What the hell is a social self?

[nilecroc]

I was reading a wikipedia article on social constructivism and this jewell was in it:"When we say that something is socially constructed, we are focusing on its dependence on contingent variables of our social selves rather than any inherent quality that it possesses in itself"
So can some demystify this

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_constructionism


"Social constructs are the by-products of countless human choices, rather than laws resulting from human judgment. Social constructionism is not the result of anti-determinism, though. Social constructionism is typically positioned in opposition to essentialism, which sees phenomena in terms of inherent, transhistorical essences independent of human judgment.[2]"

[Ibrahim90]

I was reading a wikipedia article on social constructivism and this jewell was in it:"When we say that something is socially constructed, we are focusing on its dependence on contingent variables of our social selves rather than any inherent quality that it possesses in itself"
So can some demystify this

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_constructionism


"Social constructs are the by-products of countless human choices, rather than laws resulting from human judgment. Social constructionism is not the result of anti-determinism, though. Social constructionism is typically positioned in opposition to essentialism, which sees phenomena in terms of inherent, transhistorical essences independent of human judgment.[2]"

I'm not sure if I can explain it right, but I can provide a common example of what is considered a "social construct": race--human races specically (black, white, yellow, red, etc).

[dallen68]

To answer the question in the subject line: A "social self" is a way of saying that people behave differently in public than they do when they aren't in public.

To answer the gibberish in the body of the message: What they are saying here is sometimes we buy, say, or do things to fit into our peer group, whichever it is: work, school, guys at the bar, etc., rather than actually wanting, needing, or believing it.