ACTION THEORY

Question 1

What is Action theory?

What is voluntarism?…

Answer 1

Action theories are the opposite of structural theories (Marxism, functionalism etc)

They are micro level – bottom-up approaches that focus on actions of the individual.

Voluntarism is emphasised… individuals HAVE free will and choice. Our actions are not determined by society.

We possess agency… we have the ability to act as free agents, to create and shape society through our choices.

Question 2

What are the four action theories in sociology?

Answer 2

Weber’s social action theory

Symbolic interactionism

Phenomenology

Ethnomethodology

Question 3

WEBER’S SOCIAL ACTION THEORY

What is the level of cause and the level of meaning?

Answer 3

Any sociological explanation has two levels… the level of cause and the level of meaning.

The level of cause explains the objective structural factors that shape people’s behaviour.

The level of meaning explains the subjective meanings that individuals attach to their actions.

Question 4

WEBER’S SOCIAL ACTION THEORY

Weber’s study of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

Answer 4

Weber’s study of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, which was originally published in 1905.

The Protestant Reformation introduced Calvinism, which was a new belief system. This changed people’s worldview e.g., Calvinism promoted a work ethic that brought the rise of capitalism.

The subjective meaning: the Calvinists saw work as religious as they believed it was a calling from God to glorify his name through their labours, which motivated them to work systematically. They accumulated wealth consequently and they became the first modern capitalists.

Question 5

WEBER’S SOCIAL ACTION THEORY

What are the four different meanings that people attach to their actions?

Answer 5

INSTRUMENTALLY RATIONAL ACTION

VALUE RATIONAL ACTION

TRADITIONAL ACTION

AFFECTUAL ACTION

Question 6

WEBER’S SOCIAL ACTION THEORY

Four meanings people attach to their actions:

Instrumentally Rational Action

Answer 6

This is where the actor calculates the most efficient way of achieving a given goal.

A capitalist may calculate the way to make the most profit whilst paying low wages.

This action is not about whether the goal is desirable, but about reaching it most efficiently e.g., it doesn’t matter if it’s genocide or distributing charity.

Question 7

WEBER’S SOCIAL ACTION THEORY

Four meanings people attach to their actions:

Value Rational Action

Answer 7

This is about action towards a goal that the actor regards as desirable for its own sake… a believer worshipping their god in order to get to heaven.

There is no way in figuring out if achieving the goal is done so effectively, because the believer does not know whether they will get to heaven simply by performing certain rituals.

Question 8

WEBER’S SOCIAL ACTION THEORY

Four meanings people attach to their actions:

Traditional Action

Answer 8

Customary or habitual actions. This is not rational because no conscious thought or choice has gone into it, but the individual does it because they believe that they have always done it.

Question 9

WEBER’S SOCIAL ACTION THEORY

Four meanings people attach to their actions:

Affectual Action

Answer 9

The one that best expresses emotion. Crying after finding out about someone’s death etc. Weber believes this is fundamentally important in religious and political movements which attract a following based on emotional appeal.

Question 10

EVALUATING WEBER’S SOCIAL ACTION THEORY

What does Alfred Shutz believe?

Answer 10

Alfred Shutz addresses how Weber’s view of action is far too individualistic and cannot explain the shared nature of the meanings. E.g., Weber doesn’t explain how some meanings are universal.

Question 11

EVALUATING WEBER’S SOCIAL ACTION THEORY

Weber and verstehen

Answer 11

Weber advocated verstehen – we cannot ever BE someone, and so we may never truly understand someone’s motives.

Question 12

SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM

What does this mean/focus on?

Answer 12

This focuses on our abilities to create the social world through interactions and actions and sees these actions as based on the meanings we give situations.

We convey meanings through symbols e.g., language

G.H Mead is the key sociologist for this segment.

Question 13

SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM

Mead - Symbol V Instincts

Answer 13

Mead found that our behaviour is not shaped by pre-programmed instincts because we respond to the world by giving meanings to things that are significant to us.

We create and inhabit our world of meanings, by attaching symbols to the world.

Unlike animals, we do not respond to the stimulus in a pre-determined way as we have an interpretive phase that comes between the stimulus and our reaction. We choose an accurate response after interpreting the meaning.

Question 14

SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM

Mead - example for the difference between symbols and instincts

Answer 14

Mead uses this example: When one dog snarls, the snarl behaves as a direct stimulus to which the second dog responds instinctively to, adopting a defensive posture.

