sociology theory and methods - action theory.

What are the core beliefs of action theorists?

Micro scale - individual focused

Volunteeristic - free will

Interpritivists who like qualitative data which is high in validity and helps to understand meaning.

Bottom up approach - helps to understand why people do things/ the meaning they attach to things and what people are doing. Opposed by structuralists who believe society shapes us.

What did Max Weber believe was neseccary for a full understanding of human behaviour?

• Saw both structural and action approaches important to understanding human behaviour, and that an adequate sociological explanation had to have two things.

  1. The level of cause - which is an understanding of how structural factors influence our behaviour.

  2. The level of meaning - the subjective meaning that individuals attach to their behaviour.

What are Weber’s four types of actions.

• There are infinite meanings we can attach to our actions and classified them into four categories.

1. Instrumentally rational actions

2. Value rational actions

3. Traditional action

4. Affectual action.

What is an instrumentally rational action?

An instrumentally rational action is an action that we do because it is the most efficient way of achieving a goal. For example, a business man may pay his staff lower to maintain his own profits.

What is a value rational action?

A value rational action is an action that is desirable for its own sake. For example a religious person may worship to get into heaven. This type of action is guided by a belief in the inherent value of the behavior itself, irrespective of the consequences.

What is a traditional action?

A traditional action is a routine or habitual action we do without thinking about it. For example, making a coffee in the mornings as a part of your routine.

What is an affectual action?

An affectual action is an action to express an emotion. For example crying when sad or violence when you’re angry.

What is an evaluation of Weber?

• He focuses too much on the action and not the shared meanings and values we attach to them. For example in an auction raising youtr hand suggests you want to bid yet in school it suggests you want to talk. Weber does not focus on how we understand the meanings of actions.Critics argue that his emphasis on individual actions overlooks the complex social contexts and meanings that shape behavior. This critique highlights the importance of collective interpretations and shared cultural values in understanding social actions.

What does symbolic interactionism focus on and believe?

• Focuses on how we create the social world through our actions and interactions.

  • Believes our interactions are based on meanings we give to situations. The meaning is conveyed through symbols (Mead).

How are actions driven by symbols?

Actions are driven by symbols and the meanings we attach to symbols. People attach meaning to symbols and act accordingly, these meanings are not fixed and change over time based on other interactions we have.

How is our behaviour different to animals?

Unlike animals who rely on largely preprogrammed instincts, we create a world of meanings based on the everyday interactions that we have. We don’t respond in an automatic way, we have to interpret meanings and context. Then decide the appropriate response. For example, dogs may bark at one and other without it them having to interpret the meaning of the barking, yet if a person shakes their fist at another person you would have to decide based on context whether they were joking or threatening.

How do we interpret what other peoples actions mean?q

We do this by taking the role of the other person, and putting ourselves in their shoes to understand the symbols from their perspective.

Where does our idea of who we are come from?

Cooley - it comes from how other people view us. We begin to see ourselves as others , the looking glass self. You are shaped by other people perception of yourself so a self fulfilling prophecy is created.

How does social interadctionalism link to labelling theory?

Labelling theory

1. You are labelled

2. People treat you as if the label is true

3. You internalise the label

   1. The label becomes true.

      Like social interactionalim you internalise the label other people give to you and this becomes your controlling identity and master status.

What is the dramaturgical analogy?

Goffman - suggests we activelyconstruct our self by manipulating other perception of us. It is called the dramaturgical analogy because he compares this to a stage preformance, e.g we’re acting out scripts and using props, only resting when backstage in between performances (backstage is where we can be ourselves)

Our aim is to carry out convincing performances of the roles we’re playing.

What is impression management?

Goffman - dramaturgical analogy.

• The idea we actively present an image of ourselves to the audience e.g family, friends, or customers.

• To do this we have to carry out impression management where we study our audiences and see how they’re responding and adapt accordingly.

• Do this through, speech, clothing, make up, expressions.

  • If we’re skilled we’re able to convince the audience we are who we say we are.

What is the impact of impression management and the dramaturgical analogy.

This creates our public persona, which we manipulate and havae power over. e.g some teachers are strict while others aren’t.

We manage our public persona to create the best image of ourselves.

What is a criticism of the public persona?

Feminist would argue patriarchal structures still decide and influence your public persona. e.g beauty ideals.

You feel like you need to control the me you present or there will be consequences (sanctions).

What does phenominology believe?

Edmund Husserl.

• We never have definite knowledge of what the world outside of our mind is really like, only what our senses tell us about it

• The world only makes sense because we classify information into mental categories, we can only get information that way.

  • e.g a category of a table may be a four legged thing for eating meals off of, this will help us identify when we see a a table.

What do typifications help with?

Alfred Schutz

• The categories and concepts use are not unique to us and we share them with other members of society.

• Typifications help us to make sure we agree on the meanings of things. Which makes it possible to communicate with each other and maintain social order.

• We use context clues and common sense to determine inc shared assumptions about the situations

  • e.g a red traffic light only means stop because we all agree that it does.

What does ethnomethodology believe?

Garfinkle.

• Argues social order is created by us all taking part in and producing it.

• When we disrupt everyday behaviour people get distressed.

• e.g Garfinkle and his students conducted a study where they had to go home and pretend to be lodgers that were strangers to their parents, this caused their parents to be distressed, anxious and angry or assume their child was ill.

  • Our taken for granted assumptiosn about social order are not guaranteed but are a result of all of us taking part in them.\

What is structuraction theory?

Giddens.

• Believes structure and action theory are two sides of the same coin. Neither can exist without the other.

• “duality of structure”

• Therefore there is no point in discussing them as two separate concepts or arguing which one is more useful.