Micro-Sociological Theories

Phenomenology (Hussrel, Schutz, Berger and Luckmann), Ethnomethodology (Garfinkel), Symbolic Interactionism (Mead, Blumer, Kuhn/Stryker), Dramaturgy (Goffman)

phenomenology

Edmund Husserl’s theory

the study of “phenomena,” or the “appearances,” of human experience while attempting to suspend the “natural attitude” of everyday life

• how we acquire knowledge about the world around us and how this results in the idea of a shared reality

Edmund Husserl

• father of phenomenology

• how do we experience the world through our senses

• all of our experiences beyond our senses are “assumptions” and “speculations”

• everything that exists beyond our senses and immediate experiences are abstractions

• most of our experiences and knowledge of the world is separate from sensory experience

• language takes us away from immediate experience

• we live in a shared world of the “everyday” which is constructed from “knowledge” that we do not directly experience

  • accepting knowledge as true means we are part of social groups

lifeworld

the everyday, taken-for-granted world in which human beings occupy

taken-for-granted

the assumptions that we make about our knowledge of the everyday world that are actually separated from our immediate sense experience

natural attitude

the world of common-sense assumptions that we have about the world; tacit knowledge

Alfred Schutz

• responsible for making Husserl’s ideas of phenomenology sociological

• raises primary question: “how do we know that we share the same basic understandings about the world, or even the same reality?”

  • problem of intersubjectivity

• most activities in the social world involve constructing a sense of intersubjectivity by reinforcing the assumption that intersubjectivity exists

• assume reciprocity of perspectives

• world of shared meanings symbolic interactionists rely upon is really based upon a set of speculative assumptions

the problem of intersubjectivity

we do not truly know we share the same basic understanding of the world because we do not experience the world in the same way (Schutz).

reciprocity of perspectives

assumption that we share interpretations of the social world with others, allowing for mutual interaction (Schutz).

stocks of knowledge at hand

• makes up our sense of taken-for-granted reality/natural attitude

• “social recipes” for making sense of the world

• they are:

  1. learned through socialization

  2. assumptions that allow us to take the world for granted

  3. gives us a sense that we share the same world

  4. provide us with “recipes” for acting in the world

  5. ultimately create a sense of reality as “real,” as what seems to be an “objective” or “paramount” reality

(Schutz)

bracketing

method through which taken-for-granted assumptions are exposed

• separate what we have not experienced first hand

• understand architecture of social world through what we categorize

social construction of reality (Berger and Luckmann)

• asks:

  • “how does a body of knowledge become accepted as ‘reality’?”

  • “how do we create a shared reality that is experienced as objectively factual and is also subjectively meaningful?”

• reality is made by and for us to inhabit; we don’t control it but we still create it

how does the social construction of reality occur?

cycle of

1. externalization

2. objectification

3. internalization

externalization

the creation of new social elements of reality that become new elements of that reality.

subjective reality shared with another person (e.g., memes).

objectification

the perception of an ordered prearranged reality that appears to be independent of human beings themselves (reification).

object becomes permanent part of culture (stock of knowledge).

internalization

the process by which individuals internalize the objectified reality (conformity to a reified reality).

treat something as if it is real and is then incorporated into the individual.

social facts and social construction of reality

social facts are constructions we forget aren’t real. forgetting is reification.

reification

when something moves from abstract to concrete.

forget that products of human activity in fact were created by humans. dehumanization (Berger and Luckmann).

remembrance is empowering, reinserting ourselves back into the world we created.

ethnomethodology

founded by Harold Garfinkel.

the study of the “cultural” or “folk” methods that we use to accomplish our everyday lives.

argues:

• everyday social life is an ongoing accomplishment

• “social facts” are not very factual, make people into “judgemental dopes”

• there is no “micro” or “macro” social reality

• all that there really is are “sense making practices” that allow us to accomplish a sense of shared reality

• social structure, culture, self, roles, etc. do not “exist”

• we produce the “sense” that these “facts” exist

how do we produce a sense of social reality?

1. reflexive action

2. the indexicality of meaning

3. et cetera principle

4. accounts and accounting

reflexive action

we engage in interaction and interpretation of events to sustain a certain version of reality.

self-sealing universe, preserve systems even if they are broken (e.g., explain poor performance by saying “I just didn’t try hard enough”).

indexicality of meaning

• meaning is context-dependent.

