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Kenneth J. Gergen (born 1935) is an American socialpsychologist andemeritusprofessor atSwarthmore College. He obtained hisBachelor of Arts fromYale University (1957) and hisPhD fromDuke University (1962).
The son ofJohn Jay Gergen, the chair of the Mathematics Department atDuke University, and Aubigne Munger (née Lermond), Gergen grew up in Durham, North Carolina. He had three brothers, one of whom isDavid Gergen, the prominent political analyst. After completing public schooling, he attendedYale University. Graduating in 1957, he subsequently became an officer in the U.S. Navy. He then returned to graduate school at Duke University, where he received his PhD in psychology in 1963. His dissertation advisor wasEdward E. Jones. Gergen went on to become an assistant professor in the Department of Social Relations atHarvard University, where he also became the chairman of the board of tutors and advisors for the department and representative to the university's Council on Educational Policy.
In 1967, Gergen took a position as chair of the Department of Psychology atSwarthmore College, a position he held for ten years. Subsequently, he became the Gil and Frank Mustin Professor in Psychology. After his retirement (emeritus) in 2006, he took the position of Senior Research Professor. At various intervals, he served as visiting professor at theUniversity of Heidelberg, theUniversity of Marburg, theSorbonne, theUniversity of Rome,Kyoto University, andAdolfo Ibanez University. At Swarthmore, he spearheaded the development of the academic concentration in interpretation theory. In an attempt to link his academic work to societal practices, he collaborated with colleagues to create the Taos Institute in 1993. He now serves as the president of the institute.
Gergen was married toMary Gergen, professor emeritus atPenn State University, and a major contributor tofeminist psychology and performance inquiry, from 1969 until her death in 2020. She was the author of over 50 articles and was the co-author (with her husband) of books on social construction and performative social science. They published the Positive Aging Newsletter with a readership of around 20,000.[1]
Gergen's earliest studies challenged the presumption of a unified or coherent self.[clarification needed] He then raised questions about the value ofaltruism, by exploring the ways in which helping others leads to the recipient's resentment and alienation.
A major point in Gergen's career was his 1973 article "Social Psychology as History". In the article, he argues that while empirical research attempts to establish general laws or principles, the empirical support is always derived from historically situated observations. Yet, because patterns of human action undergo continuous change, support for any principle may wax or wane over time. Further, the scientific knowledge the laws and principles of social interaction are variable over time, and that the scientific knowledge generated bysocial psychologists actually influences the phenomena it is meant to passively describe. For example, studying obedience to authority may reduce the likelihood of obedience. He argued therefore that social psychology was not fundamentally a cumulative science, but was effectively engaged in the recording and transformation of cultural life. The article proved widely controversial, and was ultimately listed as a "citation classic" in the Social Science Citation Index. Also contributing to what was called "the crisis in social psychology"[3] was Gergen's subsequent publication on generative theory. Here he proposed that, because theoretical suppositions were not so much recordings of social life as creators, theories should not be judged so much by their integration of "what is" as their potential to open new spaces of action.
Combining these ideas with developments in literary andcritical theory, along with the history of science, Gergen went on to develop a radical view ofsocially constructed knowledge. This view was proposed as a successor project to what Gergen considered an inherently flawedpositivistconception of knowledge. From Gergen's perspective, all human intelligibility (including claims to knowledge) is generated within relationships. It is from relationships that humans derive their conceptions of what is real, rational, and good. From this perspective, scientific theories, like all other reality posits, should not be assessed in terms of truth, but in terms of pragmatic outcomes. Such assessments are inevitably wedded to values, and thus all science is morally and politically weighted in implication. As he saw it, this same form of assessment also applies to social constructionist theory. The question is not its accuracy, but its potentials for humankind.
This latter conclusion informed most of Gergen's subsequent work, in areas including therapy and counseling, education, organizational change, technology, conflict reduction, civil society, andqualitative inquiry. In one form or another, this work is concerned with transforming social life. For the most part, his preferred direction of change is toward more collaborative and participatory relationships. Additionally, he has been concerned with fostering a "relational" view of the self, where the "traditional emphasis on the individual mind is replaced by a concern with the relational processes from which rationality and morality emerge."[2] He is also known for his comment "I am linked therefore I am" as an answer toDescartes' proposition "I think, therefore I am".[3] Most of these developments are summarized inRelational Being, Beyond the Individual and Community, which attempts to demonstrate that what are considered mental processes are not so much "in the head" as in relationships. It also attempts to answer charges ofmoral relativism with a non-foundational morality of collaborative practice, and to outline a way to bring science together with concerns for the sacred.
The development of social constructionist, relational theory, and their professional applications is associated with relations between, ethics in a pluralistic world, qualitative inquiry in the social sciences, explanations of human action, and reconstructing the conception of ageing. He also served as a co-founder of the journals,Theory and Psychology, andQualitative Inquiry in Psychology.
Concepts that Gergen has written about include:
Gergen has received research grants from theNational Science Foundation, theDeutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and the Barra Foundation. His work has merited awards from theAmerican Psychological Association, theNational Communication Association, theUniversity of Buenos Aires,Adolfo Ibanez University in Santiago, Nanjing Normal University, and Absalon University College in Denmark. Gergen received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Graduate School of Duke University in 2017, and in 2018 was listed as one of the 50 most influential living psychologists in the world (The Best Schools). He has received fellowships from theGuggenheim Foundation, theFulbright Foundation, and theAlexander von Humboldt Foundation. He also holds honorary degrees fromTilburg University,Saybrook Graduate School, and theUniversity of Athens.
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)ISBN 0-203-26727-3 (Adobe eReader Format). Essay originally published 1996. See article listing below.{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) See also chapter in book, listed above.