Symbolic Interactionism: Mead, Cooley, Blumer, Goffman, Stryker, Heise

Symbolic Interactionism is a theoretical perspective that stresses:

• The importance of meaning.

• Meaning as being negotiated in interaction.

• The minimum unit of analysis is an event.

Processual versus Structural Symbolic Interactionism

Mead (1935)

"we are not in social psychology building up the behavior of the social group in terms of the behavior of the separate individuals composing it, rather we are starting out with a given social whole of complex group activity, into which we analyze (as elements) the behavior of each of the separate individuals composing it" (p.165).

Blumer (1962)

 "Individual action is a construction not a release, being build up by the individual through noting and interpreting features of the situations in which he acts; that group or collective action consists of the aligning of individual actions, brought about by individuals' interpreting or taking into account each other's actions" (p.166).

Figure: Processual - structural continuum

Stryker (1987) calls these dimensions construction vs. constraint

American Pragmatism Philosophers

  !

Mead  Cooley

  !

Chicago School       Indiana School      Iowa School 

 Blumer  Garfinkel  Goffman  Turner  Heise  Stryker Burke  McCall&Simmons  Kuhn

 Processual SI                                         Structural SI

Construction                                            Constraint

Stryker: Identity Theory

1. Identities are created through the interaction of individual selves and structural roles.
2. We have multiple identities that are organized in their salience hierarchy.
3. Just as roles, identities are evoked, depending on the situation.
4. Identities a represented symbolically in interaction.

Dimensions of Commitment

1. Extensiveness: STRUCTURAL number of social relationships of a position (an identity)

2. Intensiveness: AFFECTIVE if the identity is lost, how much affect is attached to a loss of social relationships

The Model

Social Structure => Structural Commitment

                                                        => Identity Salience => Role Performance

Interaction history => Affective commitment

Goffman (1963):

"Discrepancies between virtual and actual identity will always occur

and always give rise to the need for tension management (in regard to the discredited),

and information control (in regard to the discreditable)" (p.138).

Harold Garfinkel

Heritage, John 1984. Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity Press.

ethno: from the view of ordinary lay people

methodology: common-sense knowledge and methods procedures used to find your way in circumstances

Analysis using Ethnomethodology

Garfinkel engages in “the study of ways in which people make sense of what other do; in particular, the way people use language”

How do we maintain Institutional Realities?

Parsons: socialization is a history of punishments and rewards

 Garfinkel: socialization is the awareness of normative organization of the environment.

We are maintaining Institutional Identities

 Sexual Status as a Methodic Production

 Managing Biography

For those who do not know

Extensive pre-planning

No nudity rule:

         For those who do not know

She wanted to persuade the physiatrists that she was naturally meant to female:

Breaching experiments  

Weinberg, Martin.1996. The Nudist Management of Respectability. In: Rubington, Earl and Martin Weinberg. 1996. Deviance: The Interactionist Perspective, Sixth Edition. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Pp.308-316.

SI: people act upon the basis of their values and norms.

In turn, they create values and norms though their actions.

Values:            abstract

Norms:            more concrete than values, they become visible by specific sanctions

Rules:              norms that specify behavior

Regulations:    concrete behavior descriptions (can be written)

Laws:              Official written statements about values, norms, rules, and regulations.

Basic Norms of Midwestern Nudists:

1.   Nudity and sexuality unrelated

2.   Nothing is shameful about the human body

3.   Nudity promotes feelings of freedom and natural pleasure

4.   Nude exposure to the sum promotes physical, mental and spiritual well-being

Take a position to the statement: “nudists are prudists”(p.315).

I. Logical connection between nudism and being prude

Sexuality is seen as slightly negative in the mainstream U.S., slightly positive in Germany.

Clubs promoting sexual activity are highly stigmatized. What are such clubs, give examples:  swingers

We want to maintain positive identities.  These identities have to be positive for the person choosing this identity.  Since identities are learned and maintained though the interaction with others, we are dependent on the opinion of others.

Since sexuality and nudity is related in U.S. mainstream society, nudists distance themselves from sexuality.  In this way they hope to escape the stigmatization that goes along with sexuality.

II. This distancing leads to regulations:

1.    “Unmarried people, especially single men are seen as a threat to the nudist morality”(p.308). They are screened, pay more, and underlie quotas.

2.    no staring

3.    no sex talk

4.    no body contact (e.g. dancing)

5.    no alcohol (against breakdowns of inhibition)

6.    no accentuation of the body – no unnatural attempts to cover the body

III. Enforcement of the rules

Complaints to camp managers e.g. for

1.    Ten year old boy having an erection

2.    Professional photographer having a brief erection

3.    Sexual demeanor of a women (shaking hips)

 Cross-cultural perspective

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