SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM

Symbolic Interactionism- is an approach focusing on everyday interactions between individuals.

The use of the word “symbolic” suggests an important distinguishing of the approach.

Symbolic Interactionism- emphasizes the importance of interaction in creating meaning.

Socialization- it is the more specific process from which individuals absorb and understand what particular
symbol stand for.

Symbols- represent or stand for something

THEORISTS OF SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM

 George Herbert Mead (1863-1931)

 Herbert Blumer (1900-1987)
 Charles Horton Cooley (1864-1929)

GEORGE HERBERT MEAD: THE SELF

The self lies at the core of symbolic interaction. In this view, an individual posseses a self that has a reflexive
relation to the world around him. This self is an outcome of social interaction. Initially absent at birth, it emerges
in the process of social experience.

Self-Interaction- form of self-talk or internal conversation. Allows individuals to take others into account in
organizing itself for action. It consists of role-taking, role-playing, and putting one’s self in the shoes of others.

Role Playing Process- contributes in the general development of the self.

Mead divides self into two parts- the I and me.

me- constitutes the aspect of the self that is socialized to the expectations and attitudes of others.

I- the acting and creative self that responds to a situation

Development of self

 preplay stage- when children are about 2 years old. Since meaning for Mead is rooted in the shared
interpretation of symbols, the limited ability of children to take the roles of others makes their action
more imitative than meaningful.
 play stage- during this stage, children start to learn simple role-playing.
 game stage- usually involves several player. Individuals participate in complex and organized
interactions

HERBER BLUMER: INTERPRETATION AND METHODOLOGY

Coined the term symbolic interactionism.

3 Core Concepts

symbols self interaction

Three basic principles of the approach

1. The meaning we have of people and things define our action toward them.
2. The meaning of things emerges from our social interaction with others.
3. Meaning-making and understanding is a continuous process of interpretation

Interpretation is the key to meaning making.

Passive partakers- goes beyond the simple stimulus-response formulation. They tend to absorbed everything
others tell to them

Active partakers- individuals interpret a situation before responding.

self-interpretation-behavior

Self-indication- process where an individual isolates a certain stimuli and points out the meaning of the stimuli
to themselves.

CHARLES HORTON COOLEY: THE LOOKING-GLASS SELF

The looking-glass self- describes how an individual identity develops based on one’s understanding of
another’s perception about him or her. This means that other people’s ideas about our characteristics or
qualities contribute to our self-perception. In turn, this may lead us to feel, react, or act in certain ways,
depending on how we see others as perceiving us.
Self-image and self-concept refer to an individual’s ideas about who he or she is.

The looking-glass self consists of three elements:

1. We imagine how we appear to others, for instance, smart, friendly, reliable, immature.
2. We imagine how others judge us on the basis of that appearance.
3. Those judgements make you feel particular emotion.

PSYCHOANALYSIS

Personality- the unique way in which each individual thinks, acts, and feels throughout life.

Character- refers to the value judgements made about a person’s moral or ethical behaviour.

Major Perspectives in Personality Theories

A personality theory is a system of concepts, assumptions, ideas, and principles proposed to explained
personality.

1. Psychodynamic perspective focuses on the roles of the unconscious mind in the development of
personality.
2. Behaviorist perspective focuses on the effect of the environment on behaviour.
3. Humanistic perspective stresses on the private, subjective experience, and personal growth.
4. Trait perspective attemps to learn what traits make up personality and how they relate to actual
behaviour.

Psychodynamic Theory

Sigmund Freud’s Background

 Born in Austro Hungarian Empire in 1856

 4 years old, his family moved to Vienna, Austria.
 1938 when the Germans occupied Austria.
 Because of his Jewish background; he moved to England.
 During Victorian Age, people were told by the Church that sex should only take place in the context of
marriage.Thus, to enjoy sexual intercourse before marriage was considered a sin.
During this period, a good husband is reffered to as some who is a father to several children with his
wife, and then turns to a mistress for sexual comfort so that his virtuous wife would remain untouched.
Women were also not expected to have any sexual urges. Freud became ultimately obsessed with
sexual explanations for abnormal behaviors.

This became basis for his psychodynamic theories:

1. Much of mental life is unsconscious, and consequently, individuals may behave in ways that they do
not understand.
2. Mental processes such as thoughts, emotions, and motivations operate in parallel, and thus may lead
to conflicting feelings.
3. Early experiences largely affect personality development.
4. Our mental representations of ourselves and of others influence our interactions with others.
5. Learning to regulate sexual and aggressive feelings is the foundation for the personality development of
personality.

