self.' For Lev Vygotsky and Margaret Donaldson, the cognitive development of an individual is vital in explaining how the self' is constructed by an individual. Lev Vygotsky, a social psychologist, posited that higher cognitive processes are products of social development, manifested through linguistic development. In using the term, "cognitive processes," Vygotsky is referring to the process of thinking within individuals from a highly concrete to abstract level. Upon the development of these levels of thinking, an individual goes through the process of "...