Action theories

Question 1

What are social action theories?

Answer 1

• They take a bottom up approach to society and focus on the meanings and motivations that individuals assign to their actions
• Is a form of micro sociology that assumes all individuals have control over their decisions

Question 2

What is Weber’s social action theory?

Answer 2

• Focused on motivations behind social actions
• He saw both structural and action approaches as necessary for understanding human behavior, and argues an adequate explanation involves 2 levels, the level of cause, which is explaining the structural factors that shape behavior and the level of meaning which is understanding the meanings individuals give to their actions
• His study of the protestant work ethic is an example of an explanation that involves these levels, the level of cause was the protestant reformation introducing a new belief system and the level of meaning, was that work had a religious meaning for the calvinists as they believe it was a calling from God

Question 3

what are the types of action according to weber?

Answer 3

• Affectual action, based upon emotional factors and time of the actions, and explains why some people act out of character at some times based
• Instrumentally rational action where the actor calculates the most efficient means of achieving a goal
• Tradition action, is a customary, routine or habitual action, Weber does not see this action as rational because there is no thought going into it
• Value rational action, which is an action towards a goal that the actor regards as desirable for its own sake for example worshipping God to get into heaven

Question 4

What is evaluation of Weber?

Answer 4

• Other action theorists argue that Weber’s view of action is too individualistic and cannot explain the shared nature of meanings
• And also Weber advocated the use of Verstehen or empathy to understand the actor’s subjective meanings, where we put ourselves in the actors place to understand their motives and meanings. However critics argue that we can never actually be the other person and can never be sure we have truly understood their motives

Question 5

What is symbolic interactionism ?

Answer 5

• It focuses on how we create the social world through our interactions, and sees these interactions as based on the meanings we give to situations conveyed through symbols, especially language

Question 6

What is the symbol versus instinct analogy ?

Answer 6

• According to Mead, unlike animals whose behavior is governed by instincts, we respond to the world by giving meanings to things that are significant to us
• We create a world of meanings by attaching symbols to symbols around us
• Therefore there is an interpretive phase between a stimulus and our response to it, in which we interpret its meaning, in order to choose an appropriate response
• Mead uses example, when a dog snarls at another, the snarl acts as a direct stimulus , to which the second dog responds automatically with a defensive posture with no interpretation of the other dogs actions
• However with humans if one was to shake their fist at another which is a symbol, it could have multiple meanings and to understand what is going on you must interpret the meaning

Question 7

How do we interpret other people’s meanings?

Answer 7

• By taking their role, for example by putting ourselves in their place and seeing ourselves as they see us
• This ability to do this, develops through interactions. Young children internalise significant others such as parents and they learn to see themselves as their parents see them
• Then later we come to see ourselves from the point of view of the wider community

Question 8

What did Blumer identify ?

Answer 8

• 3 key principles of interactionalism
• 1, our actions are based on the meanings we give to situations, people etc. And they are not automatic responses to stimuli
• 2, These meanings arise from interactions and to some extent are negotiable and changeable
• 3, The meanings we give to situations are mainly the result of taking the role of the other
• Lastly he argues that although our action is partly predictable because we internalise the expectations of others, there is always room for choice in how we perform our role

Question 9

What are the 3 interactionist concept use in the labelling theory ?

Answer 9

• Definition of the situation, Defining something labels it, and Thomas argues that if people define a situation as real, it will have real consequences, if we believe something to be true it will affect how we act and in turn may affect those involved for example if a teacher labels a pupil is troublesome, the teacher will likely to act differently towards the pupil
• Looking-glass self, Cooley argues that our self concept arises out of our ability to take the role of the other. Others act as a looking glass to us meaning we see our self mirrored in how they respond to us, and we become what they see us as for example self fulfilling prophecy
• Career, Becker and Lemert apply this concept for example to mental patients. The individual has a career running from pre patient with certain symptoms, through labelling by a psychiatrist and mental patient becomes the master status

Question 10

What is Goffman’s approach?

Answer 10

• He describes how we actively construct our self by manipulating other people’s impressions of us
• It is a dramaturgical approach as it uses analogies with drama for example actors, scripts and props and backstage
• Believes that we are all actors acting out our script and we present performances to our audiences and our aim is to carry of a convincing performance of the role we have adopted

Question 11

What 2 key dramaturgical concepts ?

Answer 11

• Presentation of self, we seek to present a particular image of ourselves to our audiences and to do this we must control the the impression our performances give, this involves studying our audience to see how they respond
• Impression management, we use multiple techniques such as our language, tone and facial expressions

Question 12

What does Goffman argue about roles?

