In the interactionist tradition, humans are seen as constantly and
dynamically changing and giving meanings to their social realities. As
people interact with one another, the process of giving meanings to
activities conducted is inevitable, thereby resulting to new constructs'
that alters or modifies the individual's social reality. Indeed, in the
social construction of reality, "our meanings and understandings†arise
from our communication with others, a notion of reality deeply embedded in
sociological thought" (Littlejohn, 1998:175). Furthermore, in the social
construction of reality, the individual, or the self, knowledge obtained is
considered a "social product" and is understood in the context in which
this knowledge or reality is experienced. Studies on the phenomenon of the
social construction of the self has become rampant, and has produced
theories that explain in various dimensions how the concept of the "self"
is constructed by the individual, as influenced by his/her social
environment. These theorists and social scientists are George Herbert
Mead, Lev Vygostky, Margaret Donaldson, and Richard Stevens.
Knowledge as a social product is the common premise subsisted to by
these theorists, but they differ in the perspective and approach that they
use in explaining the construction of the self.' For Lev Vygotsky and
Margaret Donaldson, the cognitive development of an individual is vital in
explaining how the self' is constructed by an individual. Lev Vygotsky, a
social psychologist, posited that higher cognitive processes are products
of social development, manifested through linguistic development. In using
the term, "cognitive processes," Vygotsky is referring to the process of
thinking within individuals from a highly concrete to abstract level. Upon
the development of these levels of thinking, an individual goes through the
process of "...