Kenneth J. Gergen, a key figure in modern American psychology, will lecture at Wagner College on Wednesday, April 25 at 1:30 p.m. in Spiro Hall, Room 2. Gergen’s lecture, “On the Post-Modern Relational Self, Moral Relativisim and Technology,” is part of Wagner’s Academic and Cultural Enrichment series, and the public is invited.
In 1973, Gergen set off what has been dubbed the “crisis in social psychology” with the publication of his article, “Social Psychology as History.” (Click here to read the article.) In the article, Gergen argued that the laws and principles of social interaction are highly variable over time, and that the scientific knowledge generated by social psychologists actually influences the phenomena it is meant to passively describe. The article proved highly contentious, garnering large amounts of both criticism and support from various social psychologists.
Gergen’s work is associated with social constructionism. He has been particularly 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.”
Gergen is the Mustin Professor of Psychology at Swarthmore (Pa.) College. For more information about Gergen on the Web, click here.
