Symbolic Interactionism

Symbolic Interactionism

Content • Cooley: Looking-glass self and social self • Thomas: the definition of the situation • Mead: play, game and the generalized other • References for Erving Goffman

Cooley: Looking-Glass Self • A social self might be called the reflected or looking-glass self: each to each a looking-glass, reflects the other that doth pass. • As we see our face, figure, and dress in the glass, and are interested in them because they are ours, and pleased or otherwise with them according as they do or do not answer to what we should like them to be; so in imagination we perceive in another’s mind some thought of our appearance, manners, aims, deeds, character, friends, and so on, and are variously affected by it.

Three Principal Elements of Self-Idea • The imagination of our appearance to the other person; • The imagination of his judgment of that appearance and some sort of self-feeling, such as pride or mortification

Thomas: Definition of the Situation • The higher animals, and above all man, have the power of refusing to obey a stimulation which they followed at an earlier time. Response to the earlier stimulation may have had painful consequences and so the rule or habit in this situation is changed. We call this ability the power of inhibition, and it is dependent on the fact that the nervous system carries memories or records of past experiences. At this point the determination of action no longer comes exclusively from outside sources but is located within the organism itself. • Preliminary to any self-determined act of behavior there is always a stage of examination and deliberation which we may call the definition of the situation. And actually not only concrete acts are dependent on the definition of the situation, but gradually a whole life-polity and the personality of the individual himself follow from a series of such definitions.

Mead: Play, the Game, and the Generalized other • The fundamental difference between the game and play is that in the latter the child must have the attitude of all the others involved in that game. The attitudes of the other players which the participant assumes organize into a sort of unit, and it is that organization which controls the response of the individual. The illustration used was of a person playing baseball. Each one of his own acts is determined by his assumption of the action of the others who are playing the game. What he does is controlled by his being everyone else on that team, at least in so far as those attitudes affect his own particular response. We get then an “other” which is an organization of the attitudes of those involved in the same process.

Play, the Game, and the Generalized other • The organized community or social group which gives to the individual his unity of self may be called “the generalized other.” The attitude of the generalized other is the attitude of the whole community. Thus, for example, in the case of such a social group as a ball team, the team is the generalized other in so far as it enters-as an organized process or social activity-into the experience of any one of the individual members of it

“I” and “me” • The “I” is the response of the organism to the attitudes of the others; the “me” is the organized set of attitudes of others which one himself assumes. The attitudes of the others constitute the organized “me”, and then one reacts toward that as an “I”.

The self is the ability to take oneself as an object. Again, the self arises within the social process. The general mechanism of the self is the ability of people to put themselves in the place of others, to act as others act and to see themselves as others see them. Mead traces the genesis of the self through the play and game stages of childhood. Especially important in the latter stage is the emergence of the generalized other. The ability to view oneself from the point of view of the community is essential to the emergence of the self as well as of organized group activities. The self also has two phases- the “ I “, which is the unpredictable and creative aspect of the self, and the “ me “, which is the organized set of attitudes of others assumed by the actor. Social control is manifest through the “me”, while the “I” is the source of innovation in society

The Priority of the Social • We are not, in social psychology, building up the behavior of the social group in terms of the behavior of separate individuals composing it; rather, we are starting out with a given social whole of complex group activity, into which we analyze (as elements ) the behavior of each of the separate individuals composing it. We attempt, that is, to explain the conduct of the social group, rather than to account for the organized conduct of the social group in terms of the conduct of the separate individuals belonging to it. For social psychology, the whole (society) is prior to the part (the individual), not the part to the whole; and the part is explained in terms of the whole, not the whole in terms of the part or parts.

Symbolic Interactionism: Basic Principles • 1. Human being, unlike lower animals, are endowed with the capacity for thought. • 2. The capacity for thought is shaped by social interaction. • 3. In social interaction, people learn the meanings and the symbols that allow them to exercise their distinctively human capacity for thought. • 4. Meanings and symbols allow to carry on distinctively human action and interaction. • 5. People are able to modify or alter the meanings and symbols that they use in action and interaction on the basis of their interpretation of the situation • 6. People are able to make these modifications and alterations because, in part, of their ability to interact with themselves, which allows them to examine possible course of action, assess their relative advantages and disadvantages, and then choose one. • 7. The intertwined patterns of action and interaction make up groups and societies

