Social Action Perspectives

Also known as interprevitism

Micro Sociology
Interpretism sociologists who look at how people interpret the world
around them (ie: half empty or half full)
Miro small scale study
Macro large scale study
Social action 4 variations
1) Social action
2) Symbolic interactionism
3) Phenomenology
4) Ethnomethodology
Max Weber (Vay-Bah) explaining capitalism
People hold meaning about the world an consciously act on the
basis of those meanings
Weber saw behaviour in terms of the meaning people attach to
actions
Verstehen the aim of sociological investigation should be the
creation of an understanding of the meanings/motives and values
involved in social action
Getting behind peoples actions, finding out why they do what they
do
1) Capitalism began set of ideas
2) Calvinism (protestant Christianity) makes you feel guilty
anxiety, god likes hard work protestant work ethic, all work is holy,
emphasise on community NOT family, there arent miracles
disenchantment of world, REPENT THROUGH WORK, Dont change
the world through war/revolution but through ideas/meetings
3) Capitalism development problem not material communism
countries cultural change
4) Weber believed in three types of power:
o Traditional Authority religion
o Charismatic authority Hitler
o Bureaucratic authority knowledge = power, Ashley Madison,
facebook, hackers
Ideas more important than money/tools
Symbolic interactionism
Focuses on small scale interactions rather than on social structure
How meanings are constructed through social interactions
People have a degree of control/influence over social behaviour
Explains individual and through that society
George Herbert Mead

Herbert Blumer titles it

o Action, depends on meaning
o Meanings from social interaction different things for different
people
o Meanings an change in everyday life
Meaning action, change, different
Interaction modify your beliefs

George Herbert Mead

People define and interpret the world through the meanings they
attach to it
Reality is a SUBJECTIVE reality
Meanings people hold are constructed from and communicated in
the form of symbols
Social life is a constant stream of symbolic communication with
meanings being constantly negotiated and re-negotiated
People can do this by being able to take the role of the other
Goffman
Dramaturgical analogy life is like a stage
As in the theatre, roles are not fixed. People can interpret their roles
in many different ways.
People are aware they are doing this and life is a process of selfpresentation
We use props, stages, etc to control how we appear to others. This
is made possible by our ability to see ourselves.
Asylums participant observation institutionalised discultureilisation notion of self
Becker
Labelling theory society labelling based upon agreed norms
(terrorist OR freedom fighter)
Self-fulfilling prophecy
Master status
Deviance is socially constructed by reaction (based on culture) not
action
Pos/neg in different cultures
Robin Hood (criminal hero)
Primary initial violence of social norm
Master status overpowering status that takes over identity
People love labels and usually fulfil their own
Phenomology Schutz
Internal working of the human mind and the way humans make
sense of and classify the world around them

We have a series of typification (categories) we use to organise the

world as we see it
We have a store of common sense knowledge which helps in
everyday interactions

Ethnomethodology Garfinkel
Study of methods used by people to construct and account for and
give meaning to their social world (Atkinson and the methods
coroners used in suicide)
Unwritten rules govern everyday situations
Deny there is a real thing called society with a structure, instead we
actively construct out social world every time we interact with
others
Conversation analysis, naturalistic, experiments
Evaluation
Where do meanings/labels come from?
The similarity of meanings and labels suggest they come from a
social structure
If individuals have such influence why do people act in similar
ways? Social structure again?
Social behaviour is not randomly created, it is interpreted by the
social and historical context (original-sin-esque)
Research methods used do not meet scientific criteria