SOCIOLOGY1025A - LEC 6 (SOCIAL INTERACTION)

social construction of reality

• process by which our perception of reality is shaped by the intersubjective meaning we give to it

• we see the world not as it is, but as we are

social interaction

• involves communication and acting/reacting to people

• role performers act

mediated interaction

• communication using tech to send and receive msgs

status

• culturally defined postion or social location

status set

• all status’ someone has at a given time

ascribed sets

• social position assigned at birth

• related to a characteristic or something impossible to change

acheived status

• status a person acquires through their efforts and choices

master status

• person acquires through their efforts and choices

status cues

• visual indicators of other peoples social position

• pride in their status

role

• cluster of expectations about thoughts, feelings and actions appropriate for soemone of a status

role playing

• behavior involving conforming to existing performance expectations

role making

• creative process where individuals generate role expectations and performances

role ambiguity

• occurs when the expectstions associated with a role are unclear

role set + example

• various roles attached to a single status

• student - studying, reading, learning

role conflict + example

• clashing roles between two or more statuses

• mother cant be an employee too if she needs to care for children

role strain

• roles clashing in a single status

• professor struggling to teach, publish and be in office hours

role exit + example

• process of removal drom a role that is central to identity

• get established to a new role

• wife to widow

stages of role exit

1. doubt

2. alternative search

3. action

4. creating a new identity

self fulfilling prophecy + example

• expectation that brings about what it predicts

• zimbardo prison experiment

ethnomethodology - creator

• harold garfinkel

ethnomethodolgy

• study of how people make sense of what others do and say by ahering to pre existing norms

background expectancies

• peoples shared interpretation of objects and events and their results

breaching experiment

• break presumed background expectancies of situation to see peoples responses

instrumental communication

• sending msgs that are a means to an end

• asking a question with a purpose

expressive communication

• sending msgs that are ends in themselves

• expressing emotions

technological determinism

• assumption that adoption of technologies leads to inevitable and undesirable effects

emotion management

• obeying “rules for feelings”

• responding appropriately to the situations we are in

emotion labour

• emotion management that many people do as a part of their job and what they are paid for

• dealing with rude customers

power

• capacity to carry out one’s will despite resistance

domination

• nearly all power is concentrated in the hands of people of high status

• fear is the main emotion

coorperation

• power is equally distributed between people of different status

• trust is the main emotion

competition

• power is inequally distributed but the degree is less than domination

• envy is the most felt emotion

dramaturigal analysis - creator

• goffman

dramaturgical analysis

• approach to social interaction as a play

• people present themselves so they appear in the best light

role distancing

• lacking serious commitment to a role

• excuse as just going through something