SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM

SOC 1101: INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY

SPRING 2021

part one: a brief review on

weberian sociology

PREVIOUSLY . . .

• THE SOCIOLOGY OF MAX WEBER

• THRUST: Society shifts from the traditional (based on tradition) to the rational (based on rules, laws, and calculation).

• Anti-postivist: believed that researchers should focus on understanding the meanings attached to social action.

• Culture Drives Action (The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism), contrasting Marx’s discussion that action drives culture (religion).

• Key terms in Weberian Sociology:

• verstehen: interpretative understanding

• ideal types: analytic constructs that serve as a measuring rod to ascertain similarities and differences in concrete cases (e.g. Bureaucracy).

• iron cage of rationality: the symbol of social pressure that we feel from others and ourselves as a way to act in ways strategically beneficial to us.

part two: symbolic

interactionism

MICROSOCIOLOGICAL THEORY: SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM

• America’s unique contribution to Sociology

• Microsociology: seeks to understand local interactional contexts (face-to-face interactions; small groups; local communities)

• Symbolic Interactionism: a paradigm that posits. . .

• interaction and meaning as central to society

• meanings are not inherent, but created through interaction.

• helps explain both our individual personalities and the ways in which we are all linked together.

• social order and social change are constructed.

HERBERT BLOOMER (1900 - 1987)

• influenced by George Herbert Mead and the Chicago School sociologists.

• coined symbolic interactionism

• Tenets of symbolic interactionism:

• We act toward things on the basis of their meaning.

• Meanings are not inherent; rather they are negotiated through interaction with others.

• Meanings can change or be modified through interaction.

CHARLES HORTON COOLEY (1864 - 1929)

• Looking-glass self: the notion that the self develops through our perceptions of others’ evaluations and appraisals of us.

• We imagine how we look to others.

• We imagine other people’s judgments of us.

• We experience some kind of feeling about ourselves based on our perceptions of other people’s judgments.

GEORGE HERBERT MEAD (1863 - 1931)

• father of social psychology (microsociology)

• proposed that human development and the meanings we assign to everyday objects and events are social processes, requiring the interaction of multiple individuals.

• the mind does not develop independently from its social environment.

• the individual personality was shaped by society, and vice versa.

• The self is comprised of two parts:

• self: the individual identity of a person as understood by that person.

• I: one’s sense of agency, action, and power

• Me: the imagined self as others see that person

GEORGE HERBERT MEAD THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SELF

• Four stages of role-taking:

• Preparatory Stage: relating to the world as if you are the center of the universe.

• Play Stage: learning to take the attitude and role of the people with whom they interact.

• significant other: specific people important in a child’s life, who have the greatest impact on their self-evaluations.

• Game Stage: taking the role of multiple others.

• Adult stage: internalizing the generalized other

• generalized other: a sense of the total expectations of others in a variety of settings, irrespective of whether we encountered those steps before

W.I. THOMAS (1863 - 1947)

• definition of the situation: “if men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.”

HAROLD GARFINKEL (1917-2011)

• ethnomethodology: the study of “folk methods” and background knowledge that sustains a shared sense of reality in everyday interactions.

• based on the assumption of “unwritten rules” that govern our lives that may/may not be important to others.

• breaching experiments: collaborators exhibited “abnormal” or “atypical behaviors in social interactions in order to see how other people would react.”

part three: dramaturgical

theory

ERVING GOFFMAN (1922 - 1982) THE PRESENTATION OF SELF IN EVERYDAY LIFE

• dramaturgical theory: social life is generally a theatrical performance, where we are all actors in a metaphorical stage with roles, scripts, costumes, and sets.

• front stage: the places which we deliver our performances into an audience of others.

• backstage: the places which we rehearse and prepare for our performances.

ERVING GOFFMAN (1922 - 1982) THE PRESENTATION OF SELF IN EVERYDAY LIFE

• Performance: “all the activity of a given participant on a given occasion which serves to influence in any way any of the other participants.”

• sincere performances: the performer is convinced by the impression of reality he stages is honest and truthful.

• cynical performances: the performance is merely an act — a means to achieve a desired end.

THE PRESENTATION OF SELF IN EVERYDAY LIFE KEY DEFINITIONS

pp. 15 - 16:

• Interaction (face-to-face interaction): “the reciprocal influence of individuals upon one another’s actions when in one another’s immediate physical presence.”

• Part or routine: “The pre-established pattern of action which is unfolded during a performance and which may be presented or play through on other occasions.”

• “When an individual or performer plays the same part to the same audience on different occasions, a social relationship is likely to arise.”

THE SEARCH FOR INFORMATION

p. 1:

“When an individual enters the presence of others, they commonly seek to acquire information about him or to bring into play information about him already possessed. They will be interested in his general socio-economic status, his conception of self, his attitude toward them, his competence, his trustworthiness, etc . . . Information about the individual helps to define the situation, enabling others to know in advance what he will expect of them and what they may expect of him.”

THE SEARCH FOR INFORMATION

• We search for clues to ascertain a sense of the individual, especially individuals we do not know.

p. 1:

“If unacquainted with the individual, observers can glean clues from his conduct and appearance which allow them to apply their previous experience with individuals roughly similar to the one before them or, more important, to apply untested stereotypes to them. They can also assume from past experience that only individuals of a particular kind are likely to be found in a given setting.”

BUT INDIVIDUALS MAY GIVE US THE CLUES WE NEED!

pp. 1 - 2:

“ . . . during the period in which the individual is in the immediate presence of others, few events may occur which directly provide the others with the conclusive information they will need if they are to direct wisely their own activity. Many crucial facts lie beyond the time and place of interaction or lie concealed within it. For example, the ‘true’ or ‘real’ attitudes, beliefs, and emotions of the individual can be ascertained only indirectly, through his avowals or through what appears to be involuntary expressive behavior.”

ACT ONE: THE PERFORMANCE

p. 17:

“When an individual plays a part he implicitly requests his observers to take seriously the impression that is fostered before them. They are asked to believe that the character they see actually possess the attributes he appears to possess, that the task he performs will have the consequences that are implicitly claimed for it, and that, in general, matters are what they appear to be.”

FRONTS AND FACE

• personal front: the performance tactics we use to present ourselves to others, including appearance, costume, and manner.

• face: the esteem to which an individual is held by others.

• face-work: the actions taken by a person to make whatever he is doing consistent with face.

• line: patterns of verbal or nonverbal behavior which a person expresses his position in a given interaction.

• ritual disequilibrium: a break in a line.

David grazian On the make

• Do playing “cons” represent sincere or cynical performances?

• How might the confidence games people play in the city help foster a sense of belonging? A sense of self?