THE PARTS OF MIND

 Preconscious mind is where one’s memories, information, and events are stored.
 Conscious mind is where one’s current awareness exist
 Unconscious mind is the part that remains hidden at all time. The unconscious mind surfaces only in
dreams, and in some of the behaviour people engage in without actually knowing why they have done
so.

THE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY

Id - Ego - Superego

Id- the most primitive part of the personality. This is completely unconscious and pleasure-seeking part of the
personality that exists at birth. (pleasure principle) which can be defined as the desire for immeadiate
gratifications of needs, with no regard for the possible consequences.
Ego- mostly conscious and is more rational, logical, and cunning than the id. It’s the psychic mechanism that
controls all thinking and reasoning activities. (reality principle) Through intelligent reasoning, the ego tries to
delay satisfying the id’s desires until it can do so safely and successfully.

Superego- moral watchdog. Acts as a judge or a censor for thoughts and actions of our ego. The supergo
contains the conscience- the part of personality that makes one feel proud for doing the right thing or guilty and
anxious for doing the wrong thing. The second party of the superego is the ego ideal. It reflects all the
behaviors that one’s parents or guardians have approved or rewarded. The ego ideal is a source of aspirations
and goals. When its standards are met, an individual feels a certain amount of pride.

These three interact when they are conflicting mental processes.The id makes the demands, the superego
puts restrictions on how those demands can be met, and the ego has to come up with a plan that will silence
the id, but also fulfil the superego. This constant state of conflict is Freud’s view of how personality works; it is
only when the anxiety created by this conflict gets out of hand that disordered behaviour arises.

DEFENSE MECHANISM

Denial- protect oneself from an unpleasant reality by refusing to perceive it. It also refers to refusal to
acknowledge a painful of threatening reality. By temporarily denying reality, a person may be better equipped
to avoid emotions that would be otherwise overwhelming.

Repression- prevent dangerous or painful thoughts from entering one’s consciousness. The most common
mechanism for blocking out traumatic and hurtful memories and feelings. Individuals remove painful thoughts
and feelings from their consciousness, without realizing that they are doing so.

Projection- attribute one’s feelings and shortcomings to other people. It also refers to attributing our own
repressed motives, ideas, and feelings to others. In other words, we are trying to distort the nature of the
problem so we can deal with it easily.

Identification- take on the characteristics of an admired individual. It also refers to taking on the characteristics
of someone else so that he/she can share in the person’s triumph.

Regression- revert an earlier development. When people under severe stress may revert to childlike behaviour.

Intellectualization- talk or think about stressful situations in impersonal “intellectual” terminologies. It also refers
to detaching oneself from his/her feelings about his/her problems, by analysing them logically and objectively
as if these concerned other people.

Reaction Formation- prevent dangerous impulses by exaggerating an opposite behaviour. It also refers to
expressing ideas and emotions that are the exact opposite of what the person is actually feeling or thinking.

Displacement- shift repressed motives to a substitute object. It also refers to redirection of repressed motives
and emotions from their original object to substitute objects.

Sublimation- redirect unmet desires to activities that are constructive. It also refers to redirecting repressed
motives and feelings into more socially acceptable channels.

PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT

Oral stage- the first stage is called oral stage because the erogenous zone is the mouth. This stage occurs
from the birth of the infant to about 1 year old. At this stage, the infant is completely dominated by the id. The
conflict that can arise in this stage pertains to weaning (taking the mother’s breast away from the child, who will
now drink from a cup) Weaning that occurs too soon or too late can result in too little or too much satisfaction
of the child’s oral needs.

Anal Stage- Ages 1 to 3 he erogenous zone shifts from the mouth to the anus. Believes that the child gets a lot
of pleasure from both withholding and releasing their feces at will. The main area of conflict in this stage is the
toilet training. When parents attempt toilet training, the child can seek approval or express rebellion by letting
go or holding on. Anal fixation can lock such responses into personality. Anal retentive personalities (holding
on) as stingy, stubborn, and excessively neat. Anal expulsive personalities (letting go) are often disorderly,
messy, and/or destructive.

Phallic Stage- 3 to 6 years old. The erogenous zone moves toward the genitals. There is an awakening of
sexual curiosity, and a developed interest in the genitals.

Oedipus Complex- The boys develop both sexual attraction to their mothers and jealousy of their fathers.
Believes that the male child may feel threatened by the father. This rivalry ends when the male child seeks to
become more like the father. He begins to accept the father’s values, and he will eventually develop a
conscience.
 Electra Complex- the girl loves her father and competes with her mother. However, Freud argues that the
girl gradually identifies with her mother.