• what something means in a situation depends upon prior assumption of past experiences.

et cetera principle

much of interaction is left unsaid, so we “fill in” the void in interaction.

(e.g., “Do you know what I mean?” or “and stuff”)

accounts and accounting

• the ways we explain or rationalize situations

• the process by which we make sense of the world

• results in a set of accounting practices

• (e.g., explain why we’re late)

breaching experiments

research in ethnomethodology that exposes the rules of everyday reality by breaking them

Agnes and the accomplishment of gender

study by Garfinkel that followed “Agnes” a MTF individual who “developed” female secondary sex characteristics and wanted to transition. studied how Agnes accomplished womanhood.

• Agnes had actually been covertly taking mother’s estrogen from an early age

• Garfinkel interviewed other trans people as well

  • one of the earliest studies on trans person

George Herbert Mead

• ideas were the basis of symbolic interactionism

• three traditions important for his ideas: pragmatism, behaviorism, darwinism

• most famous work: Mind, Self and Society

• theory of the act: impulse —> perception —> manipulation —> consummation

• two types of social acts: conversation of gestures, significant symbols

• self (“I” and “me”) vs mind

pragmatism

• the idea of an “objective reality” is turned into a major question

• individuals create their own world

• what the world is, is how it is interpreted (meaning = use)

• interpretations and actions are pragmatic or “practical”

behaviorism

• individual behavior and thought is the product of stimulus-response conditioning

• learn based on punishment & rewards

  • individuals come to like something when they are rewarded

  • individuals dislike something when they are punished

• individuals are the conditions of their social environment

Darwinism

• human beings are animals

• all animals adapt and adjust to their environment

• human beings have an adaptive mechanism that makes them distinct: conscious thought

Mead’s theory of the act

impulse —> perception —> manipulation —> consummation

(e.g., feel hungry, notice hunger, make food, eat food)

social acts (Mead)

acts that involve more than one individual

• conversation of gestures

• interaction through significant symbols

conversation of gestures (Mead)

direct responses to stimuli that have no deeper meaning

• e.g. chain reaction of barking dogs

significant symbols (Mead)

a symbol that evokes the same response in the receiver as it does in the sender.

make the following possible:

• conscious thought

• meaning

• shared meaning (assumption)

• symbolic interaction

• society itself

meaning (Mead)

• can only be produced through significant symbols

• product of social interaction

• must involve conscious reflection

• product of role-taking (taking the role of the other)

the self (Mead)

• product of social interaction that is both a social process and a social structure.

• how you see and understand yourself as a social thing.

• develops through the ability to take the role of the other.

• stages: play stage, game stage, generalized other

• phases: “I” and “me”

play stage (Mead)

the ability to take on the role of one significant other

(e.g., playing mom or teacher)

game stage (Mead)

the ability to take on several roles at one time

recognize social structure and differentiate positions and roles (e.g., positions in team sports)

generalized other (Mead)

the ability to take on the roles of an entire “community of attitudes”

“I” (Mead)

the self in action:

• self in process, in the moment

• the impulsive, spontaneous, and indeterminate part of the self

• non-reflective

• produces individuality

“me” (Mead)

the self as an object in the world:

• the structured and determinate part of the self

• a product of interaction and conscious reflection

• only know the “I” through the “me”

• result of “reflected appraisals”

• strong “me” is a sign of conformity to one or more groups

looking-glass self (Cooley)

1. we imagine ourselves how we appear to others

2. we imagine their judgements of our appearance

3. we have self-feelings/thoughts about those judgements

the mind (Mead)

• ability to “talk to one’s self” after the self is created as an object in the world

• described as:

  • an internalized conversation (ones that we would have with others)

  • an “imaginative rehearsal”

  • a process of self-reflection

  • an internal process of role-taking

Mead and society

• society must exist before selves and minds yet cannot exist without selves or minds.

