social reality
Collectively constructed world
Social reality refers to the aspects of human experience that exist through collective agreement rather than physical fact.
Money has value, marriages are binding, and national borders matter because people treat them as real.
Social reality is constructed through shared beliefs, institutions, and practices—it wouldn't exist without human minds to sustain it, yet it shapes behavior as powerfully as physical constraints.
The pandemic revealed how much of social reality depends on people showing up and playing their parts.
- constructedBuilt or assembled
- sharedHeld in common
- collectiveJointly organized group
- collective agreementNegotiated terms between workers and employer
- normsExpected behavioral standards
unwritten rules · perception · common sense · consensus · group think · meaning · culture · belief · taken for granted · institution · interaction · everyday · everyday life · lived · common · agreement · symbolic · discourse
- social constructsgender, race, class, marriage, nationality
- existenceexistence, being, lives, life, actuality
- realityactuality, existence, being, truth, facts
- realitiestruths, facts, existence, actuality, being
- phenomenologyphenomenology, intentionality, bracketing, lived experience, horizon
social realityphysical reality
The material universe
objective reality · nature · physical laws · natural world · physical world
social, society, societal, socialize, socialization, socialized, socializing, socialism, socialist