There is yet another ingredient that contributes to our lack of theory-in-use awareness: no one is telling us what is really occurring. There is no “person from Mars”, or if there is this neutral observer, they don’t want to confront us with the “bad news”. They have their own theory-in-use about us:
“This person won’t listen to what I have said and will never change.”
“It is too dangerous to tell the truth!”
We end up looking a lot like the subordinate we identified earlier who never seems to change. Conversely, the theory-in-use of the neutral observer often concerns their own credibility or neutrality:
“I might not be seeing what is really happening” or
“I have too much at stack in viewing this situation to be in any way objective.” or
“I shouldn’t say anything at this point because I might be wrong” or
“I might be biased.”
The resulting decision takes place in the observer’s mind:
“I will remain quiet, even if asked what I have observed.”
Thus, any conversation about theories-in-use is avoided. Argyris and Schon identify this as the “self-sealing” nature of theories-in-use. These theories are non-discussable: we can’t talk about them or don’t see any reason to talk about that which is “obvious”. When you add together the “self-fulfilling” and “self-sealing” dynamics inherent in our theories-in-use, we see how powerful these theories can be and how resistant they are either to inspection or change. We continue to live comfortably with our espoused theories and close the door on our theories in use.
Why bring up this piece of social psychological and organizational change theory? Because it is directly relevant to the concept of social construction. I propose that theories-in-use are often influenced (perhaps determined) by dominant social constructions. While our espoused theories may be based on the book we have just read or lecture we have just attended, our theories-in-use are likely to be informed by much deeper, and much less explicit, constructions of reality.
Paradigms, Models and Practices
We offer one other perspective regarding the social construction of reality. This third perspective is derived from the highly influential, historical framework offered by Thomas Kuhn (1962) in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Without going into details regarding Kuhn’s revolutionary analysis of revolutions, we can cut directly to the chase: Kuhn proposed that most scientific work (particularly in the physical sciences) is based on an underlying paradigm.
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