Chp. 13 Constructivism

Chapter 13, Constructivism, is a theory that communication scholars refer to as the "black box." Its main point is that "people make sense of the world through a series of personal constructs that dictate how we communicate." These constructs consist of congitive complexity, sophisticated communication, person centered messages, and beneficial outcomes. When we started talking about this theory in class, I remembered a situation involving my boyfriend's younger sister, Kelly, who is 7 years old. Kelly and I were looking at my high school yearbook and I noticed that Kelly thought every girl that had short hair was "ugly" and every girl with long hair was "pretty." Her cognitive complexity is not very complex at all. Kelly hasn't experienced enough or met enough people in her life to be able to distinguish how people really are. Her personal construct is not fully developed and how she views people is based on very few past experiences. She might have had a friend with short hair who was mean to her at one point, and so now whenever she sees a girl with short hair, she associates her friend that was mean to her to a short-haired girl. Her dimension of construct integration is not balanced, either. She cannot see that a girl with short hair can also be nice. Her construct differentiation is very narrow, in that she either sees a girl as "ugly or pretty" based on their hair length. Kelly's person-centered messages are not getting through to her yet because of her age, and she is unable to adapt to someone's true identity. Her cognitive complexity will surely develop as she grows up, but it just shows how age definitely affects how you judge others and how well you are able to communicate.