social action Flashcards
social action - main features
society socially constructed
free will - form own identities
small scale - qualitative
behaviour driven by beliefs, meaning, and emotions given to situation
not determined by social background
emphasise role of active individual and interactions to build and shape personal identity in turn shaping society
people social actors with agency (make own decisions not pushed along by forces beyond their control)
Social action - Weber
verstehen - sociologists should use empathy to understand human action
put themselves in other’s shoes to understand behaviour (not just judge)
level of cause - structural reasonings for behaviour
level of meaning - beliefs and meaning behind action/ behaviour
believes both have to be understood to fully understand society/ action
classifies into 4 categories - traditional action (automatic, unconscious action)
value rational - actions towards a desired goal
Weber - evaluation
other social action - too individualistic
fails to explain how meaning is shared between people in society
symbolic interactionism - mead (taking the role of the other)
humans distinctly different from animals due to meanings given to behaviour
gain meaning through taking the role of the other
children do this with individuals close to them (parents)
when older - see ourselves through everyone
the generalised other - referring to the ability to understand and take into account attitudes and viewpoints of others in society
Symbolic interactionism - Goffman (dramaturgical model)
roles we play largely scripted - choose when and how we play them
impression management - controlling how we come across
front stage - behaviour when audience is present
back stage - no audience present, actor allowed to drop ‘act’
props - objects used when acting to play the role chosen
behave differently due to context - affected by other people (e.g., teacher in classroom)
Symbolic interactionism - Becker
focuses on how when a label is applied to someone, it can influence their self-concept
labelling cycle
Education - Becker (ideal pupil)
crime and deviance - Lemert (primary and secondary deviance)
master status, deviancy amplification, deviancy career
Cooley - looking glass self
we see ourselves through the ideas and perceptions others have of us (own identity created by their interactions with other people)
Phenomenology - Schutz (typifications)
social world experienced through our senses
without typifications the world would be without order
social world only possible through shared meanings
recipe knowledge - shared meaning
e.g., raising hand in classroom entirely different meaning than raising hand at auction
Ethnomethodology (Garfinkel)
analyses the way in which people make sense of the world through practical reasoning
Garfinkel - the meaning of all social objects and identities must be achieved through interaction