Answer 12

• rejects the view of functionalism that roles are tightly scripted by society
• He instead argues there is a gap or role between our real self and our roles. Like the stage actor who is not really Macbeth, we are not really the roles we play
• In his view roles are loosely scripted by society and we have good deal of freedom in how we play

Question 13

What is evaluation of symbolic interactionism ?

Answer 13

• Some critics argue that it is more a loose collection of descriptive concepts rather than an explanatory
• It focuses on face to face interactions and ignores wider social structures such as class inequality and it fails to explain the origins of labels
• Not all action is meaningful, like Weber’s category of traditional action, much is performed unconsciously or routinely and may have little meaning for the actors

Question 14

What does Phenomenon mean?

Answer 14

• it describes things as they appear to our senses
• Some philosophers argue that we can never have definite knowledge of what the world outside is really like

Question 15

What does Schutz argue?

Answer 15

• applies the phenomenological theory to the social world.
• argues that the categories and concepts we use are not unique to ourselves and that we share them with other members of society
• he calls this shared categories typifications , and they enable us to organise our experiences into a shared world of meaning
• In his view a meaning of an action varies according to its social context, meaning is given by context and not action itself this means meanings are potentially unclear and unstable
• However, typifications make social order possible, because they give members of society a shared life world of common sense knowledge that we can use to make sense of our experience
• Schutz calls this a recipe knowledge, like a recipe we can follow it without thinking too much using it to make sense of the everyday world

Question 16

What is the evaluation of Schutz?

Answer 16

• Berger and Luckman argue that while Schutz is right to focus on shared commonsense knowledge, they reject his view that society is merely an inter-subjective reality

Question 17

What does Garfinkel argue?

Answer 17

• Uses Ethnomethodology to reject the idea of society as a real objective structure out there
• Garfinkel argues that social order is created from the bottom up. And that it is something members of society actively construct in everyday life using their common sense knowledge

Question 18

What is Indexicality and reflexivity ?

Answer 18

• Indexicality is the idea that the meaning of words, actions of behaviors is always content dependent, and nothing as a fixed universal meaning for example raising your hand can mean a way to say hello, vote or ask a question. Garfinkel argues that this is a threat to social order because if meanings are unclear , communication and cooperation can become difficult and social relationships may breakdown
• Reflexivity, is the process in which people use common sense, language and social practices to construct a shared understanding of reality, and this helps to prevent indexicality from happening

Question 19

What is language important for according to EM?

Answer 19

• It is vital in achieving reflexivity as it gives us a sense of reality and creates a shared understanding of the world even when meanings are open to debate

Question 20

What did Garfinkel do?

Answer 20

• Used breaching experiments to show how social order is maintained, this involved disrupting normal social expectations to observe reactions for example students acted like stranger in their own home
• This experiments caused confusion and discomfort and it showed how we use our common sense

Question 21

What does Garfinkel criticise ?

Answer 21

• He critiques traditional sociology by applying Ethnomethodology to issues such as suicide
• He argues that coroners verdicts are based on patterns and assumptions rather than objective facts. They interpret signs such as suicide notes and mental health history using common sense and reasoning
• This shows how social facts are not purely objective but are constructed through the same processes ordinary people use to make sense of the world

Question 22

What are evaluations of Ethnomethodology ?

Answer 22

• Critics argue that EM findings are unimportant as they reveal facts that are obvious for example one study of a phone call found that people spoke once at a time
• EM is also criticised for seeing wider society as fiction and denying the existence of broader social structures
• EM is criticise by Marxist for ignoring power and inequality in society

Question 23

What is Gidden’s structuration theory?

Answer 23

• Where he combines structural and action theories into a single unified theory
• Where he argues that there is a duality of structure, meaning structure and action are interdependent meaning one cannot exist without the other
• Actions reproduce and transform structures and structures enable and constrain actions and this relationship is called structuration
• For example this can be applied to language, as it is a structure with rules that make it possible for us to communicate, but our use of it can also change its structure for example by giving words new meanings

Question 24

What 2 elements does structure have?

Answer 24

• Rules , the norms, customs and laws that govern action
• Resources, both economic resources and power over others
• Rules and resources can be either reproduced or changed through human action, however our actions tend to reproduce rather than change them and this is because society rules contain a stock of knowledge about how to live our lives so our routine activities tend to reproduce the existing structure of society

Question 25

What is evaluation of structuration theory?

Answer 25

- It is criticised for not really being a theory at all, as it does not explain what happens in society it just describes the kinds of things we will find when we study society