symbolic interactionism
(Georg Simmel)
-social structure is maintained through organized activities of individuals with goals and intentions
-social structure only exists to the degree that people orient themselves toward it and internalize it
-objective and subjective culture
-
Objective culture
Parts of culture outside the individual
Subjective culture
Peoples ability to produce, internalize, and maintain objective culture
George mead's two questions
-how are human societies possible?
-what makes us human?
How are human societies possible?
Through our unique ability to create and manipulate significant symbols that have shared meaning for everyone in society
What makes us human?
Our ability to have a self , send the consciousness of self allows us to take a step outside ourselves and think about who we are
2 parts of the self
I and me
3 stages of development
Imitation stage, play stage, game stage
Imitation stage
First few years of life, we watch and imitate others actions
Play stage
Able to understand roles in a simple way, certain roles do certain things, reenact learned roles
Game stage
Able to understand complex relationships between roles and someone who is in a different position than we are, expectations are different dependent upon position
3 things we can do in the game stage
Take the role of the other, take the role of the generalized other, think introspectively
Dramaturgy
(erving goffman)
-when in the presence of others, we present a character to others, like actors on a stage
-need others to believe that we are who we say we are
Impression management
-describes our reference to control the information we give to others
-try to fool people of who we are
-tact
-we incorporate the official values of society into our act
Tact
Taking others sensibilities into consideration and try not to offend them
Passing
Presenting yourself to others as if you didn't have stigma
Covering
Admitting the stigma explicitly or implicitly but doing something to make it less intrusive in social interaction like making jokes about it
Phenomenology
(Alfred schutz)
-definitions come to be our stock of knowledge
-stock of knowledge revolves around "central myth"
-every society has a way of cognitively ordering the universe
-our definition of world depends on our own groups interpretation
-language is
Central myth
World view
Ethnomethodology
(Harold garfinkel)
-studying the methods that ordinary people use to make sense of their everyday world
-social interaction is our agreement to agree with others
-background expectancies
-preposterous events
-"telling is doing"
-breaching experiments
-whe
Exchange theory
(George humans)
-each persons behavior rewards or punished the other person
-more likely to engage if reward outweighs the risks
5 behavioral propositions
-success prop
-stimulus prop
-value prop
-deprivation-satiation prop
-frustration-aggression prop
The success proposition
The more often a particular behavior produces a reward, more likely person is to engage in that behavior
The stimulus proposition
The more similar any given action is to some previous action that has produced a reward, the more likely a person is to engage in that action
The value prop
The more valued a reward is, the more often a person will engage in that behavior
The deprivation-satiation prop
Is this reward something that you're deprived of or in need of? No will reward, yes will not
The frustration-aggression prop
If someone fails to receive expected reward/unexpected punishment, then one becomes angry and engages in aggressive behavior
Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore (some principles of social stratification)
To fill high positions, make reward greater than rewards for other positions, provides incentive
Richard Emerson
-focused on power relationships