This paper will discuss two contemporary approaches of psychology, constructionism and constructivism, the first one coming from Social Psychology, the other from Developmental Psychology. Even seemingly conflicting - constructionism tries to cope with constructions collectively elaborated by individuals, while constructivism tries to cope with the construction of cognitive structures elaborated by the individual during his development -, the argument seeks to indicate that both theoretical proposals are related to the conceptual basis of postmodern philosophical thought: critique of a possible access by the individual to an independent reality, rejection of a Cartesian approach of scientific inquiry grounded in the search of rigor and objectivity. However, the analysis fulfilled allows to the conclusion that the models considered accomplish a reduction, be it to the social or to the individual level. The paper finishes with a trial to integrate both models, a proposal to escape to the typical absence of balance in the psychological theorizations of social psychology, whose tradition is to emphasize the social or the individual in its theoretical models.
constructivism; constructionism; social psychology; postmodern philosophical thought