Emotional, Social Constructivism And Jealousy

The social constructionist psychology is an application of the social constructionism in psychology as a new social science study pattern. The social constructionist psychology censors the emotions from a new point of view, and brings forward following viewpoints. First, the emotions are not just experiences, they are also syndromes and belief systems. Second, there are explicit distinguish criterions for true and false emotions, the behaviors are the necessary, but not the sufficient conditions of emotions, and some emotions are not approved in certain society. Third, the emotions have four characters: the emotions are cognitive because of they containing attitudinal components, the emotions are politic because of they being means of achieving an end, the emotions have suitability because of they being restricted by circumstances, and the emotions have directivity because of they directing to certain objects. Fourth, the emotions contains moral evaluation, they have social functions of maintaining social orders and ethics. Fifth, the emotion are constructed by the society, they are the production of many social factors' interaction. Sixth, the emotions can be learnt by people through age paradigm and gender paradigm, while the social culture will propel the emotions to evolve incessantly.In order to deepen and enrich the social construction of emotions, the social constructionist psychology carries on research on envy, and gives some opinions as follow. First, envy is a sin of protecting oneself wrongly, this meaning reflects the brand which the social culture imposes on envy. Second, the emergence of envy not only requires the envious person regarding the involved objects as valuable, but also requires this person realizing that his value is derogated owing to these objects. These appraisals have a close relation to the social contexts. Third, there are two necessary factors for envy: one is to secretly impair or derogate other people, the other is to prevent one's value from decreasing hard. Otherwise, the criterion for judging envy is explicit, has maneuverability. Fourth, envy has suitability. Whether the envy is suited or not has a close relation to the circumstances. As envy has a prescriptive relation to the social cultural contexts, envy is an instrument of maintaining the social frame, such as the ethics and value notions. Fifth, envy has double interpretation for both the action and the actor' personality, while envy also plays an important role in maintaining certain social orders and ethics. Sixth, the culture anthropologic studies reveal that there are many differences in expression and countermeasures of envy between different societies. So the social constructionist psychology insists that the envy is aroused by the social circumstances. The relationship between envy and the social circumstances reveals that the envy is constructed by the society, and the envy is the production of many social factors' interaction.The text analysis of envy bases on the envy behaviors of two original societies. After describing the distinct differences in envy behaviors between the two societies, this article analyzes the inherent causes accurately, which clarifies the social construction of envy to some extent. The social construction of emotions and especially of envy both show some positive meanings, while they have some problems too. They need further development.