Kenneth J Gergen
Biographic Data
| ID | 163451 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kenneth J Gergen |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kenneth J |
| FAMILY NAME | Gergen |
| SIGNATURE | GERGEN K J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Swarthmore College |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2388-879X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 168 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 2256 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 165 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 3 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1961 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 17 |
Action Research as Process-Based Knowing
Action research has long been treated as a marginal methodology in the social sciences, largely owing to its lack of fit with modern assumptions about the nature of scientific research. These assumptions, however, are specific to an empiricist paradigm. My aim in the present offering is to lay out the logic of an alternative paradigm, a process-based paradigm of knowledge, adequate to the practices of action research and its relatives. This logic…
Social Constructionist Psychology
This interview is a slightly modified transcript from the third Psyche Talk, hosted at the Department of Communication and Psychology at Aalborg University, November 08, 2024. Psyche Talks are hosted as biannual events, where prominent psychological researchers are invited to discuss fundamental questions about the nature and subject matter of psychology through an interview-based format. The focus of this interview is on Social Constructionist P…
The social sciences as future forming
The conception and practices of the social sciences are largely the product of a century past. We must now ask the question of whether these traditions adequately equip the sciences for dealing with the daunting global problems of today. Placed in particular question is the traditional focus of research on contemporaneous patterns, events, and conditions. In a world of rapid, globally rippling, and unpredictable change, the significance of such r…
Construccionismo social: Aportes para el debate y la práctica
Si tuviéramos que elegir una frase para caracterizar a Kenneth Gergen y su trayectoria intelectual, ésta sería: un ser humano que en forma cuidadosa y delicada ha nutrido la revolución de la segunda mitad del siglo XX en la psicología contemporánea, con la cual se consolidó una metateoría que erosiona las bases ontológicas del individualismo en esta disciplina social. En efecto, tal metateoría, conocida como construccionismo social o socioconstru…
The promises of qualitative research revisited: 10 Years of Qualitative Psychology
Social Exchange Theory in a World of Transient Fact
Theories of human social behavior are highly perishable, and theoretical knowledge does not accumulate to the degree enjoyed in the natural sciences. These arguments raise significant questions as to whether any theory of social behavior, including exchange theory, can withstand the ravages of time. Is the seeming potential of exchange theory to be quashed by the vicissitudes of history, or does this theory have unique capabilities? This chapter …
The limits of language as the limits of psychological explanation
Extending early work on the limits of hypothesis testing, I propose that psychological explanations for behavior draw their intelligibility from tautology. A reliance on tautology is born of the impossibility for ostensively defining the explanans (e.g., the state of mind presumably giving rise to action). Thus, one makes psychological sense by explaining a given behavior in terms of a “miniaturized” form of itself. Further, because each definiti…
The digital wayfarer: Evocative ethnography as performance
The present offering grows first from the seeds of widespread discussion across the disciplines on the potential of description and explanation to map, picture, or otherwise correspond to its subject matter. As such discussion makes apparent, representations of the world—in both science and daily life—are social creations employed by people in the service of achieving particular ends. Concerns with transcendental truth are replaced by a reflectiv…
Doing things with words: Toward evocative ethnography
The concept of evocative ethnography is described and contrasted with realist representation. Two examples of evocative ethnography are provided: the plight of women as they age and the impact of digital immersion on cultural life. Discussion focuses on the benefits of expanding the repertoire of writing in the social sciences
Living the Post-University Life: Academics Talk About Retirement
This panel, which took place at International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry in May 2016, examines the experiences of five scholars who have retired from university life and the responses to the panel by two scholars anticipating that transition. Panelists discuss how and when they decided to retire; the role of the university, department, and profession in their post-university lives; and the kinds of activities and connections that sustain the…
The Saturated Self: Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary Life
The Self Under Siege * From the Romantic to the Modern Vision of Self * Social Saturation and the Populated Self * Truth in Trouble * The Emergence of Postmodern Culture * From Self to Relationship * A Collage of Postmodern Life * Self-Renewal and Sincerity * Reckoning and Relativity
Toward a visionary psychology
World conditions, marked by increasingly rapid and pervasive change, present a significant challenge to psychology’s traditions of theory, research, and practice. What does this portend for the future directions of the field? Here I propose that our most promising course of action is to shift our priorities from investments in establishing truths and solidifying ideal practices, to efforts that actively mold desired futures. In shifting the gaze …
Playland: Technology, self, and cultural transformation
Social construction and research as action
An Invitation to Social Construction
In 'An Invitation to Social Construction', Kenneth Gergen charts the background to the social constructionist movement and outlines the major debates, topics and issues.
