Theory and Methods- Action Theories

Question 1

What do action theorists say?

Answer 1

People make their own choices and take their own action rather than being controlled by social structure or reacting to it

Question 2

What do action theorists say about how society is constructed?

Answer 2

From people’s meanings, interpretations, behaviours and negotiations

Question 3

Why are action theories often called micro-theories?

Answer 3

Because they look at individuals, rather than the big structures of society

Question 4

What do action theorists argue about social order?

Answer 4

It isn’t generated by institutions and social order is part of everyday life, everyday life is a series of interpretations

Question 5

How is social order a social construction?

Answer 5

A product of individual’s minds, people want to believe that there’s order in society so they behave towards others in a way that convinces them that there is order

Question 6

How do different people give different meanings to actions?

Answer 6

Every person will interpret an action differently to others depending on the meaning they attach to it

Question 7

Why can’t sociologists predict people’s behaviour?

Answer 7

People don’t passively react to external stimulation in exactly the same way every time- they act differently according to the circumstances and according to their own personal opinions

Question 8

Why are action theorists criticised for their subjective and relativist nature?

Answer 8

Critics worry that if the world is seen as subjective and based on assumptions and interpretations then nothing is true or false

Question 9

What does Weber argue?

Answer 9

A sociologist needs both structural approaches and action approaches in order to understand society

Question 10

What are the two levels that Weber argues that human behaviour needs to be described?

Answer 10

The level of cause and the level of meaning

Question 11

What is the level of cause?

Answer 11

Explains how behaviour is shaped by objective structural factors

Question 12

What is the level of meaning?

Answer 12

Looks at the subjective meanings that people attach to their actions

Question 13

What are the four types of action that Weber identifies?

Answer 13

Instrumentally rational action
Value-rational action
Traditional action
Affectual action

Question 14

What is instrumentally rational action?

Answer 14

Based on the most efficient means of achieving a goal

Question 15

What is value-rational action?

Answer 15

Taken because something is important for its own sake

Question 16

What is traditional action?

Answer 16

Based on habit

Question 17

What is affectual action?

Answer 17

Based on emotion

Question 18

How has Weber been criticised? (2 points)

Answer 18

• For focusing too much on individual meanings and not explaining how we develop shared ones
• It can be difficult to classify actions into one of four types

Question 19

What does symbolic interactionism focus on?

Answer 19

How we relate to others

Question 20

What did Mead claim?

Answer 20

That the most human interaction is symbolic

Question 21

What is ‘taking the role of the other’?

Answer 21

You must put yourself in the other person’s position to understand how they interpret the meaning of interactions

Question 22

How does Mead suggest that we learn to interpret symbols?

Answer 22

Through social interaction

Question 23

What does Blumer say? (3 points)

Answer 23

• Actions aren’t instinctive but are based on meanings we attach to the world around us
• These meanings come from the ways in which we relate to others, so sometimes they can change
• We mostly relate to others by taking the role of the other

Question 24

What does ethnomethodology argue?

Answer 24

That ‘society’ is only a construct

Question 25

How does Garfinkel see society?

Answer 25

As something created from the ‘bottom up’ and it is not an objective structure, but something we all construct ourself through our behaviour

Question 26

What does ethnomethodology study?

Answer 26

The methods we use to create meanings

Question 27

What is indexicality?

Answer 27

Meanings are always potentially unclear because they are dependent on context

Question 28

What is reflexivity?

Answer 28

Using our common sense to determine the meanings of behaviour and communication so we can maintain social order

Question 29

Why do we engage in reflexivity?

Answer 29

To stop lack of clarity from causing chaos

Question 30

What does Giddens believe?

Answer 30

Sociologists should look at both the interactions between individuals and the social structures that influence these interactions

Question 31

How are structuration theorists similar to structural theorists?

Answer 31

They say that individuals have to conform to the rules of social structures and social systems

Question 32

What do structuration theorists also say?

Answer 32

That social structures can be changed by the actions of individuals

Question 33

Why do individuals respond to the structures in different ways?

Answer 33

Individuals have an awareness of the social rules and structures and have some level of choice about how to react to them

Question 34

What doe structuration theory assume that Marxists and feminists would disagree with?

Answer 34

That if people want to change the world, they can manage fairly easily