Social Interaction Key Words

Social Interaction

Interacting with others socially

Social Status

Status reflected in your job and/or family

• pre-K teacher be college professor

Status Set

Collection of statuses held by someone

• CEO

• Grandfather

• Rich

Ascribed Status

Status passed down to you

Achieved Status

Status you gain by yourself

Master Status

Most significant social position

Role Set

Collection of roles ascribed to a certain status

Role Strain

Stress from fulfilling a role

• burnout

Role Conflict

Conflict that arises when different statuses conflict with each other

Ethnomethodology

Studies the methods individuals use to make sense of their everyday lives and interactions

Garfinkel

Inventor of ethnopedology

Shared Understandings

A common and clear comprehension of certain information

Civil Inattention

Acknowledging others' presence without full interaction in urban spaces.

• head nod

Breaching Experiments

Breaking social norms to examine reactions and underlying social orders.

Response Crisis

A situation where individuals must react to unexpected challenges

• often leads to heightened social tensions and the need for effective communication.

Dramaturgy

The concept of your life being a performance

Goffman

Inventor of Dramaturgy

Impression management

People are sensitive to how we’re seen, therefore we try to elicit particular impressions of us

Front Stage

Active social interaction

Back Stage

Time between interactions where you assemble props and prepare for the next interaction

• I.e. getting laptop out to prepare to act as a student

Audience

Onlookers

Tact

Helping someone safe face

• avoid embarrassment

• Jared, 19

Total Institutions

Institutions where we are isolated from society and manipulated by administrative staff in order to break your sense of self in order to rebuild with rewards and punishments

• cults

• boarding/ juvenile detention schools

• psych ward

• prisons

• military

Characteristics of Total Institutions

• all aspects of life are supervised

• formal rules that dictate a routine

  • standardized and controlled

• lack of personal belongings

  • uniforms over a full wardrobe