Symbolic Interactionism CHAPTER THREE (1).pptx

Teaching material

1. CHAPTER THREE Micro-Interactionism Perspectives Section one: symbolic Interactionism

2. The Historical Roots of Symbolic Interactionism The emphasis is on micro-scale social interaction important in subfields such as urban sociology and social psychology. A straightforward practical way of thinking about things or dealing with problems, concerned with results rather than with theories and principles It is derived from American pragmatism holds that both the meaning and the truth of any idea is a function of its practical outcome . They rejected all forms of absolutism/ totaliterianism and insisted that all principles be regarded as working hypotheses that must bear fruit in lived experience. Herbert Blumer coined the term and put forward an influential summary of the perspective:

3. Cont’d “people act toward things based on the meaning those things have for them; and these meanings are derived from social interaction and modified through interpretation .” G. H. Meads SI (1863-1931), traces its roots to two intellectual traditions: pragmatism psychological behaviorism. He adopted three important themes from the pragmatists : a focus on the interaction between actors and the social world, a view of both actors and the social world as dynamic processes, and the centrality of actors' ability to interpret the social world.

4. Cont’d Generally, both pragmatism and symbolic interactionism view thinking as a process . Mead recognized the importance of overt/observable behavior Also focused on the importance of covert behavior and, Contrary to radical behaviorists , he believed that there is a significant d/ ce b/n human beings and animals: don't allow for interpretation between stimulus and response . the human capacity to use language and dynamically created social reality. Majority of interactionist researches uses qualitative research methods, like participant observation ,

5. Cont’d Sociological areas that have been particularly influenced by symbolic interactionism include: the sociology of emotions, deviance/criminology, collective behavior/social movements, and the sociology of sex……………

6. Basic Principles of SI Herbert Blumer (1969), who coined the term "symbolic interactionism," set out three basic premises of the perspective: "Human beings act toward things on the basis of the meanings they ascribe to those things.“ "The meaning of such things is derived from, or arises out of, the social interaction that one has with others and the society.“ "These meanings are handled in (controlled ), and modified through, an interpretative process used by the person in dealing with the things he/she encounters.“ Thus, actions>> meanings attached to the actions>> through Symbols.

7. Cont’d Symbolic interactionist researchers investigate how people create meaning during social interaction, how they present and construct the self (or "identity"), and how they define situations of co-presence with others. One of the perspective's central ideas is that people act as they do because of how they define situations. Generally, the basic principles of symbolic interactionism include the following: human beings possess the capacity for thought, which is shaped by social interaction people learn meanings and symbols through social interaction; and people are able to modify or alter the meanings and symbols they use in interactions by interpreting the situations they are engaged in.

8. Cont’d Socialization is one way individuals learn to think, interact with one another, and understand how to use meanings and symbols. So, central concern is not how people mentally create meanings and symbols but how they learn them during interaction in general and socialization in particular People learn symbols as well as meanings in social interaction.

9. Cont’d Symbols are social objects used to represent whatever people agree they shall represent. language is vast system of symbols. Symbols are crucial in allowing people to act in distinctively human ways actively creating and recreating the world acted in.

10. Cont’d Symbols in general and language in particular have many specific functions for the actor: Improves people‘s ability to perceive the environment Improves the ability to think (a symbol interaction with one‘s self) Enable people to deal with the material and social world (allows naming, categorizing and remembers objects encountered) Greatly increase the ability to solve various problems Allows actors to transcend (imagine) time, space, and even their own persons Allows us to imagine a metaphysical reality, such as heaven and hell Allows people to avoid being enslaved by their environment

11. Major Theorists George Herbert Mead (1863-1931 ) Mind, Self and Society Mead was a very important figure in 20th century social philosophy . Mind, Self and Society, one of his influential idea In this work Mead focuses on how mind and self emerge from the social process of communication by signs founded the symbolic interactionist school of sociology. Rooted intellectually in Hegelian dialectics and process philosophy evolution of ideas occurs through a dialectical (opposite/conflict), thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis

12. Mead and mind Mead presented the self and the mind in terms of a social process. The emergence of mind is dependent upon interaction between the human organism and its social environment; it is through participation in the social act of communication that the individual realizes their potential for significantly symbolic behavior, that is, thought . This approach opposed traditional view of the mind as separate from the body.

13. Cont’d For Mead, mind arises out of the social act of communication . actions occur within a communicative process. A gesture: it is a preparatory movement that enables other individuals to become aware of the intentions of the given organism. Mead grounded human perception in an "action-nexus”. We perceive the world in terms of the “ means of living” . To perceive food, is to perceive eating. To perceive a house, is to perceive shelter .