Creative research methods in the social sciences: A practical guide
The promises of qualitative inquiry.
The quantitative/qualitative distinction: Blessed are the impure
There is much to admire about these timely contributions by Jackson and Lundrum and Garza. Both are appreciative of the recent flourishing of qualitative inquiry in contemporary social science, along with the longstanding animus to such inquiry within traditional circles. Both are acutely sensitive to the newly emerging potentials of the qualitative movement, and to the complex array of conceptual, valuational, and pragmatic ambiguities that now …
Saturated Self
The concept of the saturated self was developed by Kenneth J. Gergen in his volume The Saturated Self (Gergen, 1991). It refers to the dramatic expansion in the range of relations (real, virtual, and imagined) in which the individual is increasingly immersed. This expansion is largely attributed to the accumulation of twentieth‐century communication technologies such as radio, television, the Internet, and cell phones (among others). The resultin…
Playful Identities: The Ludification of Digital Media Cultures
In this edited volume, eighteen scholars examine the increasing role of digital media technologies in identity construction through play. Going beyond computer games, this interdisciplinary collection argues that present-day play and games are not only appropriate metaphors for capturing postmodern human identities, but are in fact the means by which people create their identity. From discussions of World of Warcraft and Foursquare to digital car…
Pursuing excellence in qualitative inquiry
Psychological science is now in a period of major transition. After almost a century of dominance by a foundational view of empirical science, a new pluralism is sweeping the field. We witness the rapid and global expansion of perspectives, visions, and goals of inquiry. Partly owing to the traditional distinction between quantitative and qualitative research, these pluralistic pursuits are typically gathered under the qualitative umbrella. As I …
From Mirroring to World‐Making: Research as Future Forming
After decades of acrimonious debate on the nature of scientific knowledge, researchers in the human or social sciences are reaching a state of relative equanimity, a condition that may be characterized as a reflective pragmatism. Yet, even while the context has favored the development of new forms of research, the longstanding ocular metaphor of inquiry remains pervasive. That is, researchers continue the practice of observing what is the case, w…
Culturally Inclusive Psychology from a Constructionist Standpoint
Mischief, Mystery, and Moments That Matter: Vistas of Performative Inquiry
Here we challenge the traditional separation of science and art and demonstrate significant ways in which the social sciences can be enriched through performative inquiry. We begin with a brief commentary on philosophic work that detaches representation from observation. In effect, there is no privileged (in principal, accurate, neutral, or objective) representation of a given observation. We then explore the potentials of expanding the repertoir…
The rugged return of qualitative inquiry in American psychology
The social constructionist movement in modern psychology
Recent decades have been marked by a steadily increasing emphasis on neural determinants of behavior.Concerns with socio-cultural processes have simultaneously been diminished.Given the significance of this shift toward a cortical explanation of human behavior-in terms of both the direction of research in psychology and the implications of this research for social practices and policy-critical reflection is essential.In particular, when significa…
Social psychology as history
Recent decades have been marked by a steadily increasing emphasis on neural determinants of behavior.Concerns with socio-cultural processes have simultaneously been diminished.Given the significance of this shift toward a cortical explanation of human behavior-in terms of both the direction of research in psychology and the implications of this research for social practices and policy-critical reflection is essential.In particular, when significa…
Realities and relationships: Soundings in Social Construction
Recent attempts to challenge the primacy of reason - and its realization in foundationalist accounts of knowledge and cognitive formulations of human action - have focused on processes of discourse. Drawing from social and literary accounts of discourse Gergen considers these challenges to empiricism under the banner of "social construction." His aim is to outline the major elements of a social constructionist perspective, to illustrate its poten…
Toward Transformation in Social Knowledge
Psychological science in cultural context
For the psychological sciences cultural processes have traditionally served as but a single entry into a considerable list of phenomena under study. Until recent years, such study has not been richly realized. There are many reasons for the secondary role of a culturally focused psychology. Most prominently, there are two chief ways in which culture figures in the logic of psychological science, and neither of these favors a major professional in…
