the social construction of reality

What it’s about

Berger and Luckmann redefine the sociology of knowledge by shifting its focus from intellectual history and ideology to the commonsense 'knowledge' that constitutes the fabric of everyday life. Drawing on Schutz's phenomenology, Marx's dialectics, Durkheim's objective facticity, Weber's subjective meaning, and Mead's social psychology, they trace how human activity externalizes a social order, how that order hardens into objective reality through institutionalization and legitimation, and how it is internalized by individuals through socialization to become subjective reality. The result is a powerful three-moment dialectic—externalization, objectivation, internalization—that explains how 'subjective meanings become objective facticities,' how symbolic universes shelter societies against chaos, and how identity itself is socially constructed. Essential reading for anyone seeking to understand why different societies inhabit radically different 'realities' and how those realities are built, maintained, and transformed.

The through-line

Who it’s for

A reader—student, scholar, or reflective person—who wants to understand how the social world becomes real and how their own sense of reality and identity is formed.

The problem

The taken-for-granted reality of everyday life appears self-evident and fixed, obscuring how it is actually produced and maintained. This leaves the reader disoriented about why different societies inhabit different realities and uncertain how to think rigorously about 'reality' and 'knowledge.'

The plan

1. Begin with a phenomenological analysis of the reality of everyday life to define key concepts.
2. Study society as objective reality: how institutionalization and legitimation produce and stabilize the social order.
3. Study society as subjective reality: how internalization through primary and secondary socialization forms persons and identities.
4. Grasp the three-moment dialectic—externalization, objectivation, internalization—as the unifying framework.
5. Apply the framework to analyze identity, deviance, alternation, and the maintenance of reality through conversation and plausibility structures.

The payoff

The reader sees society as a humanly produced, objectively real, and person-forming reality without reifying it. · The reader can analyze how realities and identities are constructed, maintained, and transformed. · The reader gains a crucial complementary perspective applicable across all areas of sociology and a renewed wonder at the social world.

See our guide

• Study People And Organizations With Scientific Rigor →
• The Behavioral Science Underneath It All →
• Understand Human Behavior From The Foundational Canon →
• Build A People Analytics Function →
• Deal With Burnout, Stress And Turnover →
• Make A Decision Your Biases Won't Wreck →
• Change A Behaviour That Won't Budge →
• Influence People Without Manipulating Them →
• Motivate People Without Bribing Them →
• Design The Organization And Change It →
• Build A Team People Speak Up In →
• Do Research That Holds Up →
• Design Surveys People Answer Honestly →
• Understand What Drives Individual Performance →

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Additional reading

• The works of Alfred Schutz · Alfred Schutz

  Schutz's phenomenological analysis of the commonsense world of everyday life provides the foundational prolegomena for the entire treatise, particularly the concept of the 'paramount reality'.

• The works of Karl Marx (especially early writings) · Karl Marx

  The book's anthropological presuppositions and its core dialectical perspective (man produces society which in turn produces man) are heavily influenced by Marx.

• The works of Emile Durkheim · Emile Durkheim

  The book's understanding of social reality as possessing an objective facticity, confronting the individual as an external and coercive 'thing', is greatly indebted to Durkheim.

• The works of Max Weber · Max Weber

  The book's emphasis on the constitution of social reality through subjective meanings and meaningful human action is derived from Weber, balancing Durkheim's objectivism.

• The works of George Herbert Mead · George Herbert Mead

  The book's social-psychological presuppositions, especially for the analysis of the internalization of social reality and the formation of the self ('generalized other'), are greatly influenced by Mead.

Featured in these guides

• Understand Human Behavior From The Foundational Canon →Cited source
• The Behavioral Science Underneath It All →Cited source
• Build A People Analytics Function →Cited source
• Deal With Burnout, Stress And Turnover →Cited source
• Make A Decision Your Biases Won't Wreck →Pole in “Order Emerges Or Is Engineered”
• Change A Behaviour That Won't Budge →Pole in “Order Emerges Or Is Engineered”
• Influence People Without Manipulating Them →Pole in “Order Emerges Or Is Engineered”
• Motivate People Without Bribing Them →Pole in “Order Emerges Or Is Engineered”
• Design The Organization And Change It →Cited source
• Study People And Organizations With Scientific Rigor →Cited source
• Build A Team People Speak Up In →Pole in “Order Emerges Or Is Engineered”
• Do Research That Holds Up →Cited source
• Design Surveys People Answer Honestly →Cited source
• Understand What Drives Individual Performance →Cited source

Where other books disagree

• Order Emerges Or Is Engineered →
• Order Emerges Or Is Engineered →
• Order Emerges Or Is Engineered →
• Order Emerges Or Is Engineered →
• Order Emerges Or Is Engineered →