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Social interactions (and what they need to succeed)
moments we share with people
Social rules - culturally specific norms, policies, and laws that guide our behavior.
Folkways - loosely enforced norms
Mores - tightly enforced norms that carry moral significance
Taboos - social prohibitions so strong that the thought of violating them can be sickening
Law -rules that are made and enforced by cities, states, or federal governments
Policy - rules that are made and enforced by organizations
Symbolic interactionism
theory that social interaction depends on the social construction of reality
1.) meaning is negotiated in social interactions
2.) meaning is produced through social interaction
3.) we respond to the meaning we give to a situation
Dramaturgy
Erving Goffman
the practice of looking at social life as a series of performances in which we are all actors on metaphorical stages
Marked Identities
Man is (usually but not always) an unmarked identity. In the symbolic structure, men are people. They can carry their gender lightly. So lightly that it’s sometimes invisible. They’re unmarked much of the time, like the stick figure on the walk/don’t walk sign.
Unmarked Identities
woman is (usually but not always) a marked identity. Women are women. They’re rarely just people. They’re a special kind of people, the female kind. Their gender is usually an important fact about them. So important that it’s difficult or impossible for women to carry their identity lightly. It’s almost always visible.
Breaching
purposefully breaking a social rule in order to test how others respond
Ethnomethodology
research aimed at revealing the underlying shared logic that is the foundations of social interactions
ex) attempting to earn a higher grade in a class rather than a lower grade
ex) treating family members more informally and strangers more formally
Social rules
culturally specific norms, policies, and laws that guide our behavior
Prescriptive - telling us what to do
Proscriptive - telling us what NOT to do
symbolic interactionism
Herbert Blumer
theory that social interaction depends on the social construction of reality
1.) we don’t generally respond to reality itself but to the meaning we give it
2.) suggests that the meaning of reality doesn’t exist prior to human understanding but is produced through social interaction
3.) posits that meaning is negotiated in interaction
tic-tac-toe experiment
Harold Garfinkel
ethnomethodology
breaching as the people would erase the individuals placed x or o
-revealed an implicit rule supporting all the other rules of tic-tac-toe, one that most students clung to quite seriously. That rule wasn’t take turns or put your X or O in the box. It was a rule that made all
Erving Goffman
The Presentation of Self in Everyday life
coined Dramaturgy
Impression management - efforts to control how we’re perceived by others.
Face
a version of ourselves that we want to project in a specific setting, and doing face work
-ex) “In an office setting, for example, we may want to come across as either a Go Getter or a Team Player. That’s our face. And the face-work might involve asking the boss for choice assignments (in the first case) or staying late to help a coworker (in the second).”
Field experiments
type of experiment that involves tests of hypotheses outside the laboratory
facework
the efforts required to establish and maintain our face
-neither the setting nor the role automatically dictates our face
-ex) “In an office setting, for example, we may want to come across as either a Go Getter or a Team Player. That’s our face. And the face-work might involve asking the boss for choice assignments (in the first case) or staying late to help a coworker (in the second).”
social deviance
behaviors and beliefs that violate social expectations and attract negative sanctions.
criminal deviance
- referring specifically to acts that break laws
ex) Social and criminal deviance don’t always overlap. Jaywalking is a crime, for example, but it’s not considered deviant by most. Conversely, face tattoos might raise some eyebrows, but they aren’t illegal. Even though they don’t always overlap, social and criminal deviance have a lot in common.
survivors of flight 571
-No food → human bodies removed from category not food to category food - consistent with theory of symbolic interaction, unusual situation caused shift in shared meaning (new social rules) → chopping, youngest cover them in snow, etc
-cannibalism became routine → no longer deviant, but ordinary
Consider deviant? → depend on time, place, situation
-in order to be considered deviant, have to be defined through stigmatization, criminalization, or medicalization]
strain theory
Coined by Robert Merton
Deviance is caused by a tension between widely valued goals and people's ability to attain them
differential association theory
Coined by Edwin Sutherland
idea that we need to be recruited into and taught criminal behavior by people in our social networks
neutralization theory
Coined by Gershman Sykes and David Matza
idea that the deviance is facilitate by the development of culturally resonant rationales for rule breaking
-such justification allow us to suspend our normal reluctance to engage in deviant acts, thereby neutralizing our resistance, guilt, and embarrassment
-consists of 3 denials, condemnation, and an appeal
social disorganization
coined by William Julius Wilson
idea that deviance is more common in dysfunctional neighborhoods
-characterized by insecure social networks, family instability, few job opportunities, poor-performing schools, an absence of local organizations, and neglected infrastructure
-Concentrated Poverty: 40 percent or more pf the residents lived below the federal poverty line. These neighborhoods were now seen as ghettos, so no one with economic means wanted to move in, cycle continued
(creates strain)
structural functionalism
coined by Durkheim
the theory that society is a system of necessary, synchronized parts that work together to create social stability
-structure of social life are each like a human organ
-structural functionalism views social phenomena as helping society to function in some way
anomie
widespread normlessness or a weakening of or alienation from social rules
-correlates with students willingness to plagiarize papers and cheat on tests
-harmful not only to individuals but to society
labeling theory
coined by Howard Becker
how labels that are applied to us influence our behavior
-those people we consider deviant follow most of the rules most of the time
-labeling is a process by which people are fixed with a deviant identity
-influence how we behave
Emile durkheim’s view of deviance
1 - deviance was an important source of social change
2 - certain amount of bad behavior could be good, nurtures collective conscience
3 - society’s collective conscience might be dangerously destabilized. This would result in ANOMIE widespread normlessness or a weaking of or alienation from social rules.