14. Mead and self The self arises when the individual becomes an object to themselves. Mead argued that we are objects first to other people, and secondarily we become objects to ourselves by taking the perspective of other people. Language enables us to talk about ourselves in the same way as we talk about other people, and thus through language we become other to ourselves. In joint activity, which Mead called 'social acts', humans learn to see themselves from the standpoint of their co-actors. It is through realizing ones role in relation to others that selfhood arises.

15. “I and me” The "Me" is the social self and the "I" is the response to the "Me." The "I" is the response of an individual to the attitudes of others , The "me" is the organized set of attitudes of others which an individual assumes . The "me" is the accumulated understanding of "the generalized other" i.e. how one thinks one's group perceives oneself, etc. The "I" is the individual's impulses. The "I" is self as subject; the "me" is self as object.

16. Role Taking Mead defines the self as the ability to take oneself as an object and identifies the basic mechanism of the development of the self as reflexivity – the ability to put ourselves into the place of others and act as they act. Mead makes it clear that a self can arise only through social experiences, As self gradually develops, children internalize the expectation of large members of people. The ability to take on roles eventually extends to being able to take the role of an abstract entity, the group as a whole.

17. Cont’d Taking the role of the other is essential if we are to become cooperative members of human groups-whether the family, peers or work . It is when we engage in interaction with that our behavior is influenced and influence other. Learning to take the role of the other goes through three stages Imitation Play Games

18. Cont’d I mitation: children under age 3 do not yet have a sense of self separate from other they can only imitate people's gestures and words. This stage is not actually role taking but prepares the child for it . Play: children from 3 to 5 or 6 age pretend to take the role of specific people (significant others). For instance, children first play the role of policeman and then the role of thief while playing "Cops and Robbers ,"

19. Cont’d At play stage the children's learns limited self because they can only take the role of distinct and separate others, they still lack a more general and organized sense of themselves . Games : at this stage, organized play or team game begins roughly with the early school years. The significance of the self is that to play these games the individual must be able to take multiple roles Children learn to take the role of (generalized others ).

20. Erving Goffman (1922-1982) Dramaturgy In his famous book entitled “ The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life”, Erving Goffman , frames out the theatrical performance that applies to face-to-face interactions . He believed that when an individual comes in contact with other people, that individual will attempt to control or guide the impression that others might make of him by changing or fixing his or her setting, appearance and manner . Goffman saw a connection between the kinds of acts that people put on in their daily life and theatrical performances.

21. Cont’d Dramaturgy is a view of social life as a series of dramatic performances , He was interested in how the self is shaped by the dramatic interactions between social actors and their audiences . The central theme in his work is impression management, or the techniques that social actors use to maintain particular images of themselves when they encounter problems during interactions.

22. Cont’d Goffman used the concepts of front stage, personal front, setting, appearance, manner, and back stage to discuss the theater of social life fronts tend to become institutionalized and are therefore selected rather than created (pretention and formal) Personal fronts consist of appearance, or expressive equipment that tells the audience what kind of role the performer expects to play in a particular situation . The back stage is where actors engage in informal action that is suppressed/prevent when on front stage.

23. Cont’d For example, when a lady who is attending a formal dinner—and who is certainly striving to present herself positively—trips, nearby party-goers may pretend not to have seen her fumble; they assist her in maintaining face.

24. Goffman and stigma Goffman also addressed the issue of stigma in his work. the shame or disgrace attached to something regarded as socially unacceptable sign of social unacceptability: Stigmas emerge when there is a gap between a person's virtual/near social identity and actual social identity . Goffman differentiated between two types of stigma Discredited stigmas, which actors assume when their stigmas are evident to audience members (like loss of a nose) and Discreditable stigmas, which audience members are unaware of unless an actor discloses this information (like his being infertile.) According to Goffman , we all possess some type of stigma, depending on the situations we are in (urban-rural disparity).

25. Interaction order The interaction order from the smallest to the largest will be presented as follows . Persons: whether single, couples or colleagues Contacts : either through physical co-presence, telephone conversation or letter exchange . Encounters: arrangements in which persons came together into small physical circle as participants in a consciously shared and interdependent undertaking; for example love making and card games. Platform performance: where activity is set before audience; for exam formal meeting and music play. Celebrative social occasions: gathering of in honor of some jointly appreciated circumstances

26. Herbert Blumer One of Blumer's major accomplishments was his invention of the term  symbolic interactionism  in 1937 . He saw humans acting towards social objects in terms of the meaning they attribute to those objects, rather than their  intrinsic  character.  Herbert Blumer defined interpretation in two ways, The first is actor's identification of the objects in a situation that has meaning The second is an internal communication with him or herself to decide which meaningful object to respond to.  Blumer identified symbolic interaction as a uniquely human process because it requires the definition and interpretation of language and gestures, and the determination of the meaning of the actions of others.

