Week 7 - Selfing: how to create yourself

Question 1

What is the ‘Free Hugs’ campaign

Answer 1

• The ‘free hugs’ campaign indicates that we have some agency in initiating social interactions and creating a context for meaningful behaviour.
• The relationship between individuals and society is bidirectional.

Question 2

Sociological Social Psychology

Answer 2

Triplet (1898)
- Social Facilitation
- Experimental studies
- No political stance

Le Bon (1895)
- Crowd behaviour
- Observational studies
- Political issue - The ‘Crowd’ is dangerous

Question 3

1950s (and since)

Answer 3

• Dominance of the experimental paradigm in social psychology (Psychological Social Psychology PSP)

And especially

• Dominance of North American Psychology
  (Allport, Asch, Festinger, Milgram, Zimbardo…)

Question 4

PSP - gives us a lot of ideas

Answer 4

Obedience, conformity, social comparison, attribution, attitudes

BUT

• Our behaviour exist in a wider social context
• The lab and survey are also social situations in which we adapt our behaviour

Question 5

Sociological Social Psychology (SSP)

Answer 5

• SSP – brings a focus on how social structures, social
  relations and social contexts shape our thoughts and
  behaviour.

From this…

• Social psychology should study real world activity and
  the symbolic process which give meaning to interaction and identity.

(Language is a symbolic process with a constructive role - How people understand themselves and how they constitute others – link to qualitative methods).

Question 6

The importance of interaction for identity construction

Answer 6

• SSP Roots in the work of Cooley The Looking Glass Self
• SSP Roots in the work of Mead Symbolic noInteractionism
• People give meaning to things and behaviour – we live in a symbolic world
• The meaning of things is created through
  interaction in historical and cultural contexts
• People manage the self and social life by acting
  on the interpretations of meanings as they encounter and
  experience life

Question 7

The Looking Glass Self

Answer 7

• The way we think about ourselves is linked with our identity(ies) created in interaction.

Cooley (1902…)
- Social emotions such as pride, shame make no sense without the idea of other people.

Question 8

SSP Roots - The Chicago School and Symbolic Interactionism

Answer 8

• Chicago School - US first sociological dept. – Early 1900s Mead lectures
  (Mead – studied @Leipzig (Wundt) Labelled self as a ‘social behaviorist’)
• Herbert Blumer (younger lecturer, 1937) coined
  ‘Symbolic Interactionism’ from Mead’s work
• Methodological innovation
  ▪ Interest in ‘normal’ everyday behavior (Lot’s
  of statistical analysis of social data – BUT also
  interpretive methods – see 5 mins prep sheet)

Question 9

Mead build upon Cooley’s ideas

Answer 9

Mead - the self has 2 parts:
- Subjective & Objective (I and Me)
- The I – the spontaneous and creative self, not (entirely) influenced by the sociocultural context

• The Me - the internalised influence of social conventions and contexts which shape the self-concept and behaviour (e.g. age, gender, home, university, work, family, friends etc.)
• (? Multiple Me’s – Multiple Identities

Question 10

Social Interaction and Shared meanings

Answer 10

• Social life is formed through patterned interactions among individuals
• (On-going negotiation among people creates temporary, shared meanings - But relatively enduring ideas create a wider social context)

Question 11

Key Poiknts of Interaction and Identities so far

Answer 11

• By internalizing social conventions, we are able to manage social life, have a sense of belonging, and we enhance social cohesion.
• Learning acceptable behaviours, values, and expectations shapes how we present ourselves, how we relate to others – and how others relate to us.
• Our identities are formed through this aligning of the individual self-concept with broader sociocultural constructions.
• Sometimes this alignment with sociocultural constructions is problematic Is there a link with humanistic psychology and conditions of worth?

Question 12

Dramaturgical Approach to the SELF

Answer 12

Goffman (1956…)
- Interaction and the metaphor of drama
- Self-presentation – how do we ‘show’ ourselves to the world?

Front stage / Backstage and Offstage:
Preperation, performance, social scripts, roles, scenery, props, audience

(Through everyday drama we give meaning to ourselves, to others and
our/their situation)

Question 13

Creating youself

Answer 13

For SSP the self is relational and includes the idea of change and transformation

• Individuals make conscious choices about behaviour based upon their interpretation of situations (like where to stand in a queue or how to be a student)
• As we begin ‘think’ about ourselves with ideas ‘gathered’ in interaction we construct identities and become reflexive individuals (Giddens 1991)
• The reflexive self is a PROCESS not a structure

Question 14

From Goffman – we’re not just
following scripts – we improvise

Answer 14

• Role-taking – through our reflexive awareness - we know
  what role to take
• Role giving – others in interactions give us roles & we
  give roles to others

-** Role-making** –we can create and test roles