PERSONAL-CONSTRUCT THEORY AND SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM - DIFFERENCE ANDDIALOGUE

In psychology there are at least as many varieties of social construct ionism (SC) as there are of constructivism. Many of these versions of SC share a number of crucial properties with several versions of const ructivism, including epistemological and ontological asssumptions that are not articulated often or clearly. Personal construct theory (PCT) , one version of constructivism, appears in ifs negative identity to r eject the same positivist and representationist psychologies so strong ly eschewed by SC. The positive programs of SC and PCT are in accord i nsofar as they attempt to establish notions of knowledge and categorie s of psychological life as inherently constructed. The two programs de part however on the crucial notion of the origins of such categories. Linguistic and social communities are essentially the repositories and generators of knowledge even as we are individual knowers. But the kn owledge we as individual knowers construct makes sense only within the communal use of categories of knowing, feeling, and construing. On th is account we are ''persons in conversation'' and our perceived unitie s emerge only as discursive practices conforming to local cultural nor ms.