Fixation in the phallic stage usually involves immature sexual attitudes as an adult. People fixated at his stage
will often exhibit promiscuous sexual behaviors.

Latency Stage- Ages 6 to puberty. This is a quiet time wherein the psychosexual development is dormant and
inactive. In this stage, children grow intellectually, physically, and socially, but not sexually. Thinks the opposite
sex is undesirable.

Genital Stage- puberty to death. A sudden increase in sexual energies activates all the unresolved conflicts of
the earlier stages. As body change and sexual urges allowed into the consciousness, sexual feelings once
repressed can no longer be ignored by the individual. In this stage, the focus of sexual attraction and curiosity
includes adolescents, celebrities, and other objects of adoration, instead of the parents. This stage represents
the final process in Freud’s personality theory.

THE NEO-FREUDIANS

The ideas of Sigmund Freud attracted number of other psychologists. There were also those who stayed close to the core
of his teachings. They are called the neo-freudians.

ALFRED ADLER (1870-1939)

 As young helpless children, people develop feelings of inferiority when comparing themselves to the
more superior and powerful adults in their world. The driving force behind all human action and
endeavors is not the seeking of pleasure, but of superiority. He disagreed with over the importance of
sexuality in development.
 The core of each person’s style of life is formed by the age of 5. He realized the importance of creative
self. He meant that individuals create their personalities through their various experiences and choices
in life.

KAREN HORNEY (1885-1952)

 Horney focuses on the child’s sense of basic anxiety which refers to the anxiety created in a child born
into a world that is so much bigger and more powerful than the child.
 People with parents would easily overcome this anxiety, others with a less secure upbringing would
develop neurotic personalities and maladaptive ways of dealing with other people
 Another way of dealing anxiety is by withdrawing from personal relationships with other people.

CARL JUNG (1875-1961)

 He was a student of Freud, but two parted ways as Jung began to develop his own ideas.
 He believe that there was not only a personal unsconcious ( a mental storehouse for one’s
experiences, feelings, and memories), but a collective unconscious (a mental storehouse for
unconscious ideas and images shared by all humans)
 All humans had experiences with birth, death, mother and father figures, and more. Such universals
create what Jung called archetypes. Unexpressed feminine side of the man’s personality.
 Two general attitude types: introverts and extroverts.

Introverts- individuals caught up in their own private worlds. They tend to be unsociable and lack confidence in
dealing with other people.

Extroverts- refer to the people who turn their attention to the external world. They take an active interest in other
people and in the events going on around them.

RATIONAL CHOICE

Focuses on how actors decide and, given a set of possible options, select the option that would provide them
with the greatest satisfaction or happiness.

DEFINITIONS AND KEY ASSUMPTIONS

Rational choice theory is most commonly used in economics, particularly in microeconomics.

1. Individuals are goal-oriented. Individuals have certain beliefs about the outcomes resulting from their
actions. This can either be deterministic or non-deterministic. Deterministic beliefs have a single
outcome to a certain action. Non-deterministic beliefs, or probabilistic beliefs, have several
probabilities and outcomes for each action.
 2. Assuming that they know all possible choices or alternatives, individuals rank their choices according to
preferences, or which choices they desire more over other alternatives. This refers to utility, or how
individuals measure their preferences over choices.
3. Individuals consider rationally according to their beliefs and preferences. Assuming that they have
considered all available information and probabilities in relation to their choices, as well as the
benefitsand costs of each option, then they choose the option which they thinks is the optimal choice.
This is also called utility maximization.
4. A social event or phenomenon emerges from rational choices made by individuals who have
maximazide their utility. This may include social structures and collective behaviour.
5. This social events or phenomenon shapes the distribution of resources and oppurtunities, and the
nature of norms and obligations among individuals.

RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY: STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

STRENGTHS

 Provides insights into the decision-making

 It presents how individuals are guided by the ways they access costs and benefits.
 Promotes inform and calculated decision-making.

WEAKNESS

 Implies that humans are interest-seeking individuals and, in a way, selfish.

 Doesn’t take into account why most individuals behave in an “irrational” rather than a rational manner
 Rational choice theory assumes that it can capture and simplify human behaviour into choices and interests.
 Individuals are assumed to know all possible actions,
 Asserts the macro-level structures can be explained as an aggregation of rational decision-making individuals,
 Rational choice theory underplays the value of norms, habits, and cultural factors in shaping human behaviour.