27. Cont’d There were two types of symbolic interactionism, symbolic and non-symbolic. Non-symbolic interactionism is non-reflective responsiveness to the action of another or others, symbolic interactionism there is an interactive response. Blumer believed there was no need to adopt scientific techniques and methods to observe symbolic interactionism; all you needed was a direct, empirical study.

28. Cont’d Blumer came up with three core principles to his theory . Meaning: humans act toward people and things based upon the meanings that they have given to those people or things.  Language: Language gives humans a means by which to negotiate meaning through symbols. Thought: Thought modifies each individual's interpretation of symbols. Thought, based-on language, is a mental conversation or dialogue that requires role taking, or imagining different points of view.

29. Labeling theory Labeling theory originating in sociology and criminology , labeling theory (also known as social reaction theory), was developed by sociologist Howard Becker . Labeling theory holds that deviance is not a quality of the act because it is the result of personality factors associated with committing deviance . The theory is concerned with how the self-identity and behavior of individuals may be determined or influenced by the terms used to describe or classify them. The theory was prominent in the 1960s and 1970s, and some modified versions of the theory have developed.

30. Cont’d If deviance is a failure to conform to the rules observed by most of the group Family and friends police officers or judges they label the person as having offended against their social or moral norms of behavior. The more differential the treatment, the more the individual's self-image is affected . There are problems with stereotypes . The breach of a rule may be treated differently depending on personal factors such as the age, gender , race , etc. of the rule-breaker

31. Cont’d The " criminal” the labels applied to individuals influence their behavior, particularly the application of negative or stigmatizing labels (such as " criminal " or " felon ") promote deviant behavior , They becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy , labeling theory postulates that it is possible to prevent social deviance via a limited social shaming reaction in "labelers" and replacing moral indignation with tolerance . Emphasis is placed on the rehabilitation of offenders through an alteration of their label(s).

32. Cont’d labeling either habitual criminals or those who have caused serious harm as "criminals" is not constructive. Society may use more specific labels such as " murderer " or " rapist " or " child abuser " to demonstrate more clearly after the event of its disapproval , Attaching/applying a long-term label may cause prejudice against the offender, resulting in the inability to maintain employment and social relationships.

33. Cont’d The "mentally ill“ Scheff challenged common perceptions of mental illness by claiming that mental illness is manifested solely as a result of societal influence . He argued that society views certain actions as deviant and, in order to come to terms with and understand these actions, often places the label of mental illness on those who exhibit them . In Gove’s view this idea in different way than Scheff , the mentally ill behave unnaturally a lot of the time because of their disorders, so we treat them differently . A dozens of studies indicated that labeling can have a very real and very large effect on the mentally ill. None of these studies, however, proved that labeling is the sole cause of any symptoms of mental illness.

34. Hard and soft labeling Hard labeling – People who believe in hard labeling believe that mental illness does not exist . It is merely deviance from the norms of society that cause people to believe in mental illness. Thus , mental illnesses are socially constructed illnesses and psychotic disorders do not exist.

35. Cont’d Soft labeling – People who believe in soft labeling believe that mental illnesses do, in fact, exist. Unlike the supporters of hard labeling, Soft labeling supporters believe that mental illnesses are not socially constructed.

36. Criticisms of Symbolic Interactionism and Its New Directions Symbolic interactionism has been criticized for relying too much on qualitative methodology and for failing to incorporate quantitative methodology into its research program. It has also been criticized for being too vague on the conceptual front (vagueness of essential Meadian concepts such as mind, self, I, and The other major criticism of symbolic interactionism has been of its tendency to downplay or ignore large-scale social structures .

37. Cont’d This criticism has been expressed in various ways . symbolic interactionism ignores the connectedness of outcomes to each other the micro focus of symbolic interactionism serves “to minimize or deny the facts of social structure and the impact of the macro-organizational features of society on behavior symbolic interactionism is not sufficiently microscopic, that it ignores the importance of factors such as the unconscious and emotions. Similarly , symbolic interactionism has been criticized for ignoring psychological factors such as needs, motives, intentions, and aspirations.