However, if I shake my fist at you, I am using a symbol which potentially has multiple meanings. To understand what the meaning is, you have to interpret it. Am I angry, am I joking?

Question 15

SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM

Mead - Taking the role of the other

Answer 15

According to Mead, we interpret the other’s meaning through taking the role of the other – putting ourselves in the place of the other person.

We are able to develop this skill through social interaction – we do this as young children through imitative play when we take on the role of parents, for example, where we see ourselves as they later see us.

For Mead, to function effectively, we need to see ourselves as others see us… through shared symbols (language) we become conscious of the way we must behave.

Question 16

SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM

Herbert Blumer - who is this and what did he do?

Answer 16

Following Mead’s death, Blumer did much to systemise his ideas… he identified three primary principles.

Question 17

SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM

Herbert Blumer’s three primary principles

Answer 17

1. Our actions are based on the meanings we give to situations, events, people. Our actions are not based on automatic responses to stimuli.
2. These meanings arise from the interaction process, as they are not fixed at the outset of interaction… they are negotiable.
3. The meanings we give to situations are the result of the interpretive procedures we use.

Question 18

SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM

Herbert Blumer - contrast with functionalism?

Answer 18

Blumer’s ideas contrast significantly with Functionalism because functionalists see the individual as the puppet, who passively responds to the system’s needs.

Socialisation ensures that the individuals conform to society’s norms and perform their roles in a fixed way.

Question 19

SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM

Herbert Blumer - predictable behaviour?

Answer 19

Blumer believes that our actions are partly predictable because we internalise expectations of others, but that our action is still not completely fixed as we have choice in HOW we perform our roles.

Question 20

SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM

Labelling Theory -
definition of the situation

Answer 20

A definition for something is a label for something… if we believe something to be true, then this will affect how we act, and this will have consequences for those involved.

E.g., you’re troublesome, so I will punish you more harshly.

Question 21

SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM

Labelling Theory -
the looking glass self and Charles Cooley

Answer 21

Charles Cooley uses the looking glass self to describe how we develop our self-concept, as he believes this arises out of our ability to take the role of the other.

In an interaction, we come to take the role of the other, and so we come to see ourselves as they see us – others act as a looking glass to us.

We are mirrored in their response to us.

A self-fulfilling prophecy occurs during this process, and we become what others see us as.

The definition of the situation and the looking glass self can be used to understand the impacts of labelling.

E.g., individuals may find that relatives define him as mentally ill and respond to him differently… based on their perception of what sick or abnormal means. The label becomes part of the individual’s self-concept as they take on the role of the mental patient and the self-fulfilling prophecy is fulfilled.

Question 22

SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM

Labelling Theory - careers and Becker

Answer 22

Labelling theorists such as Becker extended this concept of a career to apply it to groups such as medical students and paranoiacs.

E.g., having a mental illness = pre-patient, to hospital in-patient, to discharge. Each stage has a status, and its own issues. Like a normal career can give us a status, our ‘mental patient’ status can also become our master status.

Question 23

SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM - DRAMATURGICAL MODEL

Erving Goffman’s beliefs briefly summarised

Answer 23

Erving Goffman believes we actively construct our self through the manipulation of other people’s impressions of us.

Goffman’s approach is described as dramaturgical because he uses dramatic analogies to framework social interaction.

We are actors, using scripts, and props, resting backstage, between performances that present to our audiences.

Question 24

SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM - DRAMATURGICAL MODEL

Goffman and Impression Management

Answer 24

Goffman believes that we seek to present particular images of ourselves to our audiences.

To do this, we have to control the impression our performance gives off.

This means we must continually study our audience to see how they respond and adjust our performance accordingly.

We manage the impression through many ways e.g., language and tone of voice, and décor, and make-up.

Using this skilfully means we can ‘pass’ for the kind of person we want our audience to believe we are.

Goffman uses stage-terms to describe how backstage (home) we can step out of our role and be ourselves. In the classroom, we may put on a show, but in the common room, we can drop the act.

Question 25

SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM - DRAMATURGICAL MODEL

Goffman and Roles

Answer 25

Goffman’s view of roles differs strongly from the functionalist perspective… functionalists believe our roles are tightly ‘scripted’ by society and so we completely internalise our script via socialisation.