Three Premises of Symbolic Interactionism • Symbolic interactionism rests in the last analysis on three simple premises. The first premise is that human beings act toward things on the basis of the meanings that the things have for them. Such things include everything that the human being may note in his world-physical objects, such as trees or chairs, other human beings, such as a mother or a store clerk; categories of human beings, such as friends or enemies; institutions, as a school or a government; guiding ideas, such as individual independence or honesty; activities of others, such as their commands or requests; and such situations as an individual encounters in his daily life. The second premise is that the meaning of such thing is derived from, or arise out of, the social interaction that one has with one’s fellows. The third premise is that these meanings are handled in , and modified through, an interpretative process used by the person in dealing with the things he encounters Herbert Blumer

Nature of social interaction • Symbolic interactionism does not merely give a ceremonious nod to social interaction. It recognizes social interaction to be of vital importance in its own right. This importance lies in the fact that social interaction is a process that forms human conduct instead of being merely a means or a setting for the expression or release of human conduct. Put simply, human beings in interacting with one another have to take account of what each other is doing or is about to do; they are forced to direct their own conduct or handle their situations in terms of what they take into account. Thus, the activities of others enter as positive factors in the formation of their own conduct; in the face of the actions of others one may abandon an intention or purpose, revise it , check or suspend it , intensify it, or replace it. The actions of others enter to set what one plans to do, may oppose or prevent such plans, may require a revision of such plans, and may demand a very different set of such plans. One has to fit one’s own line of activity in some manner to the actions of others. The actions of others have to be taken into account and cannot be regarded as merely an arena for the expression of what one is disposed to do or sets out to do.

Nature of objects • Objects (in the sense of their meaning) must be seen as social creation-as being formed in and arising out of the process of definition and interpretation as this process takes place in the interaction of people. The meaning of anything and everything has to be formed, learned, and transmitted through a process of indication-a process that is necessarily a social process. Human group life on the level of symbolic interaction is a vast process in which people are forming, sustaining, and transforming the objects of their world as they come to give meaning to objects. Objects have no fixed status except as their meaning is sustained through indications and definitions that people make of the objects. Nothing is more apparent than that objects in all categories can undergo change in their meaning.

The human being as an acting organism • Symbolic interactionism recognizes that human beings must have a makeup that fits the nature of social interaction. The human being is seen as an organism that not only responds to others on the non-symbolic but as one that makes indications to others and interprets their indications. He can do this, as Mead has shown so emphatically, only by virtue of possessing a “self”. Nothing esoteric is meant by this expression. It means merely that a human being can be an object of his own action. Thus, he can recognize himself, for instance, as being a man, young in age, a student, in debt, trying to become a doctor, coming from an undistinguished family and so forth. In all such instances he is an object to himself; and he acts toward himself and guides himself in his actions toward others on the basis of the kind of object he is to himself

An acting organism • Instead of being merely an organism that responds to the play of factors on or through it, the human being is seen as an organism that has to deal with what it notes. It meets what it so notes by engaging in a process of self-indication in which it makes an object of what it notes, gives it a meaning, and uses the meaning as the basis for directing its action. Its behavior with regard to what it notes is not a response called forth by the presentation of what it notes but instead is an action that arises out of the interpretation made through the process of self-indication. In this sense, the human being who is engaging in self-interaction is not a mere responding organism but an acting organism-an organism that has to mold a line of action on the basis of what it takes into account instead of merely releasing a response to the play of some factor on its organization.

Nature of human action • The capacity of the human being to make indications to himself gives a distinctive character to human action. It means that the human individual confronts a world that he must interpret in order to act instead of an environment to which he responds because of his organization. He has to cope with the situations in which he is called on to act, ascertaining the meaning of the actions of others and mapping out his own line of action in the light of such interpretation. He has to construct and guide his action instead of merely releasing it in response to factors playing on him or operating through him. He may do a miserable job in constructing his action, but he has to construct it.

Symbolic Interactionism: Basic Principles • Capacity for thought Individuals in human society were not seen as units that are motivated by external or internal forces beyond their control, or within the confines of a more or less fixed structure. Rather, they were viewed as reflective or interacting units which comprise the societal entity • Thinking and interaction People possess only a general capacity for thought. This capacity must be shaped and refined in the process of social interaction, socialization. Thinking shapes the interaction process. In most interaction, actors must take account of others and decide if and how to fit their activities to thers

