Powerpoint #4 - Social Interaction

Question 1

What is social structure?

Answer 1

regular patterns of behavior/social interactions and persistent social relationships

Question 2

What are the three theoretical perspectives?

Answer 2

1. Symbolic Interactionism
2. The Dramaturgical Perspective
3. Social Exchange

Question 3

What is social interaction?

Answer 3

the basis for social life, the process by which people affect on another through actions, interpretations of actions, and responses to actions

Question 4

What is the normative structure?

Answer 4

expectations attached to a position

Question 5

What is the occupational structure?

Answer 5

distribution among social positions

Question 6

What is the stratification system?

Answer 6

distribution of social rewards

Question 7

What is social status?

Answer 7

socially recognized position in a social system

-defined in many ways: occupation, education, age, etc

Question 8

What is an ascribed status?

Answer 8

a status you are assigned without regard to actions, desires, or abilities (ex. age, race, “daughter/son”, etc)

Question 9

What is an achieved status?

Answer 9

a social status that you have achieved through your actions (ex. college graduate, student, criminal, etc)

Question 10

What is a status set?

Answer 10

set of all statuses occupied by someone at one time

Question 11

What is a master status?

Answer 11

a position that is so important it dominates all other statuses in a status set for both the individual and the people around them (ex. President, athlete, disabled, etc)

Question 12

What is a manifest status?

Answer 12

a status that defines/structures the role set for a particular situation

Question 13

What is a latent status?

Answer 13

a status formally defined as irrelevant to a situation and which should have no bearing on interaction

Question 14

How do social statuses provide continuity during change?

Answer 14

• social statuses continue once a particular individual is gone
• someone can change social statuses at any time

Question 15

What is a social role?

Answer 15

a set of expectations for anyone occupying a particular social status (ex. preacher)

Question 16

What is a role set?

Answer 16

a set of all roles associated with a particular social status (ex. a mother being expected to care for her child, no matter who she is as an individual)

Question 17

What is role performance?

Answer 17

actions by an individual occupying a social status based on their role (ex. musician playing in a concert)

Question 18

What is role making?

Answer 18

modifications/changes in roles as a result of individual actions by people occupying those roles (ex. police officer being more brutal makes people think other police will be brutal too)

Question 19

What is role strain?

Answer 19

difficulties meeting the expectations of a single role

Question 20

What is role conflict?

Answer 20

when different roles have incompatible expectations

Question 21

What is role segregation?

Answer 21

avoid statuses invoking incompatible roles with the same role partner (ex. teachers avoiding romantic relationships with students)

Question 22

What is role distancing?

Answer 22

a separation of one’s self from the role one must play, strategy to separate identity from action (ex. mother giving medicine to child when they won’t like it and she doesn’t want to give it, a doctor cracking jokes in OR to relieve tension)

Question 23

How do roles make life manageable?

Answer 23

• predict behavior of others (ex. students predict teachers will give tests)
• provide expectations for how you should act (ex. not snoring in class)
• generalize behavior from one setting to another

Question 24

How do roles limit behavior?

Answer 24

• can oversimplify behavior, encouraging routine responses instead of thoughtful initiative (ex. taking notes and not asking engaging questions)
• may encourage relating to people based on stereotypes (ex. relate to children as children and not recognizing their individual characteristics)

Question 25

What is a stereotype?

Answer 25

generalization about certain set of people saying they have specific characteristics, not accounting for individuals

Question 26

What is a self-fulfilling prophesy?

Answer 26

an assumption that, once having been made, leads to a predicted event happening
–> Snyder: female attractiveness leads to change in male action

Question 27

What is Symbolic Interaction?

Answer 27

emphasizes meaning of actions and use of symbols

Question 28

What is the social construction of reality?

Answer 28

process of how people define reality, influenced by interactions with others as well as experiences/assumptions

Question 29

What is does defining the situation mean?

Answer 29

social process through which the statuses/roles appropriate to situation are identified

• can be defined as actions, props, and staging
• ex. notion that the lecture is starting when the teacher begins to talk

Question 30

What is Negotiated Order?

Answer 30

determined by interactions when people propose/discuss/settle on a shared definition of a situation

Question 31

What is the Dramaturgical Perspective?

Answer 31

social life viewed using metaphor of people as actors on a stage
*Erving Goffman

Question 32

What is emotional labor?

Answer 32

work activity requiring the worker to display particular emotions in normal course of providing a service (ex. receptionist answering phone in happy/helpful manner

Question 33

What is the Social Exchange Theory?

Answer 33

social interactions in terms of valued outcomes to the participants
-assumes people are motivated by self-interests

Question 34

What is the norm of reciprocity?

Answer 34

if you give someone something you expect a return of equal value
–> Whyte: studying restaurant employees and favors by employers

Question 35

What is the social construction of exchange?

Answer 35

• can’t do it continually or it will become accepted as norm, cheapens the value
• ex. more likely to help someone who drives you when it’s raining than someone who drives you everyday

Question 36

What is socialization?

Answer 36

the process by which a person learns and comes to accept the established ways of a particular social group or society

Question 37

What is role exit?

Answer 37

a process in which a person disengages from a role that is central to their identity and establishes a new alternative role

Question 38

What is social stratification?

Answer 38

the structure of social inequality in a society (ex. distribution of wealth, status, power)

Question 39

What is role structure?

Answer 39

the set of roles performed by members of a group, organization, or collectivity

Question 40

“Zero-sum game”

Answer 40

describes social interactions in which one participant can win only if the other participants lose and whatever benefits the winner gets becomes losses for the others so there is not net positive net benefit of the interaction