Goffman rejects this in favour of arguing that there is a distance between our real self and our roles.

Goffman believes that we are not the roles that we play. He believes that roles are loosely scripted by society and so we have a large deal of freedom in how we play these roles e.g., studious, and lazy students.

Role distance also suggests that we may not always believe in the roles we play and that our performance may be calculated.

The actor may resemble a confident trickster, who manipulates his audience into accepting the impression that conceals his true self.

Appearances are changed so that the actor can present themselves to their best advantage.

Question 26

EVALUATING SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM

Ignorance

Answer 26

It neglects wider social structures like class inequality and such.

Question 27

EVALUATING SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM

Reynolds’ questionnaire

Answer 27

Reynolds sent a questionnaire to 124 interactionists of whom 84 responded – they were asked to identify concepts they felt were essential, 38 chose role, 37 chose self, and 37 chose interaction. only 2 chose power or class which structural sociologists view as fundamental…

Symbolic interactionism is correct then?

Question 28

EVALUATING SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM

Why the dramaturgical model is insufficient

Answer 28

Not all our actions are meaningful… traditional action is performed unconsciously and may have little meaning for the actors.

In interactions, everyone plays actor and audience – they are unrehearsed and improvised, not scripted.

Question 29

PHENOMENOLOGY

What is this? Who developed this?

Answer 29

Husserl developed phenomenology…

He argues that the world only makes sense because we impose meaning and order on it through the construction of mental categories that we use to ‘file’ information coming from our senses e.g., four-legged furniture for eating off of allows us to recognise a table.

From this perspective, we can only obtain knowledge of the world through mental acts of categorising and giving meaning to our experiences

Question 30

PHENOMENOLOGY

What does Alfred Schutz do?

Answer 30

Alfred Schutz applies this to the social world, as he argues that the categories and concepts, we use are not unique to ourselves, because we share them with other members of society.

Question 31

PHENOMENOLOGY

Alfred Schutz - Typifications

Answer 31

Shared categories are identified as typification’s.

These enable us to organise our experiences into shared meanings - In Schutz’ view, the meaning of any given experience varies because of its social context.

The meaning is not given by the action but the situation it takes place in.

Meanings may be unclear and unstable, particularly if others classify it differently to yourself.

Though, typification’s stabilise and clarify meanings by ensuring we all agree on the meanings of things. This makes it rare for miscommunication etc. Social order would not exist without these typification’s.

Question 32

PHENOMENOLOGY

Typifications:
Alfred Schutz - ‘life world’ and ‘recipe knowledge’

Answer 32

In Schutz’ view, members of society have a shared ‘life world’, which is a stock of shared common-sense knowledge that enables us to make sense of our experiences.

Schutz calls this ‘recipe knowledge’ because we can follow it without thinking too much and still get desired results in everyday life. E.g., we all know red means stop/danger.

This helps us when driving and walking. This knowledge is not about the world, for it is the world.

Question 33

PHENOMENOLOGY

Typifications:
Schutz and Husserl - what is the world a product of?

Answer 33

Husserl states rightfully that the world can only be a product of our mind. For Schutz, the social world is shared and can only exist we share the same meanings.

Question 34

PHENOMENOLOGY

Schutz - Natural Attitude

Answer 34

Society appears to be real to us, though it appears to exist outside of us.

Schutz uses the example of posting a letter to a bookshop to order a book.

By doing so, he believes we are assuming that some unknown person will perform a series of operations in a sequence which would end in us receiving the book.

We do get the book, and so this encourages us to adopt a ‘natural attitude’, which leads us to assume that the social world is a solid, natural thing.

For Schutz, this highlights how all of those involved share the same meanings which allows us to cooperate and achieve goals.

Question 35

EVALUATING PHENOMENOLOGY

Our society is not inter-subjective… Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann

Answer 35

Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann argue that though Schutz is right to focus on shared knowledge, they reject his view that our society is inter-subjective, highlighted by how Schutz believes that once society has been constructed, it takes on a life of its own and becomes an external reality that reacts back on us. E.g., religious ideas start of in our consciousness, but they are solidified in powerful structures such as the churches, who then constrain us through influencing laws on homosexuality and such.

Question 36

ETHNOMETHODOLOGY

Where and when did this perspective emerge?

Answer 36

Emerged in the USA during the 1960s.

