Sociology Ch 4: Social Interaction and Everyday Life in the Age of the Internet Flashcards
How do we manage impressions in daily life?
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What is social interaction?
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What rules guide how we communicate with others?
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How to time and space affect our interactions?
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How did the rules of social interaction affect your life?
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Erving Goffman
A highly influential sociologists who created a new field of study called microsociology, or social interaction. He believed that sociologists needed to concern themselves with seemingly trivial aspects of everyday social behavior for three reasons: our ordinary routines give structure and form to what we do, the study of everyday life reveals to us how humans can act creatively to shape reality, and studying social interaction in everyday life sheds light on larger social systems and institutions. Saw social life as though played out by actors on stage.
Microsociology
The study of human behavior in the context of face-to-face interaction.
Social interaction
The process by which we act and react to those around us.
Civil inattention
The process whereby individuals in the same physical setting demonstrate to one another that they are aware of each other’s presence.
Nonverbal communication
Communication between individuals based on facial expression or bodily gestures rather than on language. Also called “body language.”
Charles Darwin
One of the originators of evolutionary theory. Claimed that basic bouts of emotional expression on the same in all human beings.
Paul Ekman
Developed with his colleagues what they call the Facial Action Coding System (FACS). Developed from his research the theory that basic laws of emotional expression are the same in all human beings as Darwin hypothesized.
Irenãus Eibl-Eibesfeldt
Studied six children born deaf and blind to see to what extent their facial expressions were the same as those of sighted and hearing individuals. Had similar expressions.
Social role
Socially defined expectations of an individual in a given status, or occupying a particular social position. In every society, individuals play a number of social roles, such as teenager, parent, worker, or political leader.
Status
The social on purpose teach than a particular group is accorded by other members of society.
Social position
The social identity an individual has in a given group or society. Social positions may be general in nature (those associated with gender roles) or maybe more specific (occupational positions).
Impression management
Preparing for the presentation of one’s social role.
Unfocused interaction
Interaction occurring among people present in a particular setting but not engaged in direct face-to-face communication.
Focused interaction
Interaction between individuals engage in a common activity or indirect conversation with one another.
Encounter
A meeting between two or more people in a situation of face-to-face interaction.
Ethnomethodology
The study of how people make sense of what others say and do in the course of day-to-day social interaction. It is concerned with the “ethnomethods” by which people sustain meaningful exchanges with one another.
Harold Garfunkel
Was, after Gofman, the most important figure in the study of micro interaction. Argued that in order to understand the way people use context to make sense of the world, sociologist need to study the “background expectancies” with which we organize ordinary conversations.
Conversation analysis
The empirical study of conversations, employing techniques drawn from ethnomethodology. Conversation analysis examines details of naturally occurring conversations to reveal the organizational principles of talk and its role in the production and reproduction of social order.
Interactional vandalism
The deliberate subversion of the tactical rules of conversation.
Response cries
Seemingly involuntary exclamations individuals make when, for example, being taken by surprise, dropping something inadvertently, or expressing pleasure.
Personal space
The physical space individuals maintain between themselves and others.
Time-space
When and where events occur.
Regionalization
The division of social life into different regional settings or zones.
Clock time
Times as measured by the clock, in terms of hours, minutes, and seconds. Before the invention of clocks, time reckoning was based on events in the natural world, such as the rising and setting of the sun.
Compulsion of proximity
People’s need to interact with others in their presence.
Elijah Anderson
A sociologist who tried to understand simple interactions. Asked “what types of behavioral cues and signs make up the vocabulary of public interaction?”