Social comparison, self-consistency, and the concept of self
Psychological science in a postmodern context
Broken hearts or broken bonds: Love and death in historical perspective
Psychological theories and practices frequently neglect the extent to which their subject matter is historically and culturally defined. This issue is explored in the context of theories and therapies related to bereavement. Contemporary orientations emphasize the importance of breaking bonds with the deceased and the return of survivors to autonomous lifestyles. Placing the orientation in cultural and historical context reveals that it is largel…
From Mirroring to World‐Making: Research as Future Forming
After decades of acrimonious debate on the nature of scientific knowledge, researchers in the human or social sciences are reaching a state of relative equanimity, a condition that may be characterized as a reflective pragmatism. Yet, even while the context has favored the development of new forms of research, the longstanding ocular metaphor of inquiry remains pervasive. That is, researchers continue the practice of observing what is the case, w…
Role playing variations and their informational value for person perception
Decision Making vs. Policy Making: Toward an Antidote for Technocracy
Toward generative theory
Action Research and Orders of Democracy
In this article I lay out several premises of a constructionist orientation to action research, as such inquiry contributes to the unfilled hopes for sustaining value and creating new futures. To facilitate these developments a relational orientation to the creation of meaning is outlined, along with implications for revisioning the very idea of democracy. In this context we consider the contribution of action research to two orders of democracy,…
On the Place of Culture in Psychological Science
Based on a positivist-empiricist mode of inquiry, mainstream psychology has been vigorously engaged in characterizing human lives in terms of mechanistic and individualistic constructions, with the aim of predicting and controlling the behaviour of acultural and decontextualized others. Committed to a belief in psychological universals, this enterprise is directed at verifying a peculiarly Western intelligibility. In doing so, it ignores the poss…
Social psychology and the wrong revolution
Many social psychologists take increasing comfort in cognitive explanations of human action. This paper first attempts to demonstrate that cognitively based formulations not only delimit the possibilities for social understanding, but create a range of intractable conceptual problems. If real world events are reduced to cognitive representations of the world, then social events cease to exist for the discipline as legitimate foci of concern. Furt…
Opponent's personality, expectation of social interaction, and interpersonal bargaining
Effects of interaction goals and personality feedback on the presentation of self
Experimentation in social psychology: A reappraisal
Psychological inquiry into social phenomena has become virtually indistinguishable from controlled experimentation. Although the assets and liabilities of psychological experiments have been subject to periodic debate, a continued increase in the reliance placed experiments is evidenced. The present paper re‐examines the adequacy of experimentation in light of major features of social interaction. Significant failures of the experiment emerge whe…
Others' self-evaluations and interaction anticipation as determinants of self-presentation
Playful Identities: The Ludification of Digital Media Cultures
In this edited volume, eighteen scholars examine the increasing role of digital media technologies in identity construction through play. Going beyond computer games, this interdisciplinary collection argues that present-day play and games are not only appropriate metaphors for capturing postmodern human identities, but are in fact the means by which people create their identity. From discussions of World of Warcraft and Foursquare to digital car…
Aggression rituals
This paper characterizes patterns of aggression as culturally sanctioned forms of relationship governed by recognizable rules and voluntarily selected. In a study employing two scenes of physical violence, one depicting a domestic encounter and the other a relationship between male friends, respondents were asked to predict, advise, and evaluate the characters' actions. Results indicate that although uninvolved, respondents expect, advise, and co…
O movimento do construcionismo social na psicologia moderna
Social constructionism views discourse about the world not as a reflection or map of the world but as an artifact of communal interchange. Both as an orientation to knowledge and to the character of psychological constructs, constructionism forms a significant challenge to conventional understandings. Although the roots of constructionist thought may be traced to long-standing debates between empiricist and rationalist schools of thought, constru…
Narratives in action
