Test #1: 3-5 Flashcards
1
Q
Define social actions
A
-actions that have meaning attached and are oriented towards the past, present or future behaviour of others
2
Q
Who came up with the idea of social action?
A
Weber
3
Q
What does Week 3 focus on?
A
What determines our actions:
-structure vs. agency
-different paradigms for social action
(all paradigms are under the umbrella of social action)
4
Q
What is structure and what is agency?
A
- structure is the idea that our actions are the products of external forces that exist beyond our comprehension
- agency is the idea that we act based on our free will
5
Q
Who made the unit act?
A
Parsons
6
Q
What was the first way Weber saw social action being studied?
A
-positivist, closer to science, explains action through external causal forces, like Durkheim (macro)
7
Q
Was Weber against macro extremism?
A
-No, but he did believe they were incomplete
8
Q
What paradigm did Weber create in response to macro extremism?
A
- Verstehendesoziologie
- social actions can be explained by identifying the subjective meanings that motivate them
- meanings can be attached to ends/goals and means/methods
9
Q
What did Weber create in addition to verstehen?
A
-ideal types of actions based on different meanings associated with ends and means
10
Q
What are the four ideal types?
A
- instrumental-rational
- value-rational
- traditional
- affectual
11
Q
Did Weber believe all actions were rational?
A
-No, he believed they were on a spectrum
12
Q
Rate the ideal types from most rational to least?
A
-Instrumental, Value, Traditional, Affectual
13
Q
What was instrumental rationality?
A
- means and ends are both rational
- getting a job to make money
14
Q
What is a core part of all forms of action theory?
A
-rationality and the inherent assumption that peoples actions are rational
15
Q
What was value-rationality?
A
- one of either means/ends are rationally calculated
- then the other means or ends is not rational but instead based on values
- helping the poor because its our value to help the community
16
Q
What was the ideal-type, traditional?
A
-both means and end are irrational
-just doing what we have always done
-
17
Q
What was the ideal type, affectual?
A
- both means and end are irrational
- we’re driven by emotion
18
Q
Where does rational choice theory sit?
A
-it is a whole strain of theory underneath action theory with the primary focus on rationality
19
Q
Define rational choice theory
A
-actors enter situations with pre-existing goals and access to resources and make choices aimed at maximizing utility
20
Q
Define utility
A
-acquiring more resources or accomplishing more goals
21
Q
What two assumptions is rational choice theory made on?
A
- choices are made independently using rational calculation
- actions are caused by their anticipated consequences
22
Q
What is the basis for modern economic and legal theory?
A
-rational choice theory
23
Q
What are criticisms of rational choice theory?
A
- not everyone has rationality and what may be rational to one person may not be to another
- if people are making choices independently, why do societies look so rule bound?
- where do actors get their ultimate ends?
24
Q
What does the criticism, where do actors get their ultimate ends, mean?
A
- I want money because I want a house because I want a family etc. etc.
- what is the end goal?
25
How does utility answer the criticism of ultimate ends?
-says that utility is the attainment of pleasure and avoidance of pain
26
What was Parson's attempting to do when looking at the three approaches (positivism, utilitarianism, idealism)?
-trying to make a general theory of action
27
What did Parson's notice about RTC and utilitarianism?
It's weakness:
| -rational choices may look different for one person than it does for another
28
What typology did Parson's come up when trying to understand the differences between different types of actions?
Pattern variables/axes:
| -all actions can be plotted along five different axes
29
What were the five different axes?
- affectivity-affectivity neutral
- self-orientation-collectivity oriented
- universalism-particularism
- ascription-achievement
- specificity-diffuseness
30
What was the axes affectivity-neutral?
-how emotional is the action?
31
What was the axes self-orientation-collective orientation?
-Are we acting for or the greater good?
32
What was the axes universalism to particularism?
-Is it unique to one individual or universal across a society?
33
What was the axes ascription to achievement?
-Is the action based on who we are or what we have achieved?
34
What was the axes specificity to diffuseness?
-Is it narrowly defined or multifaceted?
35
How actions fall on the 5 axes depends on what?
