Lumen Learning

Just as socialization is mostly determined by the world and culture around us, our perception of the world is also influenced by external forces. Consider your own society, for example. A society describes a group of people who live in a defined geographical area, interact with one another, and share a common culture. How do you think your society was “constructed”? Who decided upon the appropriate social norms and behaviors that shape your reality and experience? Sociologists understand that reality is socially constructed, meaning that people shape their experiences through social interaction.

In 1966 sociologists Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann wrote a book called The Social Construction of Reality. In it, they argued that society is created by humans and human interaction, which they call habitualization. Habitualization describes how “any action that is repeated frequently becomes cast into a pattern, which can then be … performed again in the future in the same manner and with the same economical effort” (Berger and Luckmann 1966). Not only do we construct our own society but we also accept it as it is because others have created it before us. Society is, in fact, a matter of “habit.”

For example, your school exists as a school and not just as another building because you and others agree that it is a school. If your school is older than you are, it was created by the agreement of others who came before you. In a sense, it exists by consensus, both prior and ongoing. This is an example of the process of institutionalization, the act of implanting a convention or norm into society. Bear in mind that the institution, while socially constructed, is still quite real.

Another way of looking at this concept is through William I. and Dorothy Thomas’s notable Thomas theorem which states, “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences” (Thomas and Thomas 1928). That is, people’s behavior can be determined by their subjective construction of reality rather than by objective reality. The Thomases used a case study of a mentally ill prisoner who believed his fellow inmates were talking about him and physically attacked them every time he saw their lips move. Although the other prisoners were not talking about him, it did not matter, because the situation (i.e., gossip, verbal abuse) was real to the mentally ill prisoner and the consequences (i.e., physical attacks) were very real.