Question 37

ETHNOMETHODOLOGY

The main players in this perspective outlined

Garfinkel and how he differs from Schutz and Parsons

Answer 37

Harold Garfinkel influenced this heavily through the ideas stemming from phenomenology… like Schutz, he rejects the very idea of society being ‘out there’..

Garfinkel wanted to know how social order was achieved.

Parsons believed that social order is made possible by a shared value system into which we are socialised - though, Garfinkel believes that social order is created from the bottom up. He believes that order and meaning are not achieved through puppetry, but rather, our social order is an accomplishment.

Question 38

ETHNOMETHODOLOGY

What is this perspective?

Answer 38

It tries to uncover how we actively construct our social order in everyday life using common-sense knowledge.

They study how people understand the world.

Question 39

ETHNOMETHODOLOGY

What is the difference between interactionists and Ethnomethodologists?

Answer 39

Interactionists care about how meanings have effects, but EM is interested in the methods we use to produce those meanings in the first place

Question 40

ETHNOMETHODOLOGY

Garfinkel - Indexicality and reflexivity

What is indexicality?

Answer 40

Garfinkel calls the ‘meanings always being potentially unclear’ as indexicality. Nothing has a fixed meeting and so everything depends on its context. Indexicality is a threat to social order because communication can become unclear, and this may cause social relationships to break down.

Question 41

ETHNOMETHODOLOGY

Garfinkel - Indexicality and reflexivity

Paradox of indexicality

Answer 41

There is a paradox, as indexicality suggests we cannot take any meaning as fixed or clear, but we do this most of the time.

Garfinkel believes that reflexivity is what enables us to behave as if meanings are clear.

This refers to how we use common-sense knowledge to construct a meaning of sense and order to stop indexicality from happening, similar to typification’s.

Question 42

ETHNOMETHODOLOGY

Garfinkel - Indexicality and reflexivity

The importance of language

Answer 42

Language is fundamental for establishing reflexivity, because for EM, when we describe something, we are creating it at the same time.

Our description gives it depth and reality and removes uncertainty surrounding it. However, though language gives us a sense of existing ‘out there’ it really is just constructing a set of shared meanings

Question 43

ETHNOMETHODOLOGY

Garfinkel - Experiments in disrupting social order

‘breaching experiments’

Answer 43

Garfinkel tried to demonstrate social order through ‘breaching experiments.

Garfinkel and his students tried to behave as lodgers in their own families by being polite and avoiding personal touch… this was to disrupt people’s sense of order and challenging their reflexivity by undermining assumptions.

Parents of the students called them nasty or assumed they were ill because of the switch in behaviour

Question 44

ETHNOMETHODOLOGY

Garfinkel - Experiments in disrupting social order

Conclusion of the breaching experiments

Answer 44

He concluded that by challenging people’s assumptions, the experiments highlighted the orderliness of everyday life, and showed how they were not inevitable but actually an achievement of those who take part in them. He believed that social order is produced by the members themselves.

Question 45

ETHNOMETHODOLOGY

Garfinkel - Suicide and Reflexivity

The example of suicide/coroners

Answer 45

Garfinkel wanted to see what methods we used to achieve reflexivity, to make the world orderly.

Coroners, for example, make sense of death by selecting features of numerous facts about the dead such as their employment or mental health, and then using them as real patterns.

They might use this, for example, to conclude that typical suicides happen to the mentally ill and unemployed.

Garfinkel believes that humans are continually trying to impose order by seeking patterns which are really just social constructs. The pattern those suicides are mentally ill mean that this sets the precedent for future cases of suicide.

The coroner interprets them as examples of the assumed pattern. Cases that follow the pattern will be classified as suicides and will seem to improve the existence of the pattern that the coroner had constructed.

This pattern becomes self-reinforcing which doesn’t actually give us any insight into the external reality

Question 46

ETHNOMETHODOLOGY

Garfinkel - Suicide and Reflexivity

G’s criticism of conventional sociology

Answer 46

Garfinkel criticises conventional sociology of using the same methods as ordinary members of society to create order and meaning, which means conventional sociology is not actual objective knowledge.

Sociologists’ beliefs on suicide, consequently, are no truer than those of other members of society as we use the methods of the coroners to identify who committed suicide – this is the decision made by the coroner, using their understanding (common-sense knowledge) of what kinds of people end their lives.