Action Theories

Action Theories from the Theory topic of AQA A level Sociology

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Weber: Social Action Theory

Weber argued that an adequate sociological explanation involves two levels:

the level of cause which is explaining the objective structural factors that shape people's behaviour such as religion shaping behaviour like with the Protestant Reformation and the Calvinists

the level of meaning which is understanding the subjective meanings that individuals attach to their actions such as individuals working hard in order to get to heaven becoming the first modern capitalists

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Weber: Social Action Theory

Weber classifies an infinite number of subjective meanings that actions may give to their actions into four types:

Instrumentally rational action - where the actor calculates the most efficient means of achieving a given goal, such as a businessman calculating that the most efficient way to maximise profits is to pay low wages. This isn't about whether the goal is desirable but is simply about the most efficient way of reaching that goal, whatever it may be

Value-rational action - action towards a goal that the actor regards as desirable for its own sake such as a Christian worshipping in order to get to heaven. Unlike instrumental rationality you can't calculate whether the means of achieving the goal are effective as a believer doesn't know if worshipping will result in going to heaven

Traditional action - customary and routine actions. This type of action is not rational because no conscious choice has gone into it, the actor does it because 'we have always done it'

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Weber: Social Action Theory

Affectual action - action that expresses emotion such as weeping out of grief or violence sparked by anger. This is important in religious and political movements which attract a following based on their emotional appeal

Criticisms of Weber

  • Weber's view of action is too individualistic and cannot explain the shared nature of meanings like how at an auction someone raising their arm means they're placing a bid but he doesn't explain how others come to give this gesture the same meaning
  • We can never truly understand someone else's motives as we are not them
  • His typology of action is too difficult to apply as some actions could come under various types and not just one like the Trobriand Islanders who exchange ritual gifts with eachother could be both a traditional action and an instrumentally rational action
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Symbolic Interactionism - G.H Mead

Mead observed that unlike animals our behaviour is not shaped by fixed, pre programmed instincts but instead we respond to the world by giving meanings to the things that are significant to us. We do this by attaching symbols to the world with symbols being something that represents something else

Unlike animals we don't respond in an automatic way but instead an interpretive phase comes between the stimulus and our response to it so before we can respond we have to interpret its meaning. Then once we have done that we can choose an appropriate response

To show this when one dog snarls at another it acts as a direct stimulus to which the dog responds automatically with a defensive posture with no conscious interpretation. By contrast, if you shake your fist it is a symbol and to understand it you must interpret the meaning of the symbol, is it a joke or are they angry? Only then you can choose how to respond

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Symbolic Interactionism - G.H Mead

In order to interpret other people's meanings we must take the role of the other, putting ourselves in the place of the other person and seeing ourselves as they see us

Our ability to take the role of the other develops through social interaction such as children role playing where they have to take on the imitative role of significant others. Later we come to see ourselves from the point of view of the wider community, the generalised other

For Mead, to function as members of society we need the ability to see ourselves as others see us. Through shared symbols such as language we become conscious of the ways of acting that others require of us

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Symbolic Interactionism - G.H Mead

In order to interpret other people's meanings we must take the role of the other, putting ourselves in the place of the other person and seeing ourselves as they see us

Our ability to take the role of the other develops through social interaction such as children role playing where they have to take on the imitative role of significant others. Later we come to see ourselves from the point of view of the wider community, the generalised other

For Mead, to function as members of society we need the ability to see ourselves as others see us. Through shared symbols such as language we become conscious of the ways of acting that others require of us

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Symbolic Interactionism - G.H Mead

In order to interpret other people's meanings we must take the role of the other, putting ourselves in the place of the other person and seeing ourselves as they see us

Our ability to take the role of the other develops through social interaction such as children role playing where they have to take on the imitative role of significant others. Later we come to see ourselves from the point of view of the wider community, the generalised other

For Mead, to function as members of society we need the ability to see ourselves as others see us. Through shared symbols such as language we become conscious of the ways of acting that others require of us

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Symbolic Interactionism - Blumer

Blumer identified 3 key principles to systemise Mead’s work:

  • Our actions are based on the meanings we give to situations, people etc and our actions are not based on automatic responses to stimuli
  • These meanings arise from the interaction process and are not fixed but are negotiable to some extent
  • The meanings we give to situations are the result of the interpretive procedures we use such as taking the role of the other

Blumer argues that although our action is partly predictable because we internalise the expectations of others, it is not completely fixed as there is always room for negotiation and choice in how we perform our roles

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Symbolic Interactionism - Labelling theory

There are three key interactionist concepts that underpin labelling theory:

The definition of the situation - A definition of something is a label for that thing. If we believe something to be true then this belief will affect how we act, and this in turn may have consequences for those involved. For example if a teacher labels a boy as troublesome the teacher will likely act differently towards him by punishing him more harshly

The looking glass self (Cooley) - The label becomes part of the individual's self concept. For example an individual may find that relatives define themselves as mentally ill and respond differently to them. The person then takes on the role of a mental patient and the self fulfilling prophecy is created when he acts is out

Career - The concept of a career has been extended to apply it to groups such as mental patients. For example we can see them having a career from being labelled to discharge. Each stage has its own problems like on discharge they might find it hard to reintergrate into society so a mental patient becomes a master status

