PSYCHOLOGY
Psychology: Symbolic Interactionist Perspective on the Social Construction of Illness
Health and illness are taken as social constructions, which is the essence of the interactionist approach. It means that society or its members cause circumstances and physical environmental conditions that mentally or physically disturb humans; they have no objective implications in reality. Research has presented three categories of the social construction of health and illness: the cultural meaning of the two elements, the experience of the illness, and medical information about the illness (Conrad & Barker, 2010).
Old-time scholars in this field have revealed that the deviance shown as a result of some social behavior causes social problems and directly affects health (Conrad & Barker, 2010). Nonconformity is observed within the social groups; social contexts are blurred, causing a discrepancy in the form of certain medical conditions. The symbolic interactionist perspective overlaps with this ideology as the scholars of this phenomenon ruled out that a formation of selfhood is seen when living in social groups. Active social participation results in social value and its construction in the context of daily social interactions.
Health and illness experiences, therefore, come in line with the daily social interactions and the symbols within them (Conrad & Barker, 2010). The cues and behaviors of other people that affect ones moral health are under study by medical sociologists for this very reason. Humans start making sense of their daily communications with other people and how that deeply influences their emotions and sentiments, formulating social limitations that appear as a threat.
Interestingly, research has proposed that when a human is diagnosed with a health condition, his behavior and attitude towards social elements change soon afterward (Conrad & Barker, 2010). The social state and how he perceives his social group members are altered as the meaning of the diseases might have changed for him. The analytical insights of the diseases seem to create control over the social symbolism constructions.
References
Conrad, P. & Barker, K.K. (2010). The social construction of illness: Key insights and policy implications. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 51(S), S67-S79. DOI: 10.1177/0022146510383495
