action theories

Question 1

Weber: social action theory

Answer 1

to gain a full understanding of human behaviour, the sociological explanation involves the level of cause and the level of meaning

weber identified 4 types of action associated with human behaviour:
- instrumentally rational action: action towards a goal that is desirable for one’s own sake
- traditional action: costumes, habitual actions, which are often automatic
- affectual action: action which expresses emotion

Question 2

symbolic interactionism: labelling theory

Answer 2

the definition of the situation - if we attach a label to something, it will affect the way we act and has real-life concequences (Thomas)

the looking glass self - self-concept comes from the ability to take the role of the other. this allows us to see ourselves as others see us. this leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy: we become as others see us. our label becomes part of our self concept (Cooley)

Question 3

symbolic interactionism: Mead

Answer 3

we create our world through actions and interactions, which are based on meanings we give to situations. our behaviour is not fixed, we give meanings to things which are important to us by attaching symbols to the world.

when something happens, we embark on an interpretive phase before responding to it, in order to select an appropriate response (e.g. if someone swears at you, you interpret whether this was out of anger or a joke)

we work out meanings by taking the role of the other - to function in society, we must see ourselves as others do, which helps us share symbols and language to act as others require us to

Question 4

symbolic interactionism: Blumer

Answer 4

there are three key principles to our actions
- our actions are based on meanings we give to situations and are not instinctive
- these meanings come from the interaction process, they are not fixed and are changeable to an extent
- the meanings we give to situations are dependent on the interpretive process we use, especially by taking the role of the other

Question 5

symbolic interactionism: Goffman

Answer 5

elements of Goffman’s dramaturgical model include:
- actively constructing ourselves through manipulating other people’s impressions of us
- uses the analogy of drama to analyse social interaction: we are actors who use scripts and props with the aim of giving a convincing performance
- we seek to control the presentation of self -give people a particular impression of us. to do this we must control our impression management
- our roles are interchangeable - there are backstage roles where we can be ourselves, and front stage roles where we act out roles

Question 6

Phenomenology: Schutz

Answer 6

typifications - categories and concepts shared with other members of society:
- typifications allow use to stabilise meaning and make sure we agree on the meanings of things, which make it possible to cooperate and communicate
- without typifications, social order would not be possible

Question 7

phenomenology: Husserl

Answer 7

we never have definite knowledge of what the world outside our mind is really like - only what our sense tells us about it. the world only makes sense because we classify and clarify information into mental categories. we can only get knowledge through the process of categorising

Question 8

ethnomethodology: Garfinkel

Answer 8

social orders created from the bottom up, order and meaning are therefore an accomplishment - something members actively construct in every-day life using common sense knowledge

ethnomethodology is therefore different to interactionism because it does not focus on the effect of meanings but instead how meanings were created int he first place

Garfinkel believes in indexicality - nothing has fixed meaning, it depends on context