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Symbolic Interactionism - Dramaturgical Model

Goffman describes how we actively construct ourself by manipulating other people's impressions of us. We are all actors with our aim to carry off a convincing performance of the role we have adopted

We seek to present a particular image of ourselves to our audiences. To do so we must control the impression our performance gives by constantly studying our audience to see how they are responding, and adjusting our performance to present a convincing image. As social actors we may use language, tone of voice, gestures etc to create impression management. By using these techniques we can pass for the kind of person we want our audience to believe we are

There are different stages of interactions such as in the theatre there is the stage where we act out our roles while backstage we can be ourselves. For example in the classroom students must put on a convincing role performance for the teacher whilst in the common room they can drop the act

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Symbolic Interactionism - Dramaturgical Model

Goffman rejects the Functionalist view that roles are are tightly scripted by society and instead argues that there is a role distance between our real self and our roles. Roles are only loosely scripted in society and we have freedom in how we play them, such as how some teachers are strict whilst others are easy going

We also don't always believe in the roles we play and our performance might be cynical. The actor sometimes resembles a confidence trickster, manipulating his audience into accepting an impression which conceals his true self and real motives

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Criticisms of Symbolic Interactionism

  • Weber ignores other types of action such as through desperation and he is too individualistic and doesn't explain the shared nature of meanings. Not all action is meaningful either as much is done unconsciously
  • It focuses on face to face interactions and ignores wider social structures such as class inequality
  • It doesn't explain the consistent patterns we observe in people's behaviour with Functionalists arguing that these patterns are the result of norms dictating behaviour
  • It is more a loose collection of descriptive concepts than an explanatory theory
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Phenomenology

Some philosophers argue that we can never have definite knowledge of what the world outside our minds is really like in itself, all we know is what our senses tell us about it

Husserl's philosophy - The world only makes sense because we impose meaning and order on it by constructing mental categories that we use to classify and file information coming from our senses

Schutz (1959)

He argues that the categories we use are not unique to ourselves but we share them with other members of society. He calls shared categories typifications which enable us to organise our experiences into a shared world of meaning. In his view the meaning of any experience varies according to its social context such as raising your arm in a classroom means a very different thing than at an auction. The meaning is not given by the action itself but by its context so they can become potentially unclear

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Phenomenology

Typifications stabilise and clarify meanings by ensuring that we are all agreeing on the meaning of things. This makes it possible to communicate with eachother and achieve our goals. Without shared typifications social order would be impossible

However, members of society to a large extent do have a shared life world such as shared assumptions with what he calls recipe knowledge like how we all know a red light means stop or danger. This commonsense knowledge is the world as it is a shared, inter subjective one that can only exist when we share meanings

Society appears to us a real thing outside of us because we adopt the natural attitude. For example when we order off Amazon lots of workers will perform a series of operations so we receive our item showing everyone shares the same meanings to achieve goals

However, Schutz is criticised as religious ideas may start off in our consciousness but they become embodied in powerful structures such as churches which then constrain us by influencing laws on sexual relationships

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Ethnomethodology

Garfinkel is interested in how social order is achieved and he rejects the idea that society is a real objective thing. He says social order is created from the bottom up. Order and meaning are not achieved because people are puppets but instead social order is an accomplishment, something that members of society actively construct in everyday life using their commonsense knowledge

Indexicality is the idea that meanings aren't potentially clear and nothing has a fixed meaning. For example hand gestures can mean different things across the world. This is a threat to social order because communication could become unclear. However, Reflexivity enables us to behave as if meanings are clear, as we use our common sense to construct a sense of meaning through language

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Ethnomethodology

Garfinkel and his students sought to demonstrate the nature of social order by a series of breaching experiments. They acted as lodgers in their own families and tried to haggle over prices in shops. This disrupted people's sense of order and challenged their reflexivity by undermining their assumptions about the situation

Criticisms of Ethnomethodology

  • It only looks at trivial activities such as talking on the phone
  • It ignores wider power structures such as patriarchy
  • It believes that wider reality does not exist when it is clear it does
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Structure and Action

Both Structural and Action theories appear to hold truth so some sociologists have sought to combine them into a single unified theory of structure and action

Giddens' Structuration theory

There is a duality of structure meaning structure and action cannot exist without the other. Through our actions we produce and reproduce structures over time while these structures are what make our actions possible in the first place

Giddens illustrates this with language, a structure made up of a set of rules of grammar that govern how we can use it to express meanings. This structure seems to exist independently of any individual and it constrains our behaviour but structure also depends on action as a language would not exist if no one used it

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Structure and Action

For Giddens, structure has two elements:

Rules - the norms, customs and laws that govern action and Resources - both economic like technology and power over others

These can be either reproduced or changed through human action such as inventing new technology. However, although our actions can change existing structures, it generally tends to reproduce them because society's rules contain a stock of knowledge about how to live our lives - earing a living, shopping etc which involve applying this knowledge to everyday situations. We reproduce existing structures through our action because we have a deep seated need for ontological security, encouraging action that maintains existing structures rather than changing them. Sometimes our actions have unintended consequences like the Calvinists didn't mean to create capitalism

However, Archer argues he underestimates the capacity of structures to resist change such as slaves being unable to abolish slavery due to lack of power

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