Dissertation Research: Social Constructionism

Social constructionism or the social construction of reality (also social concept) is a theory of knowledge in sociology and communication theory that examines the development of jointly constructed understandings of the world that form the basis for shared assumptions about reality. The theory centers on the notions that human beings rationalize their experience by creating models of the social world and share and reify these models through language.

Basically, social constructionism means that our realities are shaped through our experiences and our interactions with others.
For example: Margaret's dishwasher is broken. While at lunch with friends, she's complaining about her situation. Margaret's dishwasher is a top model, and the part to fix it must be special ordered. Margaret will have to hand wash her dishes for the next week or two.

Abby is one of the friends listening to Margaret's story. She is trying to be friendly, but Abby has never had a dishwasher. Abby has lived in other countries where dishwashers are rare. She currently lives in a small apartment. Abby's family has always hand washed their dishes. Abby likes Margaret, but she thinks Margaret sounds like a spoiled brat.

Margaret and Abby have different realities. Margaret believes her dishwasher is a necessity, where Abby views it as a luxury. Their differences are a result of social constructionism. This sociological theory examines the development of jointly constructed understandings. By 'jointly constructed,' we mean that one person's understanding shapes another person's understanding. Understandings aren't developed separately within a person. Instead, a person develops understandings by using experiences and interactions with other people. This makes each person's reality unique.

Thomas theorem:
"If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences."
(W.I. Thomas and D.S. Thomas (1928) The child in America: Behavior problems and programs,New York: Knopf)

In other words, the interpretation of a situation causes the action. This interpretation is not objective. Actions are affected by subjective perceptions of situations. Whether there even is an objectively correct interpretation is not important for the purposes of helping guide individuals' behavior.

An example of this might be how a person who firmly believes in the existence of and power of supernatural forces, i.e. voodoo or witchcraft, is much more likely to suffer from illnesses or injuries that they believe could be brought about by practitioners of those arts.
. From the methodological perspective, it provides a prime example of the basic if  presumably obvious precept that it is one thing to establish a phenomenon (i.e.,show that something is empirically the case) and quite another to explain it.