Social Interaction & Social Structure

These flashcards cover key vocabulary relating to social interaction and social structure, including definitions and important concepts discussed in the lecture.

Social Interaction

The process by which role performers act in relation to others, involving communication among people acting and reacting to one another.

Social Structure

Stable patterns of social relations that organize social environments into predictable relationships.

Master Status

A social position that a person considers central to their social identity, which supersedes all other statuses.

Ascribed Status

A social position imposed on a person at birth, related to characteristics that are difficult to change.

Achieved Status

A status that a person acquires through their efforts and choices.

Role Conflict

Incompatibility among roles corresponding to two or more different statuses.

Role Strain

Incompatibility among roles corresponding to a single status.

Self-fulfilling Prophecy

An expectation that helps bring about what it predicts; status label leading to role expectations that can become internalized.

Ethnomethodology

The study of how people make sense of what others do and say by adhering to pre-existing norms.

Breaching Experiment

An experiment that breaks presumed background expectancies of a situation to observe people's responses.