SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM

Symbolic Interactionism

Introduction

Symbolic interactionism, or interactionism for short, is one of the major theoretical perspectives in sociology. This view has a long intellectual history, beginning with the German sociologist and economist Max Weber (1864-1920) and the American philosopher, George Mead (1863-1931), both of which emphasize the subjective meaning of human behavior, social process, and pragmatism (Norman 2010).

Although there are several versions of the interactionist thought, some stemming from the phenomenological writings of philosophers, the following description provides a simplified combination of these ideas, focusing on common ground. Herbert Blumer, who studied with Mead at the University of Chicago, is responsible for coining the term "symbolic interactionism" as well as to develop best-known versions of the theory (Blumer 1969).

Interactionists focus on the subjective aspects of social life, rather than on objective, macro-structural aspects of the social system. One reason for this is that the focus interactionists base their theoretical perspective on their image of man rather than their image of society (as functionalists do). For interactionists, people are pragmatic actors who continually must adjust their behavior with the actions of others (Atkinson Paul Amanda Delamont 2007). We can handle these actions only because we can interpret them, i.e., mark them symbolically and treat the action and those who perform them as symbolic objects. This adjustment process helps our ability to creatively rehearse alternative courses of action before we act. The process helps to further our ability to think and react to our own actions, and even ourselves, as symbolic objects. Thus, the interactionist theorist sees the person as active, creative participants who construct their social world, rather than as passive, appropriate objects of socialization.

For the interactionist, society consists of organized and patterned interactions between people(Reynolds Kinney 2003)e. Thus, the study focuses on the interactionists can easily observe the interaction of face to face, rather than on macro-level structural relations associated with social institutions. Moreover, this emphasis on interaction and the significance of events for the participants in those events (the definition of the situation) shift attention interactionists from stable norms and values toward more changeable, continually readjusting social processes. While functionalists for socialization creates stability in the social system, for interactionists negotiations between members of society creates a temporary, socially constructed relationship, which remains in constant motion, despite relative stability in the basic framework governing these relations.

These accents on the characters, negotiated reality, and the social construction of society lead to an interest in the role people play. Irving Goffman (1958), a prominent social theorist in this tradition, discusses the role of dramaturgically, using the analogy of the theater, with human social behavior is regarded as more or less well-scripted and with humans as role-with the actors (Goffman Erving2008). Role-taking is a key mechanism of interaction; it allows us to take another point of view, to see what our actions might mean for others with whom we interact. In other cases, interactionists emphasize the improvisational quality of roles in human social behavior is regarded as a ...