Social Action Theories - 1.1 Flashcards
What were the four ideal categories that Weber classified human actions into?
- Instrumentally rational action
- Value-rational action
- Traditional action
- Affective Action
What is Instrumentally Rational Action, with an example
- Actions that are carried out to achieve a certain goal, you do something because it leads to a result.
- E.g. studying for a degree to secure a good job.
What is Symbolic Interactionism
Where Individuals shape their identities based on the labels that other people attach to them.
What is Value Rational Action, with an example
- Behaviors based on the values an individual holds
- E.g. returning a found wallet to the owner
What is Traditional Action, with an example
- Actions that occur through custom or routine that happens because it always has done and therefore isn’t challenged.
- E.g. eating Sunday Lunch with family, or celebrating religious holidays.
What is Affective Action, with an example
- Actions based on feelings and emotions that have no rational reasoning.
- This is the most irrational social action.
- E.g. Crying at a Funeral, Celebrating a goal
Which Sociologist came up with the Dramaturgical model
Erving Goffman
What is the Dramaturgical model?
- This is the theory that suggests that our lives are like a theatrical performance, in which we are actors who are constantly changing characters by moving back and forth between being frontstage and backstage.
- Our social self is an act, and therefore is a false representation of ourselves that is designed to cater to that particular social audience.
- He refers to this as ‘impression management’.
- Goffman argues that each individual has a public persona, a version of themselves that they want the world to see.
In reference to Goffman’s Dramaturgical Model, what is meant by ‘‘front-stage self’’ and how is it different to the idea of a ‘‘backstage self’’
- Front stage: an institutionalized setting where an actor takes on an established role and attempt to meet with the stereotyped expectation from the audience (here the performer must be in character).
- Backstage: when we “let down our guard” and be ourselves. E.g. how we act at home or when we are alone
What was George Mead’s belief on Interactionism
- Mead believed that each individual interacts with others through the use of symbols.
- For example words, facial expressions, hand gestures, etc.
- The issue is that each symbol can have a variety of different meanings depending on who the individual is interacting with.
- Mead argued that humans do not act based on instinct like animals; instead, they have to assess the social situation by placing themselves in the place of the other person.
Explain George Mead’s I and Me theory
- Mead argued that social actors experience an ‘I and me’ moment, whereby they present their ‘me’ to the outside world rather than their true selves.
- The ‘me’ is an altered version of yourself to fit your social surroundings.
Who came up with the ‘‘looking glass self’’ study?
Charles Cooley
Explain Cooley’s ‘‘looking glass self’’ theory
- Charles Cooley’s study of the ‘looking-glass self’ believes that this is how individuals form their own view of themselves; essentially internalizing the labels that their social audience places upon them.
- He calls this the ‘self-concept’.
- By doing this, the individual starts to view themselves in a different way and therefore becomes the label that they have had imposed upon them.
- In short. We see ourselves as we believe other people see us
Stages of the Looking-Glass Self
- We imagine how we appear to others.
- We imagine how others judge us.
- We accept or reject the presumed judgment of others through identity negotiation
Who believed that each individual interacts with others through the use of symbols?
George Mead
