Symbolic interactionism

1800s: Martineau · Tocqueville · Marx · Spencer · Le Bon · Ward · Pareto · Tönnies · Veblen · Simmel · Durkheim · Addams · Mead · Weber · Du Bois · Mannheim · Elias Symbolic interactionism is a sociological theory that develops from practical considerations and alludes to humans' particular use of shared language to create common symbols and meanings, for use in both intra- and interpersonal communication.

[4] Symbolic interactionism is "a framework for building theory that sees society as the product of everyday interactions of individuals".

[7] Mead's influence was said to be so powerful that sociologists regard him as the one "true founder" of the symbolic interactionism tradition.

A general description of Mead's compositions portray how outside social structures, classes, and power and abuse affect the advancement of self, personality for gatherings verifiably denied of the ability to characterize themselves.

His main work was a theory of human motivation addressing interactions between individuals and the "social sources of behaviors.

Engeström and Middleton explained the usefulness of symbolic interactionism in the communication field in a variety of work settings, including "courts of law, health care, computer software design, scientific laboratory, telephone sales, control, repair, and maintenance of advanced manufacturing systems".

[18] Other scholars credited for their contribution to the theory are Thomas, Park, James, Horton Cooley, Znaniecki, Baldwin, Redfield, and Wirth.

[13] Unlike other social sciences, symbolic interactionism emphasizes greatly on the ideas of action instead of culture, class and power.

According to behaviorism, Darwinism, pragmatism, as well as Max Weber, action theory contributed significantly to the formation of social interactionism as a theoretical perspective in communication studies.

3) "The Meanings are handled in, and modified through, an interpretative process used by the person in dealing with the things he/she [sic] encounters."

[7] The emphasis on symbols, negotiated meaning, and social construction of society brought attention to the roles people play.

[23] Some theorists have proposed an additional fourth premise: 4) "It's the inherent human desire to acquire potential psychological rewards from interacting with others that motivates us to establish realities filtered through social interactions" Some symbolic interactionists point out the ineradicable nexus of the desire for potential psychological reward between individuals and their respective socially constructed realities that is commonly known as the "society", these experts have confirmed that one crucial premise for analyzing and dissecting symbolic interactionism is the psychological reward that drives individuals to connect with others and create meanings via social interactions.

[24] We as humans instinctively discern individuals whom we want to be associated with, before we initiate an interaction with them, we would experience an internal emotional rush biologically that encourages us to initiate the interaction, thus beginning to form various socially constructed realities that enables symbolic interactionism to examine, namely it's our desires for emotional rewards that makes the theory of symbolic interactionism possible and viable.

Participant observation allows researchers to access symbols and meanings, as in Howard Becker's Art Worlds and Arlie Hochschild's The Managed Heart.

In most cases, they make use of their values in choosing what to study; however, they seek to be objective in how they conduct the research.

[19] For instance, during analyzing symbolic interactionism, the participants' emotional fluctuations that are inexorably entailed are often ignored because they are too sophisticated and volatile to measure.

This critique unveiled the lack of scrutiny on participants' internal subjective processing of their environment which initiates the reasoning and negotiating faculties, which the contemporary symbolic interactionism also reflects.

[19] Henceforth, prejudice is not a purely psychological phenomenon, instead it can be interpreted from a symbolic interactionism standpoint,[19] taking individuals' construction of the social reality into account.

Snow, professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine, suggests four broader and even more basic orienting principles: human agency, interactive determination, symbolization, and emergence.

Snow uses these four principles as the thematic bases for identifying and discussing contributions to the study of social movements.

[31] Situated identities may be present in the need to defend something on social media or arguments that occur in comments, where one feels it necessary to "prove" themselves.

The goal of the study was to determine whether others' expectations affect the participants' internalized stigmas, anticipated rejection, concerns with staying in, and other.

[34] Despite the fact that the predominant culture of a certain society typically exerts large amount of influence on the instinctive formation of the structures in social groups, the roles in social groups are eventually formed based on the interactions occurred between the central figure and other potential participants in this role.

The environment influences interaction, which leads to a reference group and connects with perspective, and then concludes to a definition of the situation.

[38] By being made up of our thoughts and self-belief, the social interactionism theory is the purpose of all human interaction, and is what causes society to exist.

Much of the symbolic interactionist framework's basic tenets can be found in a very wide range of sociological and psychological work, without being explicitly cited as interactionist, making the influence of symbolic interactionism difficult to recognize given this general acceptance of its assumptions as "common knowledge.

[24] For instance, during analyzing symbolic interactionism, the participants' emotional fluctuations that are inexorably entailed are often ignored because they are too sophisticated and volatile to measure.

This critique unveiled the lack of scrutiny on participants' internal subjective processing of their environment which initiates the reasoning and negotiating faculties, which the contemporary symbolic interactionism also reflects.

[24] Henceforth, prejudice is not a purely psychological phenomenon, instead it can be interpreted from a symbolic interactionism standpoint,[24] taking individuals' construction of the social reality into account.

SSSI holds a conference in conjunction with the meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA) and the Society for the Study of Social Problems.