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Social Action Theory also known as Interactionism also
known as Interpretivism.
Interactionism is a social action theory
Background
Interactionism begins with the third „founding father‟ of sociology, Max Weber.
Weber was writing at the same time as Durkheim and challenged the view that
society existed outside of, and independently of, individuals. However, he would
not be described as an interactionist, as he accepted a lot of structural ideas,
but he did argue for a science of society that included an interpretive
understanding of social action. He did think it was important to find out what
behaviours meant to the people who were doing them. For Weber, the world is as
it is because of social action. People do things because they decide to do so in
order to achieve ends they desire. Having selected their goals, and taken account
of the circumstances they find themselves in, they choose to act.
Social structures are the outcome of such action; ways of living are the product
of choice. According to Weber, sociological theories are not theories of social
systems, but of the meanings behind actions. Weber called the method by which
this is done Verstehen, (understanding what their actions mean to the people
themselves). Since Weber, other sociologists have moved further away from the
structural approach, and created a distinctly different social action approach.
Social Action Theory
Nearly all human action is intentional action: we mean to do what we do in
order to achieve our chosen purposes. Where do these chosen purposes, or goals,
come from?
What action theory emphasises is that we decide what to do in the light of our
interpretation of the world around us. Being human means walking about in the
social world, making sense of the settings or situations in which we find ourselves
and choosing to act accordingly. To use the usual action theory phrase for this,
we choose what to do in the light of our „definition of the situation’.
For example, suppose you wake up one summer morning to find the sun shining in
a cloudless sky. You decide to sunbathe all day and to mow your lawn in the
evening, when it will be cooler. At lunchtime, you see large clouds beginning to
form in the distance. Because you decide there is a chance of a thunderstorm,
you cut the grass immediately. You get very hot. It does not rain. In the evening,
you go for a walk in the country. You come to a country pub and stop for a drink.
As you sit outside you notice smoke rising on a hillside some distance away. As
you watch the smoke gets thicker and darker. You decide the fire is unattended
and out of control. You dash inside the pub and ring the fire brigade. Shortly
afterwards you hear a fire engine racing to the fire. You climb a nearby hill to
have a better look. When you get there you see that the fire is, in fact,
deliberate; it is a bonfire in the garden of a house on the hillside which you had

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been unable to see from the pub. Shortly afterwards you hear the fire engine
returning to its base. You go back to the pub to finish your drink. It has been
cleared away in your absence. You have no more money. You decide it is not
your day. You decide to go home.
Of course, nearly all of the settings we have to make sense of involve more than
this. We are not just interpreting the physical world around us because nearly
everything we do in our lives takes place in the company of others. Most of the
situations we have to define in order to choose how to act are social; they
involve other humans doing things. Most of our interpretations are to do with
understanding other humans.
You see a very large man shaking his fist and shouting at you, and conclude that
he is not overjoyed that you have driven into the back of his car. As a result you
decide not to suggest that he was responsible for the accident because of the
way he parked. You see a traffic warden slipping a parking ticket under your
windscreen-wiper, and decide not to contribute to the Police Benevolent Fund
after all. This is social action. It is action we choose to take in the light of what
we interpret the behaviour of others to mean.
There is more to social action than interpretation leading to action, however.
Most of the time when we interact with other humans, they want us to arrive at
certain interpretations of their actions — they want us to think one thing of
them rather than another. The man whose car has just been damaged is not
behaving in the rather distinctive manner described above because he wishes the
culprit to come round to his house for tea. The man scratching his nose in the
auction room is not (usually) alleviating an itch. He is communicating his bid to
the auctioneer, and he expects that the latter will interpret his actions as he
wishes. Pedestrians in London streets do not wave to taxi-drivers because they
are, or want to become, their friends. They do so because they want a lift.
Dress can often organise interpretation just as effectively as gestures, of course.
Though the punk rocker, the skinhead, the bowler-hatted civil servant, the police
officer and the traffic warden whom we encounter in the street make no
apparent attempt to communicate with us, they are certainly doing so,
nevertheless. They want us to think certain things about them when we see
them, so they choose to communicate by the use of uniforms. They are making a
symbolic use of dress, if you like; after all, like gestures, garments symbolise
what their users want us to interpret about them.
The most effective symbols humans have at their disposal are words — linguistic
symbols. The most efficient way in which we can get others to understand us is
through language. This is why action theorists are often interested in the way we
use language to exchange meanings with each other. Language, verbal or
written, is the uniquely human device which we are able to use to interact
meaningfully with one another, and thereby to create society.
From this point of view, societies are made up of individuals engaging in a
countless number of meaningful encounters. The result is social order. But this is
no determined order. It is not the result of the imposition of cultural rules, as

