Symbolic Interactionism

Question 1

Social Action

Answer 1

action oriented towards shared meanings and actions of others

Question 2

instrumental rationality

Answer 2

when an individual calculates how to achieve a goal most efficiently

Question 3

Value rationality

Answer 3

action is determined by belief in a moral or other value, regardless of practicality

Question 4

Affectual Behaviour

Answer 4

action is determined by emotional responses

Question 5

Traditional behaviour

Answer 5

action performed out of habit because thats what was always done

Question 6

3 types of behaviour Weber looks for as motivation in protestants

Answer 6

1. identifying certain ‘spirit of capitalism’- tendency to calculation, organized work, and accumulation of wealth
2. Protestant doctrine that encourage believers to behave in this way
3. wealthier because of motivation by religion to act in certain ways

Question 7

Methodological Individualism

Answer 7

method of explaining brand features of society by first understanding what individuals so and seeing how millions of such actions produce social consequences

Question 8

Symbolic Interactionism

Answer 8

theoretical paradigm focused on microsociological interactions between individuals.

Question 9

George Herbert Mead

Answer 9

Develops pragmatist explanation for our motivations:

-Learning from response of others what is good or acceptable behaviour

Question 10

Dramaturgical Method

Answer 10

Goffman’s method of understanding individaulas as “actors” portraying specific “roles” in interactions

Question 11

Erving Goffman

Answer 11

Explores how individuality is expressed in terms of certain pre-existing social roles

Question 12

Normal

Answer 12

a general set of characterstics that society treats as the default or as things we are all presumably aspiring to be

Question 13

Stigma

Answer 13

Social disapproval of features that deviate from the norms

Question 14

Passing stigma

Answer 14

trying to hide stigma completely, so others see you as normal

Question 15

Covering stigma

Answer 15

Minimizing stigma so as to reduce its shock value for others

Question 16

Selective association stigma

Answer 16

Only Interacting with others who share the same stigma

Question 17

stereotype threat

Answer 17

The internalization of socially-prevalent negative stereotypes about one’s ethnic/racial/gender group

Question 18

Relativism

Answer 18

Argument that there can be no single absolute morality truth, because it has varied from society to society, and is thus always relative to particular social and historical circumstances

Question 19

Social Constructionism

Answer 19

• type of symbolic interactionism

- Interprets society as the product of numerous regularized interactions of individuals

Question 20

Situation

Answer 20

a well-defined, regular interaction between people, with unspoken expectations/rules about how each behaves

Question 21

Symbolic universe

Answer 21

the total internally-consistent set of values and beliefs that members of a society draw on

Question 22

Structuration

Answer 22

Giddens’s term for production and reproduction of social structures by individual acts.

Question 23

Anthony Giddens

Answer 23

developed idea of structuration

Question 24

Lifeworld

Answer 24

the complete set of shared assumptions, values, morals, language, etc. they all draw on when trying to come to argument with others

Question 25

Jurgen Habermas

Answer 25

Examines how people deliberately agree on actions and values

Question 26

System

Answer 26

Impersonal social mechanisms that don’t rely on meaningful symbolic interaction