In various professional fields today, a profusion of practices are inspired by or draw sustenance from narrative inquiry; similarly, narrative inquiry must attend to these practices as they are vital to its future. Ultimately a full fledged dialogue between scholars and practitioners is to be sought. We review three major domains in which narratives are in action: psychotherapy, organizational change, and conflict reduction. We conclude by taking…
Obligation, donor resources, and reactions to aid in three cultures
Some conditions affecting the use of ingratiation to influence performance evaluation
Role playing variations and their informational value for person perception
Some conditions affecting the evaluation of a conformist1
Apocalyptic and Serial Time Orientations and the Structure of Opinions
Journal Article APOCALYPTIC AND SERIAL TIME ORIENTATIONS AND THE STRUCTURE OF OPINIONS Get access KURT W. BACK, KURT W. BACK Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar KENNETH J. GERGEN KENNETH J. GERGEN Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Public Opinion Quarterly, Volume 27, Issue 3, FALL 1963, Pages 427–442, https://doi.org/10.1086/267186 Published: 01 January 1963
Mental illness, predictability, and affective consequences as stimulus factors in person perception
Individual Orientations, Public Opinion and the Study of International Relations
Journal Article Individual Orientations, Public Opinion and the Study of International Relations Get access Kurt W. Back, Kurt W. Back Duke University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Kenneth J. Gergen Kenneth J. Gergen Duke University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Social Problems, Volume 11, Issue 1, Summer 1963, Pages 77–87, https://doi.org/10.2307/…
Correspondence and Comment
CORRESPONDENCE AND COMMENT ROBERT W. KATES ROBERT W. KATES Clark University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Public Opinion Quarterly, Volume 28, Issue 2, SUMMER 1964, Pages 351–355, https://doi.org/10.1086/267255 Published: 01 January 1964
Aging, time perspective, and preferred solutions to international conflicts
Some conditions affecting the use of ingratiation to influence performance evaluation
Effects of interaction goals and personality feedback on the presentation of self
Others' self-evaluations and interaction anticipation as determinants of self-presentation
Communication in the Interview and the Disengaged Respondent
Responses to survey questions may be markedly affected not only by such aspects of the interview situation as interviewer rapport, respondent anonymity, and psychological and sociological differences between interviewer and respondent, but by the personal orientation of the respondent. As an example of distinctive personal orientation, how does the personality of aged respondents affect survey results? This unusually perceptive exploration into t…
Opponent's personality, expectation of social interaction, and interpersonal bargaining
Interactive effects of self-esteem and task difficulty on social conformity
Social expectancy and self-presentation in a status hierarchy
The Study of Policy Formation
Decision Making vs. Policy Making: Toward an Antidote for Technocracy
Social comparison, self-consistency, and the concept of self
Readings in Social Psychology
Influencing Attitudes and Changing Behavior: A Basic Introduction to Relevant Methodology, Theory and Applications
The Concept of Self
The Self in Social Interaction
Individual Orientations to Prosocial Behavior 1
Findings relating personality and demographic variables to prosocial behavior are reviewed. Original research results are then presented. These results show that different personal dispositions are related to various forms of prosocial behavior in different ways. The traditional search for general correlates of prosocial behavior is viewed as shortsighted. Attention is drawn to the relation of situational payoffs to personal dispositions, interac…
The codification of research ethics: Views of a Doubting Thomas
Critically examines the current code of ethical standards for research in psychology. It is argued that the effects of research procedures which violate the code have not been empirically tested, and that to establish the code without empirical justification is a dubious procedure. The codification further forecloses on vital questions of ethical pluralism; complex issues are veiled by pat principles. In place of ethical codes, a set of empirical…
Social psychology as history
Recent decades have been marked by a steadily increasing emphasis on neural determinants of behavior.Concerns with socio-cultural processes have simultaneously been diminished.Given the significance of this shift toward a cortical explanation of human behavior-in terms of both the direction of research in psychology and the implications of this research for social practices and policy-critical reflection is essential.In particular, when significa…
The women's liberation movement: Attitudes and action1
Sociology (106 works) · Psychology (104 works) · Epistemology (77 works) · Philosophy (74 works) · Social Psychology (49 works) · Computer Science (44 works) · Political science (39 works) · Social Representations and Identity (30 works) · Philosophy (29 works) · Social Psychology (27 works)