Understanding Interpretative Psychological Research - Essay Example

Culture is paradoxical: on the one hand, it is created by people as the means of expression and on the other, it serves as the limiting force shaping people`s identities and dictating to them what is appropriate and what is not.

Interestingly, cultural norms evolve with time, and the perception of gender changes as well since this phenomenon can be described as a cultural construct. This means that it is époque and the stage of social development dictates norms for men and women. Oransky and Marecek aimed to find to which extent cultural layers influence the young generation in the question of gender identity. The authors positioned themselves as outside observers making interviewees, who were teenage boys from fifteen to seventeen, think of personal examples and revise their own experiences. The authors brought culture to the research by making boys create their narratives regarding gender roles, male friendship, and perception of masculinity with the help of open-ended and probing questions. The quotes from interviews help to see the linguistic peculiarities of the boys` speech and show how they interpret reality in terms of gender and define what is right and wrong in terms of masculinity. For example, the choice of terms describing the reaction to emotional disclosure allows understanding that sincere behavior is inappropriate in the world of real men: “Boys expect that displays of feeling will mark them as “gay” or “girly” (Oransky & Marecek, 2009, 225). Therefore, attributing the word “gay” to a man disclosing emotions the boys create new cultural meaning reinterpreting already existing paradigms of homosexuality and masculinity. Being heterosexual, bold, and stoic is culturally acceptable while the rest is deviation.

Speaking about the opposition between the personal and social perception of masculinity most boys referred to the term “they” (an unspecified collectivity of other boys). Therefore, this pronoun serves as a key term in the cultural narrative regarding gender for many young teenagers as they feel the pressure of cultural norms imposed by others.
Cultural layers in children and teenagers are noticeable because their moral standards are still established, and the impact on society is still strong. In this article, the authors dealt with a cultural layer of a group of teenagers specific in terms of race, the financial status of their families, and the level of education. This group of young adults—upper-middle-class, attending a private East Coast school, and mainly White were chosen as it is this class of people that further creates the skeleton of the nation (Oransky & Marecek, 2009, 234). Thus, it is crucial to learn what cultural beliefs regarding gender were perceived by these boys as normal as it will influence the cultural norms of society in the future.

Numerous features of social constructivism are also evident in the article by Oransky & Marecek. Only by interpreting reality do people accumulate knowledge about the world, therefore, multiple interpretations are possible. The behavior of the boys described in the article is common for teenagers in the USA. They see cruel, intimidating behavior as the expression of learned attitudes and values inculcated earlier in boys’ lives (Oransky & Marecek, 2009, 236). They perceive stoicism, lack of emotions, and violence as attributes of masculinity. Interpreting femininity is even more puzzling for these teenagers. For example, it was generally perceived by the respondents of the article that girls are allowed to express and share emotions while there exist certain prohibitions for boys to do it (Oransky & Marecek, 2009, 235). The language, specific to the cultural context of this generation, is used for teasing, making fun of people, and taunting. This establishes boys` masculinity in their peers` eyes and teaches boys how to sustain their masculine status (Oransky & Marecek, 2009, 233). The reality of this group of teenagers is divided into two categories very strictly: masculine and feminine attributes should not be mixed.
At the same time, some boys acknowledged that sharing emotions in distress is natural and helpful: “If you have problems, it’s better to share them with other people than just to keep them pent up inside you and not discuss them with anyone” (Oransky & Marecek, 2009, 233). Thus, these boys face the difficulty of multiple interpretations: one interpretation is their personal while the other one is social and they often oppose each other. This also becomes one of the basic features of social constructivism when knowledge is negotiated at both interpersonal and cultural levels.

Another social constructivism feature is the connection of words and actions to a sociocultural world. Most boys in this article marked that there exist habitual cliché phrases that are often used to help a friend with emotional distress: “Just suck it up. Just kind of suck it up, realize what happened, and don’t do it again. What the hell are you doing? Deal with it” (Oransky & Marecek, 2009, 229). While in the situation when two boys are revealed to share emotions they will most probably proclaim “fags” or “girls” and will be teased and bullied further (Oransky & Marecek, 2009, 229). The things that this boy says and does show that sociocultural context implies homophobia and patriarchal values. Moreover, these linguistic and behavioral patterns characterize once again the masculine world as pitiless and devoid of emotions. Read More