This volume grew out of a discussion between the editors at the Society for Experimental Social Psychology meeting in Nashville in 1981. For many years the Society has played a leading role in encouraging rigorous and sophisticated research. Yet, our discussion that day was occupied with what seemed a major problem with this fmely honed tradition; namely, it was preoccupied with "accurate renderings of reality," while generally insensitive to the process by which such renderings are achieved. This tradition presumed that there were "brute facts" to be discovered about human interaction, with little consideration of the social processes through which "factuality" is established. To what degree are accounts of persons constrained by the social process of rendering as opposed to the features of those under scrutiny? This concern with the social process by which persons are constructed was hardly ours alone. In fact, within recent years such concerns have been voiced with steadily increasing clarity across a variety of disciplines. Ethno methodologists were among the first in the social sciences to puncture the taken-for-granted realities of life. Many sociologists of science have also turned their attention to the way social organizations of scientists create the facts necessary to sustain these organizations. Historians of science have entered a similar enterprise in elucidating the social, economic and ideological conditions enabling certain formulations to flourish in the sciences while others are suppressed. Many social anthropologists have also been intrigued by cross-cultural variations in the concept of the human being.

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I. Introduction to the Domain.- 1. Social Constructionist Inquiry: Context and Implications.- The Social Constructionist Orientation.- Social Constructionism in Historical Perspective Constructionism and the Problematics of Psychological.- Explanation.- Constructionism and the Character of Science.- 2. An Overview of Descriptive Psychology.- A Budget of Problems.- A Different Spirit.- A Different Genre.- Descriptive Psychology and Social Constructionism.- 3. The Social Construction of the Person: How Is It Possible?.- Oriya Conceptions of the Person, Society, and Nature: A Primer.- From Conceptions of the Person to Social Cognition.- Social Construction: How Is It Possible?.- II. The Structure of Intelligibility.- 4. Necessarily True Cultural Psychologies.- The Meaning of Reflexivity.- Broadening the Range of Facts to Be Considered.- Broadening the Range of Problems to Be Solved.- Commonsense Psychology.- How to Describe, Explain, and So On, a Description of Behavior.- Traditional Empirical Psychology.- Problems of Necessarily True Cultural Psychologies.- Concluding Remarks.- 5. The Social Construction of Emotion: With Special Reference to Love.- On Falling in Love in Conformance with the Romantic Ideal.- Henry Theophilus Finck and His Critics.- Love as an Emotional Syndrome.- Concluding Observations.- 6. Social Pragmatics and the Origins of Psychological Discourse.- Treacherous Invitations to a Theory of Origins.- Discourse and the Pragmatics of Relationship.- The Principle of Intentionality.- The Principles of Seriation and Singularity.- The Principle of Pandemonium.- Mental Testing and Interpretative Pandemonium.- Summary.- 7. Two Concepts of the Mental.- Forgetting.- Halfway House Data.- Willing.- Conclusion.- 8. Relationships in the Real World: The Descriptive Psychology Approach to Personal Relationships.- Status Assignment and World Creations.- I-Thou Relationships as the Paradigm for Personal Relationships.- Social Practices and Insiders Versus Outsiders.- Types of Personal Relationships: Friends, Lovers, and Others.- Individual Differences in Conceptions.- Appreciation of Overt Performance Versus Significance.- Role of Personal Relationships in Health, Mental Health, and Life Satisfaction.- Conclusions.- III. Social Process in Person Construction.- 9. Social Accountability and Self Specification.- Social Accountability.- The Social Accountability of Conduct.- Being Held Captive by a Picture.- Routine Accountability.- Theories, Models, and Accounts.- Applications.- The Metaphorical Nature of Our Self-Talk.- The Situated and Hermeneutical Nature of Selfhood.- Weiss's Depiction of "You".- Conclusions.- 10. Sincerity: Feelings and Constructions in Making a Self.- Pain.- Impulses.- Emotion.- Feelings, the Self, and the Will.- Feelings as Beliefs: Intuitions.- A Summary of the Dramaturgic Model, Sincerity, and Feelings.- A Postscript on the Self.- 11. A Dialectical View of Personal Change.- The Coordinated Management of Meaning.- The A Family: A Case Study.- Conclusion and Implications.- 12. How Personal Differences Can Make a Difference.- The Marquesas Islands.- Personal Distinctiveness.- Singling Persons Out: Names.- Singling Persons Out: Physical Distinctiveness.- The Place of Distinctive Hakatu in Interaction.- Setting Differences Aside.- Human Careers.- Personal Distinctiveness in the Electoral Process.- Discussion.- Toward Cross-Cultural Understandings.- 13. Asking Taboo Questions and Doing Taboo Deeds.- Our Commitments.- The Prohibition Against Researching Childhood Sexuality.- Traditionalists Versus Libertarians.- An Alternative Model of the Child and the Adult.- Positivism's Dilemma.- Conclusion.- 14. The Language Game of Self-Ascription: A Note.- Author Index.