Symbolic Interactionism: A Sociological Theory of Socialization and Self-Development, Slides of Sociology

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Symbolic Interactionism

Sheldon Stryker

Introduction

 Symbolic Interactionism are both a general framework for the analysis of society and a social psychological theory addressed to problems of socialization

 Theory vs. Frames of Reference:

• “Theory” (1) Is a set of logically related hypotheses specifying expected relationships among variables (2) Is based on concepts describing selected aspects of the world and assumptions about the way it works, and open to falsification through evidence drawn from the world (3) Incorporates the concepts provided by a frame of reference
• “Frame of reference (1) For sociologist, symbolic interactionism is a frame of reference or a perspective (2) It must give short shrift to some potentially significant determinants of social behavior by the very act of directing attention to its special concerns

William James

 Habit

-the basis of habit is memory -instincts are both modifiable and transitive

 The Self

-is “the sum total of all that an individual can call his” -four types of self—the material self; the spiritual self; the social self; pure ego -the social self -is the recognition given one by others; derivative of relationships with others -emphasizes on the self’s multifaceted character multifaceted self as the product of heterogeneously organized society -one’s self-worth/self-esteem is a function of the ratio of success to presentation two basis of self-esteem: objective basis=the recognition one gets from others; subjective basis=one’s own aspirations

James Mark Baldwin

 Personality Development

(1) Projective Stage—being aware of others, drawing

differences between them and objects

(2) Subjective Stage—emergence of self-consciousness

through imitating the behavior of others and learning

that there are feeling states associated with such

behavior

(3) Ejective Stage—associates feeling states with its

conceptions of persons and becomes aware that

other persons have feeling states just as it does

Charles Horton Cooley

 Social Self

(the reflected/looking glass self)

-The self is a social product; it is defined and

developed in social action

-Three components:

(1) Imagination of our appearance to other person (2) Imagination of other person’s judgment to our

appearance (3) Self-feeling from these imaginations

W. I. Thomas

 Basic Position

-any human behavior needs to cope with the subjective and objective facts of experience -adjustment processes are responses to objective circumstances in which individuals and groups are embedded

 Definitions of the situation

-subjective components of experience -"If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences”

 Methodology

-personal documents (case studies, diaries, letters…) studies -they provide the participant's definition of the situation that purely observation and statistical studies failed to do

George Hebert Mead

 The Self

-it is a product of social interaction

-it is a social structure and it arises in social experience

-it exists in the activity of viewing oneself reflexively

• “role-taking”: taking the standpoint of others
• “I” and “Me”
  • “I”—the responses of the person to the organized attitudes of others; contains the creativity and spontaneity parts of the self
  • “Me”—anticipating others’ responses on the basis of common participation in a communication process

-three stages in developing the self: play stage, game stage, generalized others

George Simmel

 Approach to Sociological Theory

(1) Society

• “the name for a number of individuals, connected by interaction” -a structure of positions (vocations)

(2) Forms of social life

-social process, social types, developmental patterns

(3) Sociation

-the interaction of minds, the conscious association of person -sociation requires individual to be “generalized”: the individual must be more than or less than an individual personality to be a part of society

The Social Person

 Role

-Status & Position

-Role Theory: “status” and “position” refer to the

parts of organized social groups

-S.I.: “position” refers to any socially recognized

category of actors

• “Role”=expectations which are attached to

positions

-Actors categorize themselves and respond to

themselves by naming, classifying, and defining

who and what they are to engage in such

reflexive behavior is to have a self.

The Social Person

 Self

-the self is a product of social interaction -is phenomenological -is based on reflexive activity -has physical or biological location -Mead: “One’s self is the way one describes to himself his relationship to other in a social process.” -Stryker’s concept of self: -identity -identity salience—refers to one possible, theoretically important way in which the self can be organized -Salience hierarchy—the higher the identity in the hierarchy, the more likely that the identity will be invoked in a given or in many situations -commitment—commitments are premised on identities

Social Structure

 System

-Anything that can be analyzed into a set of parts so that one part is in some way dependent on each of the remaining parts. -The self can be conceptualized as a set of discrete identities organized into a hierarchy of salience is to say that the self is a system composed of interrelated parts.

-Social Interaction

-Interactions can be short (two persons say hello to another) or long (the relationships between doctor and patient, parent and child)

-Longer interactions develop expectations with respect to the properties that are be observed in the interactions

Social Structure

 System

-Group -Networks of interaction with a high degree of closure -It is structured by both cooperative and conflictful interactions -Groups are systems of interpersonal relationships which tend to be normatively defined, or to contain normative elements -Groups are structures of differentiated relationships; they are structures of positions and roles -Groups is formed of people sharing some structural characteristic (age, class, ethnicity…etc.) -Scheduling -One of the social mechanisms to isolate groups from one another or to guarantee that contact will happen

Social Structure

 Role Constrain

-It is caused by the problem of maintaining continuity

-It can be defined as a felt difficulty in filling role

obligations

-Mechanism to reduce role strain: elimination of some

role relationships; establish interactional role bargains

that minimize costs

• “Role-set”