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the consensus theorist sees it. Nor is it the result of limitations imposed by
inequalities as the conflict theorist sees it. Instead, society is an order achieved
by the capacities of the members themselves. It is the result of numerous
occasions of interaction, carried out by actors who can interpret and make sense
of the social settings in which they find themselves and who choose courses of
action accordingly.
Symbolic interactionism (SI)
Symbolic interactionism is the name given to one of the best-known social action
theories. It was developed by George Mead and it was he who stressed the way
that humans use symbols to interact with each other. He looked at how people
develop a sense of who they are, a sense of self.
In Mead‟s view developing a sense of self is an essential part of the process of
becoming human. With a sense of self we can mentally put ourselves “in
someone else‟s shoes” and interpret what they mean by their actions. This
interpretation process is the basis of all human interaction.
One of the principal interests of SI has been to consider the effects of
interpretation on the person whose actions are being interpreted. SI stresses
that interaction is a two-way interpretive process. We must not only
understand that someone‟s action is a product of how they have interpreted the
behaviour of someone else, but that this interpretation will have an impact on
the actor whose behaviour has been interpreted in certain ways too.
For example:
A girl may dress in a certain way because she wants to fit in with a particular
friendship group. She is manipulating the symbolic meaning of her clothing in
order to achieve an interpretation by others that she wants, (she might not think
about it in these terms but that is what she is doing). If others interpret her
behaviour as she intends, then they will accept her in the group and she will go
on to behave as a group member. If they do not interpret her behaviour as she
intended but thinks she means something else (she is taking the micky, for
example) they will respond differently, and then her behaviour will be different.
Labelling Theory
Labelling Theory has developed out of symbolic interactionism and focuses on
the power of labelling by others on the development of a sense of self. Labelling
theorists do acknowledge that labels can be negotiated; people are not
necessarily powerless victims of labels, they can encourage certain labels and
resist others; but labelling theorists are particularly interested in the effects of
labels on the people receiving them.
Labels can bring about a self-fulfilling prophecy effect. If someone gets the
message from others that they are a certain type of person (eg: shy), that in
itself can cause them to accept the label (eg: behave like a shy person).

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CRITICISMS OF INTERACTIONISM
1. European criticism
Interactionism developed in America and is criticised for reflecting
American values of freedom and individualism. Traditional structural
constraints are thought to be more significant in European societies.
2. Structural criticism
Structural theorists criticise social action theories for not
explaining how people come to choose to behave in the same
way. They do not explain large scale patterns in human
behaviour, and do not examine how norms and values affect
behaviour.
3. Marxist criticism
Interactionists do not explain where meanings come from in the first
place. For example: Marxists would claim that meanings come from
class relationships and limitations to choices caused by class
inequality.
4. Feminist criticism
Interactionists do not explain where meanings come from in the first
place. For example: feminists would say that meanings come from
gender relationships, and limitations to choices caused by gender
inequality.

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NOW fill in the answers to the following questions.
1. Which sociologist challenged the structural approach?
2. What did he say should be included in a science of society?
3. According to interactionists what causes social structures (ways of doing
things) in society?
4. According to interactionists what should sociologists want to achieve when
they study human behaviour?
5. How do people choose how to behave?
6. What are humans interpreting most of the time?
7. What are people trying to achieve when they interact with others?
8. Give an example of some clothing, and say what you think it symbolises.
9. What is meant by linguistic symbols?
10. How is social order achieved in society?

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11.Who developed symbolic interactionism?
12. What is meant by a “sense of self”?
13.Why is having a “sense of self” important to symbolic interactionists?
14.What is meant by a two-way interpretive process?
15.What does labelling theory focus on?
16.What does it mean to say a label can be negotiated?
17.What is a self-fulfilling prophecy?
18.Identify four criticisms of interactionism
A.
B.
C.
D.