1. SYMBOLIC
INTERACTIONISM
Contemporary Sociological Theory
Danielle Dirks, Ph.D.

2. OBJECTIVES
Introduce Symbolic Interactionism
Understand usefulness to understanding
social life

3. Sociology
of
Knowledge
Symbolic Phenomenological
Interactionism Sociology
Labeling Existential Ethno-
Dramaturgy
Theory Sociology methodology

5. DEFINITION
“A micro-level theory in which shared
meanings, orientations, and assumptions form
the basic motivation behind people’s.”
Conley (2008):29

6. ORIGINS
Reaction to
Structural Functionalism
“Variable Sociology”
“Scientificism”

7. GOALS
Focus on
“Micro” aspects of social life
Face to face interactions
Lived experience

8. QUESTIONS
How do we view ourselves?
How do we respond to our surroundings?

9. QUESTIONS
How is meaning constructed?
How are identities constructed?
Both = How world is constructed

10. GOALS
Focus on
Interpretation
Social meaning
Behavior
Relationships

11. TENETS
1) Humans act based on meanings

12. TENETS
1) Humans act based on meanings
2) Meanings created through social
interaction

13. TENETS
1) Humans act based on meanings
2) Meanings created through social
interaction
3) Meanings continuously shift through
interpretation

14. THEORISTS
1 1 2 3
1 Charles Cooley
2 George Herbert Mead
3 Herbert Blumer
4 Erving Goffman*
5 Arlie Russell Hochschild
4 5

15. How do we develop “selves”?

16. OUR FOCUS
Cooley’s “Looking Glass Self”
Mead’s “I and Me”
Social Construction of Reality
SI Research

17. COOLEY
“Looking Glass Self”

18. COOLEY
Self emerges through an interactive social
process

19. COOLEY
Three Aspects of Identity
1) How actors imagine they appear
2) How actors believe others judge them
3) How actors develop feelings of shame

21. Examples of when we have viewed ourselves
through the eyes of others?

22. But, is this conscious or unconscious?
What would Goffman say?

23. What are some of the consequences of an
unfavorable self-concept?

24. OUR FOCUS
Cooley’s “Looking Glass Self”
Mead’s “I and Me”
Social Construction of Reality
SI Research

25. How do we develop “selves”?

26. MEAD
“I and Me”

27. MEAD
“I”
“Agentic”
Independent of situations

28. MEAD
“Me”
Socialized part
Situated and responsive
Composed of messages we receive from
others and mirrors of self

29. MEAD
Other
Someone/something outside of ourselves

30. MEAD
Generalized Other -- Our view of the views
of society

32. MEAD
“I and Me”
Self = I (subject) + Me (object)

33. EXAMPLES?

34. The MySpace Shot:
Is this the I or the Me?

35. Who are we online? Is this our “core” self?

36. What do our online identities reveal?
Try: personas.media.mit.edu/personasWeb

37. What does it mean to have an identity
constructed as “illegal”?

38. What does it mean to have a “stigmatized” identity?

39. OUR FOCUS
Cooley’s “Looking Glass Self”
Mead’s “I and Me”
Social Construction of Reality
SI Research

40. SOCIAL
CONSTRUCTION
OF REALITY
“Reality is socially constructed...”
“Sociology of knowledge must analyze the
processes in which this occurs.”
Berger & Luckman (1967):1

41. SOCIAL
CONSTRUCTION
OF REALITY
Reality
Taken for granted
Appears inevitable

42. SOCIAL
CONSTRUCTION
OF REALITY
Reality = “quality pertaining to phenomena
we recognize as having a being independent
of our own volition”

43. SOCIAL
CONSTRUCTION
OF REALITY
Knowledge = “the certainty that
phenomena are real and that they possess
specific characteristics”

44. SOCIAL
CONSTRUCTION
OF REALITY
“An institutionalized entity or artifact...
‘invented’ or ‘constructed’ by
participants in a particular culture or society
that exists because people agree to
behave as if it exists...”
Conley (2008):

45. SOCIAL
CONSTRUCTION
OF REALITY
Challenges to Knowledge
Reality is not determined by situations
Not inevitable

46. EXAMPLES?
When can you vote?
When can you drink legally?
Is relationship violence a problem?

47. EXAMPLES?
Who is “black”?
Who is “white”?
Who is “other”?

48. EXAMPLES?
How is the world socially constructed?
What “evidence” counts in our
understanding of social world?

49. OUR FOCUS
Cooley’s “Looking Glass Self”
Mead’s “I and Me”
Social Construction of Reality
SI Research

50. SI RESEARCH
A few examples...
Deviance Research
Labeling Theory
Sociology of Emotions
Qualitatively Oriented

51. SI: “Deviant” Subcultures

52. SI: Labeling Theory and Becoming “Deviant”

53. SI: Emotional Labor and Service Work

54. CRITICISMS
Where’s the “data”?
Focus on structure?
SI more framework than theory

55. EXAMPLES?
How could you use SI in your own research
projects?

56. QUESTIONS?

57. Thank You!

58. Thank You!
Danielle Dirks, Ph.D.
Department of Sociology
Occidental College
dirks@oxy.edu
danielledirks.com
@danielledirks