Action theories theory

Symbolic interactionism - Labelling theory - Becker

Symbolic interactionism - Blumer

Symbolic interactionism - Mead

Social action theory - Weber

Structuration - Giddens

Ethnomethodology - Garfinkle

Phenomenology - Husserl

Symbolic interactionism - Dramaturgical model - Goffman

Two levels of explanation:

  • both structural and action approaches needed to understand human behaviour
  • level of cause = explaining the objective structural factors that shape people's behaviour
  • level of meaning = understanding the subjective meaning that individuals attach to their actions

Why are we not like animals?

  • unlike animals, human behaviour is not pre-programmed
  • we attach meanings to the world, there is an interpretive phase with a stimulus, interpret its meaning and then respond

Summarises Mead's ideas after his death:
1) our actions are based on meanings we give to things, unlike animals not automatic responses to stimuli
2) meanings arise from interaction processes, not fixed on outset of the interaction, negotiable and change to some extent
3) meanings we give to situations are result of interpretive procedures we use, especially taking role of others

defined by the situation, the looking glass self and career

Why dramaturgical?

  • We construct our 'self' manipulating other people's impressions of us
  • We are 'actors' acting out 'scripts' using 'props' resting 'backstage' between 'performances' we present to our 'audiences' ; aim to carry convincing performances of roles adopted

Some philosophers argue we can never have a definite knowledge of what the world outside our minds is really like 'in itself', all we know is what our senses tell us about it

  • this is the starting point for the phenomenology

Developed from ideas of Garlinkle

Duality of structure:

  • structure and action (agency) are two sides of the same coin; neither can exist without the other
  • relationship structuration; actions produce and reproduce structures over time and space, these structures make our actions possible in the first place

Example:
The Protestant Ethnic & the Spirt of Capitalism, structural is Calvinism, meaning is religious work

4 types of action:
1) Instrumentally rational action, actor calculates most efficient means of achieving given goal, even if not desirable
2) value-rational action, action towards a goal is desirable for its own sake, but no way of calculating if means of achieving effective
3) traditional action, customary, routine or habitual - not rational
4) effectual action, action that expresses emotion

Criticism
Weber advocates for verstehen of the actor's subjective meaning, but as we cannot actually be that person, we cannot be sure we have truly understood their motives

Multi symbolic meanings:
An action could have multiple symbolic meanings e.g. shaking fist

Taking the role of the other:

  • we interpret others meanings by taking role of the other, putting ourselves in the place of the other and seeing ourselves how they see us
  • we do this as young children, through imitative play
  • helps us function as a society, shared symbols

Criticism:
Ethnomethodologists argue that interactionism is correct in focusing on the actor's meaning, but that it fails to explain how actors create meaning

Argues that although our action is partially predicable because we internalise the expectations of others, it is not completely fixed, always some negotiation and choice

Criticism:
All action is meaningful, however Weber category of traditional action argues that much is performed unconsciously or routinely with little meaning to others. Interactionism does not explain this type of action, believes all has meaning.

1) The definition of the situation:

  • W.I. Thomas
  • argue if people define situation as real it will have real consequences
  • e.g. if a child is called "troublesome" they may receive harsher punishments from a teacher

2) The looking glass self:

  • Charles Cooley
  • self-concept from ability to take the role of the other, causes a self-fufilling prophecy where we become what others see of us

3) Career:

  • stages through which an individual progresses in their occupation
  • Howard S. Becker and Edwin Lemert extended the concept, with labelling then master status in eyes of society can be formed

Criticism:
Largely deterministic and ignores the other ways a label may impact an individual

Impression management:
1) presentation of self
2) impression management

  • constantly studying audience response to change how we perform and have many techniques for impression management e.g. makeup
  • 'front' or stage where we act our roles, backstage we step out and 'be ourselves'

Role distance:

  • there is a gap between roles we perform and our real safe, role distance, do not always believe roles we play and performance may be cynical and calculating
  • an actor can sometimes be a confidence trickster

Criticism:
This theory implies that individuals are all active and manipulative, however this may not be the case. Someone mat not also have multiple roles, with many people simply being authentic towards others

Husserl categories:

  • argues the world only makes sense because we impose meaning & order by constructing mental categories that we classify & file info coming from our sense
  • only obtain knowledge about the world through our mental acts of categorising and giving meaning to our experiences

Schutz - typifications:

  • shared categories are called typifications
  • meaning of any experience varies due to social context
  • typifications stabilise and clarify meanings, helping us communicate & cooperate to achieve goals, uphold social order
  • however, we have a shared 'life world; of a stock of shared typifications or common-sense knowledge we all use to make sense of our experience
  • he calls this 'recipe knowledge' as like a recipe we follow it without thinking to much, and still get desired results in everyday

Schutz, society as objective:

  • the social world is shared, inter-subjective word that can only exist when we share the same meanings, but it appears real, objective thing existing outside of us
  • 'the natural attitude', leads us to assume social world is solid, natural thing

Criticism:

  • Berger and Luckman, Schutz is right to focus on shared common sense knowledge, but reject that society is merely an inter-subjective reality; reality is socially constructed but once constructed it becomes an external reality with a life of its own

Social order:

  • created from the bottom up, members of society construct it actively everyday, using their commonness knowledge

Meanings:

  • methods or rules we use to produce meaning
  • meanings are always potentially unclear: indexicality (everything depends on context)
  • reflexivity: we use common sense knowledge in everyday interactions to construct a sense of meaning and order to stop indexicality occurring - language is important for this

Evidence of breaching experiments

Create & use patterns:
We create and use patterns in society e.g. coroners make sense of death by selecting particular features from the infinite number of possible 'facts' about the deceased e.g. mental health

Criticism:

  • ignores wider structures of power and inequality affect the meanings individuals create e.g. common sense knowledge just ruling class ideology
  • argues everyone creates order & meaning by identifying patterns and producing explanations that are essentially fictions, if so this must apply to EM itself, so we have no reason to accept its views

Language shows duality as it is a structure with rules, but depends on the actions of individuals to exist, and actions can change language overtime

Reproduce structure:

  • structure is made of rules and resources, reproduced or change through human action
  • although action can change structures, it tends to reproduce them
  • two reasons for this is as society rules contain knowledge about how to live our lives, and as we have a deep-seated need for ontological security

Late modern society:

  • more likely to change our actions
  • we reflexively monitor our own action, late modern has less tradition so increase likihood and pace of change
  • actions may change the world but not as intended e.g. Weber & Calvinism

Criticism:

  • Margaret Archer, Giddens underestimates the capacity of structures to resist change
  • Craib, structuration theory doesn't explain what happens in society and Giddens fails to unite structure and action - 'a thoroughgoing action theory'