Social Action theories/ Interpretivist theories Learning Objectives To know and understand social action theories To be able to apply social action theories to society To be able to evaluate social action theories compared to functionalism and Marxism.

Core beliefs Focus is on individual behaviour in everyday social situations Seek to uncover the process by which interactions between individuals or small groups of individuals take place Emphasise the free will and choice of individuals, and their role in creating the social structure.

Continued… Social structures and society as a whole is a construct. They are constructed by individuals Free will or voluntarism determines people’s behaviour not the broader societal structures Social action theorists study small groups or individuals – micro approach. Interpretivist methods. People’s behaviour is determined by their beliefs, meanings, feelings and emotions they give to situations. Sociologists must seek to understand these. Main methodology is interpretivist, using qualitative methods. The best means of doing this is, as far as possible, through empathy – seeing the world through the eyes of those they are studying.

Symbolic Interactionism This theory focuses on small scale interactions rather than on the social structure. It tries to identify how meanings are constructed through social action. These actions are based on the meanings we give to situations, conveyed through symbols. A symbol is something like an object, word, expression or gesture, that stands for something else and to which individuals have attached some meaning. It argues that people have a degree of control and influence over social behaviour.

Herbert Mead (1863-1931) People define and interpret the world through the meanings they attach to it. Reality is therefore a subjective reality. The meanings people hold are constructed from and communicated in the form of symbols. Social life is a constant stream of symbolic communication with meanings being constantly negotiated and re-negotiated. People can do this by being able to take the role of the other i.e. putting ourselves in their place and seeing ourselves as others see us.

Blumer (1969) Blumer identified three key principles of interactionism: People act in terms of symbols, and they act towards people and things in accordance with these meanings. These meanings arise from interactions and are to some extent negotiable and changeable. Meanings arise from interpretive process, as people try to interpret the meanings others give to their actions by imagining themselves in their position and taking on their role. Individuals can only develop a conception of them selves by understanding how others see them, and they will be unable to interact successfully with other unless they can do this. Blumer argues that although our action is partly predictable because we internalise the expectations of others, there is always some room for choice in how we perform our roles. This contrasts with structuralism approaches which see people simply acting out roles handed down by the social structure, as people are in constant process or forming and negotiating roles and how they interact with others.

The looking-glass self – Cooley (1998) Our image of ourselves is reflected back at us in the views of others. As we consider the image of ourselves reflected in the reactions of other people to us, we may modify and change our view of ourselves and our behaviour. ‘I am not what I think I am and I am not what you think I am; I am what I think you think I am.’

The looking-glass self – Cooley (1998) An individual may see him/her self as outgoing, friendly and sociable, but if others see them as introverted, unfriendly and stand-offish, they might adopt a new self-identity in accordance with how others see them, or modify their behaviour and try and change people’s views of them. Our self-concept and social role are not therefore simply handed down by the social structure, but socially constructed and subject to constant change through the process of interaction. A smile is an object that is just a physical contortion of the face, but people have learnt through interaction with others to attach to smiling the symbolic meaning of warmth and friendliness. Language is one of the main ways of humans negotiating meaning – through words (symbols) that carry meaning.

The looking-glass self – Cooley (1998) Symbolic interactionism therefore sees society and social order made possible by and based on shared meanings which are developed and learned through the process of interaction. Can you think of some common symbols that are used in everyday social interaction, what they stand for and what consequences might follow if someone did not understand or misinterprets their meaning?

How many words can you make from theory and methods?

Labelling theory This suggests that people label or define individuals or situations in particular ways. How these labels become applied and how individuals react to them will determine people’s behaviour. Can you think of any examples of this in society and how sociologists may overcome this?

Labelling theory - examples The way teacher’s attitudes, streaming and labelling can influence educational achievement and lead to self-fulfilling prophecies, as students bring their behaviour in line with their label attached by the teacher. Consequences that follow people labelled as mentally ill, where the attachment of the label may make the condition worse.

Goffman (1990) and ‘impression management’ Labelling theory sees the individual as the passive victim of other people’s labels. Goffman disagrees and argues that we construct our ‘self’ Goffman’s approach is often described as ‘dramaturgical analogy’, it uses analogies with drama e.g. actors, scripts etc. Society is like a stage, with people acting out performances like an actor. As in theatre, people’s roles are not fixed, and they can interpret their roles in many different ways. People are aware they are doing this and life is a process of self presentation. We use props, stages etc. to control how we appear to others. This is made possible by our ability to see ourselves as others see us. People are constantly putting on a ‘show’ to try and convince others of the identities they wish to assert. This is called ‘impression management’.

‘Impression Management’ Is achieved by using symbols of various kinds, like clothing and music to demonstrate the kind of the person they want to be seen as. Goffman says everyone is engaged in the process of manipulating others and being manipulated by giving the best possible impression of themselves.

Ethnomethodology – Garfinkel (1984) Ethnomethodology means the study of methods used by people, which they use to make sense of and construct order in their everyday social world. This approach was founded by the American sociologist Harold Garfinkel (1967). He argues that society does not have any social structure, social order or patterned interaction that exists outside of individuals’ consciousness. Social order is an illusion, and only appears to exists because members of society create it in their own minds and impose a sense of order using their own common-sense procedures and culturally embedded rules and assumptions.

Ethnomethodology – Garfinkel (1984) He suggests that social reality is simply a social construction (read Atkinson’s study of suicide – P385). He was interested in discovering how individuals make sense of the social world, and impose some sense of order in their daily lives. He sought to expose people’s taken-for-granted assumptions and the rules they impose on the world by experimental techniques known as ‘breaching experiments’. Breaching experiments aimed to examine people’s reactions to the breaching of their taken for granted everyday assumptions embodied in every day social class rules (read p385 bottom paragraph).

Garfinkel continued All we can do is try to understand the ways in which people try to make sense of, or restore order to, the world. Garfinkel argues that social order is created from the ‘bottom up’. It is something members of society actively construct in everyday life using their common-sense knowledge. The sociologist’s task is this to uncover taken-for-granted rules people use to construct social reality.

Evaluation – strength or weakness? It shows that humans beings create and negotiate meanings and make sense of the world either through interaction with others or by drawing their own common-sense understandings. It does not explain people’s motivations – the reasons for what to do and what they hope to achieve by their actions. Postmodernists would suggest that social action theory is the same as any other theory that claims to provide a full explanation of social life. It is one competing view point, all of which provide equally valid insights into society. It recognises, unlike structuralism, to fully explain people’s actions and the creation of social order it is necessary to understand people’s meanings and motivation they attach to their behaviour. It underestimates the distribution of power in society. Not everyone has the same chance of getting their definition of others to ‘stick’. The interpretivist approach and the use of qualitative methods means findings often have high levels of validity. People do not have free choices, and structures and differences in life are real, not simply social constructions in the consciousness of individuals, i.e. poverty is real affecting people’s health and life expectancy. It recognises that people have reasons and motives for what they do and suggests people are not just puppets moulded by the social system. Therefore it overcomes the determinism of structuralism (functionalism) and classic Marxist theories. It doesn’t pay sufficient attention to the structure of society (power, social class, gender, ethnic inequalities) and the constraints on individual behaviour that comes from these. It provides insight into how the social construction of meanings through interaction has consequences for individuals.

Home Study Research Phenonmenology (Schutz) as a social action theory. Complete the social action theory plan.