Symbolic Interactionism: Basic Principles • Learning meanings and symbols People learn symbols as well as meanings in social interaction. Whereas people respond to signs unthinkingly, they respond to symbols in a thoughtful manner. Symbols are social objects used to represent whatever people agree they shall represent. symbols are crucial in allowing people to act in distinctively human way. Because of the symbol, the human being “ does not respond passively to a reality that imposes itself but actively creates and re-creates the world acted in” What are symbols? Language is the most important and a vast system of symbols

References and Topics for Class Presentation • Reference: Erving Goffman on Dramaturgy from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erving_Goffman • Topic: Criticisms on Symbolic Interactionism

Reference for Goffman’s Dramaturgical Perspective and Books • Goffman's greatest contribution to social theory is his formulation of symbolic interaction as dramaturgical perspective in his 1956 book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, For Goffman, society is not homogeneous. We must act differently in different settings. The context we have to judge is not society at large, but the specific context. Goffman suggests that life is a sort of theater, but we also need a parking lot and a cloak room: there is a wider context lying beyond the face-to-face symbolic interaction. "Throughout Presentation of Self, Goffman seems to perceive the individual as nothing more than a cog responsible for the maintenance of the social world by playing his or her part. In fact, he refers to the self as a 'peg' upon which 'something of a collaborative manufacture will be hung for a time.

The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life • This was Goffman’s first and most famous book. It was also the first book to treat face-to-face interaction as a subject to study in the sociological aspect. This book received the American Sociological Association’s MacIver award in 1961. Goffman treated this book as a kind of report in which he frames out the theatrical performance that applies to face-to-face interactions. He believed that when an individual comes in contact with other people, that individual will attempt to control or guide the impression that others might make of him by changing or fixing his or her setting, appearance and manner. At the same time, the person that the individual is interacting with is trying to form and obtain information about the individual. Goffman also believed that all participants in social interactions are engaged in certain practices to avoid being embarrassed or embarrassing others. This led to Goffman’s dramaturgical analysis. Goffman saw a connection between the kinds of acts that people put on in their daily life and theatrical performances. In social interaction, like in theatrical performance there is a front region where the “actors” (individuals) are on stage in front of the audiences. This is where positive aspect of the idea of self and desired impressions are highlighted. There is a back region or stage which can also be considered as a hidden or private place where the individual can be themselves and get rid of their role or identity in society

Interaction Ritual • This book is a collection of six of Goffman’s essays; the first four essays were published around the 1950s, the fifth is published in 1964, and the last essay was to finish the collection. His six essays are “On Face-work”, “Embarrassment and Social Organization”, “The Nature of Deference and Demeanor”, “Alienation from Interaction”, Mental Symptoms and Public Order” and “Where the Action Is”. Goffman's first essay, “On Face-work, focused on the concept of face, which is the positive image of self that individuals have when interacting with others. Goffman believed that face “as a sociological construct of interaction, is neither inherent in nor permanent aspect of the person”. Once an individual gives out a positive self image of themselves to others they then feel a need to keep or live up to that set image. When individuals are inconsistent with how they project themselves in society, they risk being embarrassed or discredited, therefore the individual remains consistently guarded, making sure that they do not show themselves in an unfavorable way to others.

Frame Analysis • This book was Goffman's way of trying to explain how conceptual frames structure the individual’s perception of the society; therefore, this book is about organization of experiences rather than organization of society. Frames organize the experiences and guide action for the individual and/or for everyone. Frame analysis, then, is the study of organization of social experiences. One example that Goffman used to help people better understand the concept is associating the frame with the concept of a picture frame. He used the picture frame concept to illustrate how people use the frame (which represents structure) to hold together their picture (which represents the context) of what they are experiencing in their life. The most basic frames are called primary frameworks. These frameworks take an experience or an aspect of a scene of an individual that would originally be meaningless and make it to become meaningful. One type of primary framework is natural frameworks, which identifies situations that happened in the natural world, and is completely physical with no human influences. The other type of framework is social framework, which explains events and connects it to humans. An example of natural framework would be the weather and an example of social framework would be people the meteorologist who reports people with the weather forecast. Goffman concentrates more on the frameworks and tries to “ construct a general statement regarding the structure, or form, of experiences individuals have at any moment of their social life” • from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erving_Goffman

Reference • Yu Hai: Western Social Theory: - No.16. Cooley: The Social Self - No.17. Thomas: The Four Wishes and the Definition of the Situation - No.18. Mead: The Self and Society - No.19. Goffman: On Face-Work - No.20. Goffman: ThePresentationof Self - No.21. Blumer: Sociological Implications of the thoughtof George Herbert Mead

Symbolic Interactionism