-social, cultural and personality systems
36
What was the ultimate ends for Parsons?
-cultural values or norms
37
What criticism does Parson's ultimate ends raise?
- that people aren't in control of their actions
| - ultimately, the way they act is the way society tells them to act
38
What does the utilitarian perspective see for ultimate ends?
-all action is intended to maximize pleasure and minimize pain
39
What does the normative/culture perspective see for ultimate ends?
-action is guided by cultural norms or values
40
What have sociologists chosen and turned towards instead of action theories?
-pragmatism and practice theories
41
What umbrella theories are termed forward looking and which backward looking?
- action theory is forward looking because the actor looks towards the future to make their choices
- pragmatism and practice theories are backward looking
42
Define pragmatism and practice theories backward looking approach
-explicit decisions are rare, most action is spontaneous, intuitive and draws on habits that have developed over time
43
Rather than ends or means what term do pragmatists use?
-habit; acquired predispositions to ways of response of which actors are typically not conscious in the moment
44
Rather than ends or means what term do practice theorists use?
- schema; knowledge structures that represent objects or events and provide default assumptions about their characteristics, relationships and entailments under conditions of incomplete information
- ex) the bird flying by
45
How are habits or schemas linked?
-they are linked in structures that make up our overall personalities
46
What determines the habits or schemas we develop?
-our social position
47
In what way does action theory and pragmatist/practice theory differentiate the mind and body relationship?
- action theory sees the mind and body separately, the mind tells the body what to do
- pragmatism/practice theory sees mind and body as one thing acting together, intuition
48
What is one of the most famous practice theories?
-the habitus by Pierre Bourdieu
49
What is the habitus?
-general set of bodily and cognitive scheme we acquire over the course of our lives
50
What interrelationship did Bourdeau focus on?
-the development of ourselves (habitus) and the environments in which we have lived
51
What does our environment do for our habitus?
- it reenforces it
| - via the people we interact with, the objects that surround us and even the food we eat
52
What context was Bourdeau interested in relating to the habitus?
- How the bodily schema differ between the different social classes
- he believed we seek out familiar schema which reproduce our schema
53
How do we allow ourselves to be categorized by others in terms of habitus according to Bourdeau?
-when people gravitate towards certain schema they allow others to categorize them
54
How is the habitus a structure?
-because it is a set of inter-related cognitive and bodily schemas through which we act in any given situation
55
How is the habitus structured?
-it is shaped by our social environment in which we have lived our lives
56
How is the habitus structuring?
-it predisposes us to act in ways that reproduce the status quo even if we have no intention of doing so
57
What is criticism of the habitus?
-it is too rigid and does not explain creativity, novelty and social change
58
What does Gross outline as a framework?
- a pragmatist framework for theorizing social action that focuses on actors who possess existing sets of habits, confront and address problem situations
- for the most part we operate on auto pilot until an assumption is contradicted then we must shift to creative thinking
59
How does Gross distinguish his theory from practice theory?
- arguing that pragmatism is able to better account for creativity and novelty in actions
- similar to the idea of abduction
60
How does Gross relate his theory to Abend's theories?
- Gross says this should be the basis for theory 1
| - our general propositions should concern the relationship between actors, habits and problem situations
61
How does the neuroscientist DiMaggio break up human types of thinking?
-into automatic and deliberate thinking
62
What is automatic cognition?
-the norm because it is quick, intuitive and makes use f existing schema
63
What is deliberative cognition?
- explicit, verbalized and slow
- it requires our full attention and a great deal of motivation
- tends only to occur when our existing schemas fail
64
What is the hot and cold cognition dilemma?
- the ability of the brain to use more or less emotion to make choices
- trolley philosophical question
65
Define interaction situations
- occur when 2 or more people are orienting there actions around each others perception of the situation
- almost always occurs when we are aware of other people and vice versa
66
How do individual actions get shaped via interaction situations?
-individual actions cannot be understood except as part of larger gains of interactions
67
How do interactionists see identities and selves and further, the habitus?
- its interactions that give rise to selves or identities, not the other way around
- the habitus is not a determining factor of situations but is instead the result of encountering the same situation over and over again
68
What situations are interactionists usually interested in studying?
