Unit 4 Questions Flashcards
Identify and describe the types of social rules that guide social interaction
Norms - shared expectations for behavior
Folkways - shared expectations for behavior
Mores - tightly enforced norms that carry moral significance
Taboos - social prohibitions so strong that the thought of violating them can be sickening
Explain what breaching is and how it is differentiated from simply breaking a norm.
the purpose of breaching is to break a social rule/norm for the purpose of seeing how another person reacts
Identify who developed the theory of symbolic interactionism
George Herbert Mead
Describe the three key assertions of the theory of symbolic interactionism
First, we don’t generally respond to reality itself but to the meaning we give it. Something like a hug, in other words, is never a hug. It’s a hello or a goodbye.
Second, symbolic interactionism suggests that the meaning of reality doesn’t exist prior to human understanding but is produced through social interaction. Only through interaction can shared interpretations emerge, spread from person to person, and evolve.
Finally, symbolic interactionism posits that meaning is negotiated in interaction. When we interact, we’re often actively creating or struggling over meaning.
Explain how social interactions can be considered fragile
They rely on nearly 100 percent cooperation. Everyone has to participate competently and consistently and help others if they get off track, or the situation changes.
Explain how the dramaturgical approach views social life
the practice of looking at social life as a series of performances in which we are all actors on metaphorical stages
Explain how and why we engage in performances, differentiating between front stage and back stage
In an office setting, our interactions with our clients occur on the front stage.
Interactions with our coworkers might feel like the back stage (where we might complain about our clients, for example).
Explain the difference between marked and unmarked statuses
Behaviors, attitudes, categories, identities, social spaces, and environments that are considered socially extreme are marked
those who are regarded as socially neutral remain unmarked
Understand how settings can affect how identities are perceived to ‘belong’ or ‘stand out’
A person with a disability is carrying a marked identity much of the time, but at a retreat specifically dedicated to people with disabilities, it’s the able-bodied person who might stand out. In places where men aren’t expected, like a gender studies class filled mostly with women, it may be men who are marked, not women. In the Chinatowns of America’s largest cities, an Asian person’s race isn’t notable, but a White person’s race may be.
Describe how identities are associated with roles and the consequences of this association
If you ask elementary-school children to draw a scientist, for example, almost three-quarters will draw a picture of a man, suggesting that men are more strongly associated with science than women.20 When men are scientists, then, there’s a role-identity match, a correspondence between the type of person in the role and the role itself, according to the symbolic structure. But when women are scientists, there’s a role-identity mismatch, a potentially jarring lack of correspondence
discrimination involves hate crimes to the subtle and ambiguous, like rude treatment. It’s also cumulative. It doesn’t have to happen to us often to add up.
Describe what ethnomethods are and how use use them.
a set of culturally specific background assumptions that we use to make sense of everyday life
When playing a game like tic-tac-toe, we all know that we’re supposed to take turns. That’s the rule. But turn taking only matters to us if we’ve also accepted that we’re supposed to obey the rules
How can we make ethnomethods visible?
By breaching, purposefully breaking these social norms on purpose.
purposefully breaking a social rule in order to test how others respond. Breaking the rules of tic-tac-toe is a breach. Standing around doing nothing is a breach. Giving a child a potato for Christmas is a breach. Uploading a picture of menstrual blood on social media is a breach.