• social structures exist as the “common response of the community”

• culture exists as a “generalized other”

Herbert Blumer

• student of Mead who coined “symbolic interactionism”

• develops three principles:

  • act toward things on the basis of meaning

  • meaning is process of social interaction

  • use of meanings by actor occurs through process of interpretation

• theory of action is inverse of Parsons

• processual symbolic interactionism

processual symbolic interaction (Blumer)

all human social life is a process by which meanings are negotiated and interpreted, a product of joint action

social structures and culture have only a weak influence on individuals

• actors have more agency

• society is not concrete, society is a process

joint action (Blumer)

social life is coordinated activity through current interpretation

structural symbolic interactionism

• social life, especially the self, is highly structured (organized)

• Manfred Kuhn’s twenty statements test

• Sheldon Stryker’s hierarchical organization of self-identity in terms of commitment and salience

Manfred Kuhn’s twenty statements test

“I am” statements that people respond to in order to determine their sense of self. response categories typically fall into social groups and classifications, ideological beliefs, interests, ambitions, and self-evaluations.

Sheldon Stryker’s organization of the self

self is hierarchically organized along a set of identities that vary in terms of commitment and salience.

• the more commitment an individual has to an identity, the greater salience of the identity.

• the higher an identity in the salience hierarchy, the more likely that identity will be performed, and performed well.

Erving Goffman

• student of Parsons

• dramaturgy

  • social life is like theatre

  • social script (structure)

  • performances

  • actors and roles

  • front-stage region/self

  • back-stage region/self

  • impression managent

  • mystification

• the self is “self presentations” and “role performances”

social life is like theatre (Goffman)

we are always performing; who are we when we aren’t performing?

front-stage region/self (Goffman)

actively performing specific role (concurrent with back-stage region/self)

back-stage region/self (Goffman)

recovering from or preparing for new role (concurrent with front-stage region/self)

impression management (Goffman)

techniques to convince people we are authentic in our role

interaction rituals (Goffman)

• religion has become remote to the everyday aspects

• Durkheim’s religious/social rituals do not happen on large scale

• rituals still occur and are essential components of everyday interaction

• the social self is the sacred symbolic object of most social rituals

  • worship one another and self identification

  • sense of self as a sacred object is reinforced through “worship”

mechanism to create the self (Goffman)

social rituals in the form of conversations and interactions.

dependent on others for our sense of self.

why do we feel the need to protect the self? (Goffman)

avoiding embarrassment is important because we are tied together through emotions.

if embarrassed, risk falling out of character/off script —> deviating from script can crumple the social structure/expose it as fake.

social situations as mini social systems (Goffman)

each social situation is like a mini social system with interdependent, functioning parts which strive for balance, order, and equilibrium among the selves involved in order to protect them.

Arlie Russell Hochschild

• The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling (1983)

• emotional labor falls on workers, especially in service-oriented professions

• fusion of Marx & Goffman

• case studies:

  • flight attendants: cheerful & accommodating

  • bill collectors: stern & authoritative

• surface acting vs. deep acting

• consequences of emotional labor

  • emotional alienation

  • commercialization of human feeling

emotional labor (Hochschild)

the process by which workers manage and regulate their emotions to align with organizational expectations or to fulfill the emotional requirements of a job.

• service-oriented professions

• selling emotional experiences

case study - flight attendants (Hochschild)

• expectation: maintain a cheerful and accommodating demeanor to enhance passenger experience

• training: instruction on suppressing negative emotions and exhibiting friendliness, regardless of personal feelings

case study - bill collectors (Hochschild)

• expectation: adopt a stern and authoritative presence to prompt debt repayment

• training: guidance on suppressing empathy to maintain a firm stance with debtors

surface acting (Hochschild)

altering external expressions without changing internal feelings; essentially “faking” the required emotions

• implication: can lead to emotional dissonance and stress due to disparity between felt and displayed

• front stage =/= backstage

deep acting (Hochschild)

attempting to modify internal feelings to genuinely align with expected emotions

• implication: may reduce emotional dissonance but can blur the line between authentic and managed feelings

• method acting; front stage = backstage

consequences of emotional labor (Hochschild)

• emotional exhaustion and burnout

• emotional alienation: potential loss of a sense of self due to continuous suppression or alteration of true emotions

• disproportionate burden on women, as many roles requiring emotional labor are female-dominated

• commercialization of human feeling