-they're interested in how co-present actors orient their behaviour toward each other to create some sense of micro-level social order in real time
69
Who is credited for the idea of Symbolic interactionism?
-Herbert Mead
70
What three principles does symbolic interactionism rest on?
- human beings act toward things on the basis of the meaning that the things have for them
- the meaning of such things is derived from interaction that one has with others
- meanings are never fixed but arise out of interactions
71
What research methods does symbolic interactionism take generally?
- qualitative
- observational
- inductive methods (grounded theory)
72
What is grounded theory?
-rather than coming in with an existing theory in a deductive way sociologists go into the world and build up inductively a theory
73
What does symbolic interactionism do a good job of accounting for?
-humans creativity
74
What is an example of symbolic interactionism by Lofland, World of Strangers?
- people who live in cities are surrounded by millions of strangers and every time you go onto the sidewalk you're forced to interact with strangers
- so how are cities so orderly?
- people have a common meaning or understanding of things such as;
- maintain a personal bubble where other people are not allowed in including sitting on the bus when its empty
75
Who was one of the most famous interactionists?
-Erving Goffman
76
For Goffman what is social life based on?
- impression management
| - being able to signal to others our role within a given situation and evaluate the signals sent by others
77
What do social interactions involve according to Goffman?
-some amount of negotiation to determine relative roles
78
What does Goffman mean by role?
- patterned social behaviour that are adopted by social participants
- as well, scripts for behaviour that are understood by all and adhered to by performers
79
What was Goffman most interested in?
- how we effectively perform within the roles we find ourselves in
- convincing others that we belong in these roles
80
Who and how did Goffman study his interests?
- he studied children
- looked at how children played and how children weren't able to understand (from a certain age) that their mother wasn't everyones mother but that she played different roles to different people
81
What do performances have according to Goffman?
-fronts
82
What are fronts and what are the three components?
- the expressive equipment intentionally employed by the individual during their performance
- settings, appearance or manners
83
What are settings?
- physical surroundings including objects, layout or geographic location
- ex) lecture hall for a professor
84
What is appearance?
-clothes and physical features
85
What is manner?
- attitude or disposition
| - ex) authoritative or pompous for professor
86
Are fronts more or less generalized?
- they can be both
| - ex) lab coats are everywhere and worn by a lot of different people
87
What do roles often require?
- dramatic realizations
- we may exaggerate aspects of the role because we need people to acknowledge us in it
- focused on conveying a behaviour
88
What do performances often appeal to?
-widespread social values or ideals
89
Besides a front, what else do performances need?
-backstage areas where we can let down our guard
90
Whats an example of frontstage and backstage?
- restaurants
- the waiters have scripted communication in front of diners to make them look a certain way
- in the back they may be smoking, gossiping, fixing their makeup
91
Are the expectations of performances always doable?
- No, many times they are out of our ability
| - one of the reasons backstages are so important to help reenergize and prepare for the frontstage
92
In the article, Doing Gender, by West and Zimmerman how do they approach interactionism and their study?
-ethnomethodological perspective
93
Who developed the ethnomethodological perspective?
-Garfinkel
94
What sets ethnomethodological perspective apart?
- extreme focus on the implicit structures of interactions
- going into the interaction without preconceived idea or conceptions
- techniques like breaching, violating social norms
- conversational analysis, record conversations and analyze the interactions
95
What do West and Zimmerman criticize Goffman for?
-they criticize Goffman for treating gender as a preexisting concept or role but is actually produced through our interactions
96
What is at the heart of Doing gender?
-distinguishing between sex, sex category and gender
97
What did West & Zimmerman define as sex?
-socially agreed upon biological criteria for classifying persons as female or male
98
What did West & Zimmerman define as sex category?
- the way in which we practically classify people or ourselves as female or male
- ex) through physical appearance
99
What did West & Zimmerman define as gender?
- gender is a way we behave and interact with people not an inherit thing
- we engage with gender against the backdrop of Western societies binary so we bolster our membership in a sex category
- gender is accomplished