conflict theory
ideas that societies aren’t characterized by shared interests but competing ones
-defined by fights over control of valuable resources like wealth, power, and prestige ]
-concerned with social inequality
-KARL MARX
Robert Merton
coined the term Strain theory
three types of response
-Innovation: accepting valued goals but doing something deviant to attain them. **
-stealing and selling form the store you work at
-Retreatism: rejection of valued goals and a decision to opt out of trying to attain them (embracing)
-Rebellion: Also reject valued goals, but instead of simply opting out of society altogether, rebellion involves working to change societies by replacing the existing social goals with different ones (create change)
-points to a gap between the desire to attain a valued goal and the ability to attain it
stigmatization
process by which physical traits to social conditions become widely devalued
ex) body fat became devalued
ex) cannibalism
medicalization
collectively defining physical traits to social conditions as an illness
-ex) social anxiety
criminalization
collectively defining a trait or condition as criminal
ex) drinking alcohol was criminated in 1920
collective consciousness
society’s shared understanding of right and wrong “ a healthy body needs a soul”
-ex) Bundy celebration execution
-ex) college admission scandals (Olivia jade)
race’s impact on job applicants study (outcome)
norms
shared expectations for behavior
laws
rules that are made and enforced by cities, states, or federal governments
social rules
culturally specific norms, policies, and laws that guide our behavior
divine will
Premodern though
foragers were guided by what was understood to be _____ They obeyed gods, spirits, or the souls of their ancestors
divine science
modern ideology
divine experience
postmodern ideology
-your experience is right to you
premodern thought
a belief in supernatural sources of truth and a commitment to traditional practices
modern thought
a belief in science as the sole sources of truth and the idea that humans can rationally organize societies and improve human life
post modern thought
a rejection of absolute truth (whether supernatural or scientific) in favor of countless partial truths, and a denunciation of the narrative of progress
social institutions
widespread and enduring patterns of interactions with which we respond to categories of human need
-health and religions
-they provide stability and predictability
-they help organize the complexity of modern societies
Max Weber’s view on social institutions
Weber argued that authority isn’t traditional in bureaucratic organizations, as it was for premodern humans. Instead, it’s rational legal, derived from logical principles. Authority in these societies comes, then, not from custom (“this is how we do things”) but from rationality (“this is the best way to do things”). Thus, modern individuals may not be as quick to subject themselves to the will of elders and ancestors, but they may defer to bureaucrats, legislators, and accountants.
Bureaucracy
organizations with formal policies, strict hierarchies, and impersonal relations
ex) police
legitimation
process by which a potentially controversial social fact is acceptable
Gig Economy
segment of the labor market in which companies contract with individuals to complete one short-term job at a tie.
-ex) Uber, DoorDash, and TaskRabbit
-post-modern
McDonaldization
Coined Ritzer
the process by which more and more parts of life are made efficient, predictable, calculatable, and controllable by nonhuman technologies.
Role of religion
Organizations
help to create new mode of cooperation in a more complex society
-social organization - formal entities that coordinate collections of people in achieving a stated purpose.
-include corporations, hospitals, schools, police forces, and social clubs]
-are more planned than routine social interactions, have clear goal - mission statements
-orgs have division of labor
denial of responsibility
claim that rule breaking is outside of a rule breaker’s control (“it is not my fault”)
neutralization theory
Denial of injury
claim that the rule breaking is allowed because no one is harmed (“no one got hurt”)
neutralization theory
Denial of victim
claim that the harm done is deserved (“they were asking for it”)
neutralization theory
condemnation of the condemners
rejection of a critic’s moral authority to judge the rule breaker (“you are just as bad as me”)
neutralization theory
appeal to higher loyalties
claim that rule breaking is justified in pursuit of a greater good (“i did it for my family”)
neutralization theory
