“…Thus, from a social constructivist perspective, psychological development is the joint product of an active individual and a structuring social context. 'Throughout this article, I use the tern social constructivist to differentiate the present analysis from both individual constructivist theories (Kelly, 1955;Piaget, 1970), which tend to underspecify the social origins of meaning and activity, and current social constructionist models (Gergen, 1985(Gergen, , 1989, which tend to underrepresent the individual's role in the creation of meaning (Harr6, 1984(Harr6, , 1986 This process may be illustrated through the elaboration of a social constructivist model of emotion. Recent theory and research (Barrett & Campos, 1987;de Rivera, 1981;Fischer et al, 1990;Frijda, 1986;Mascolo & Mancuso, 1990Ortony & Turner, 1990;Scherer, 1984) suggest that emotional states and experiences can be understood in terms of organized ensembles of components.…”