Action theories

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Max Weber: social action theory

  • Weber argued that an adequate sociological explanation should involve; the level of cause (objective structural factor's that shape behaviour) & the level of meaning (subjective meanings individuals attach to action).
  • The structural cause in his Calvinist study was the protestant reformation, as it introduced a new belief system. The subjective meaning; Calvinists decided work had religious significance. 
  • Types of action - Instrumentally rational (calculating most efficient means of achieving a goal, e.g, paying low wages to maximise profit), Value-rational (action towards a goal that is desirable for its own sake, e.g, praying to get into heaven), Traditional (routine actions, not rational because no conscious choice has been made), Affectual (action that expresses emotion, e.g, violence sparked by anger).
  • Criticisms - Schutz; too individualistic, cannot explain the shared nature of meanings, e.g, person at an auction raises their hand & everyone understands they are making a bid.
  • His typology of action is too difficult to apply, e.g, Trobiand Islanders give ritual gifts called 'kula' to neighbouring islands, is it traditional or an instrumental way to cement trading links?
  • We cannot actually become another person, so verstehen is inaffective, how can we truly understand their meanings?
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Symbolic interactionism

  • G.H. Mead; unlike animals human beings use an interpretive phase to understand the meanings of other people when faced with a stimulus. We then choose an appropriate response, e.g, if someone shakes their fist, you think they're angry or maybe joking, then you choose how to respond. 
  • We do this by taking the role of the other, which develops through social interaction & as children enganging in imitative play as our parents, for example. We then begin to see ourselves from the point of view of the wider community (generalised other), understanding shared symbols, e.g, language, allow us to function as members of society. 
  • Herbert Blumer; our actions are based on the meanings we give to situations, people, events etc...Our meanings arise from the interaction process, they are negotiable & changeable to some extent & the meanings we give to situations are the results of the interpretive procedures we use, e.g, taking the role of the other. 
  • Constrasts strongly with functionalism, who believe that human beings are simply puppets, responding passively & predictably to the system's needs. Blumer believes that our action is only partly predictable because we internalise the expectations of others.
  • We always have choice & can negotiate how we perform our roles, even in places with strict rules or 'total institutions', such as; prisions. 
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Labelling theory

  • The definition of the situation - Thomas; if people define a situation as real or true, then it will have real consequences, affecting how we act, e.g, teacher believes student is troublesome so acts harshly towards him.
  • The looking glass self - Cooley; our self-concept (idea of who we are) arises out of our ability to take the role of the other. Others become a looking glass, where we see our self mirrored in the way they respond to us, a self-fulfilling prophecy occurs & we become what others see us as. 
  • For example; an individual may find that relatives or psychiatrist define him as mentally ill & respond to him as if he were abnormal, he then see's this & takes on the label/role as a 'mental patient', the self-fulfilling prophecy is created in the way he acts it out. 
  • Career - Becker & Lemert; a career is the stages in which an individual progresses in their occupation, it can be applied to the 'mental patient'. When he is labelled an 'in-patient', each stage has its own status & problems, e.g, he may find it hard to be reintegrated back into society because of his label, so 'mental-patient' becomes his master status. 
  • Dramaturgical model - Goffman; we construct our 'self' by manipulating other people's impressions of us, we carry of a convincing performance of the role we have adopted. 
  • Impression management - If we are 'front' stage we act out our roles, using gestures, tone of voice etc...if we are backstage, we can be ourselves. 
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Dramaturgical model pt2

  • Roles - Functionalists see roles as tightly scripted by society & we fully internalise our scripts through socialisation.
  • Goffman rejects this as he argues there is a role distance between our real self and the roles we play, roles are only loosely scripted by society & we have freedom of how we play them, e.g, some teachers are strict & others are easy-going. 
  • We may also not believe the roles we play, and are role performance may be cynical or calculating, e.g, the actor may play a trickster, concealing his true self & real motives. Appearances become everything & we present ourselves to our best advantage. 
  • Criticisms of symbolic interactionism - Focuses on face-to-face interactions & ignores wider socia structures, e.g, class inequality. 
  • It cannot explain the consistent patterns we observe in people's behaviour, as functionalist believe they are a result of dictating norms. 
  • Reynolds; interactionism lacks an idea of structure, her questionnaire found that only 2 interactionists thought that 'power' or 'class' were essential concepts, the most popular chosen were role, self & interaction. 
  • Not all action is meaningful, e.g, Weber's category of traditional action.
  • Goffman's theory cannot always be applied because interactions can be improvised, and people play both the audience & actor. 
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Phenomenology

  • Typifications - Schutz; the meaning of any experience varies according to it social context, e.g, raising your arm in class if different from raising it at an auction. Therefore, meaning is given by context, because meanings themselves are unclear & unstable.
  • Typifications clarify meanings by ensuring we are all 'speaking the same language', making it possible to communicate with one another & achieve our goals.  
  • Without shared typification social order may become impossible, e.g, confusing a desk & an altar could create considerable problems.
  • Recipe knowledge -  We follow shared assumptions about the way things are, what certain situations mean & what other people's motivations are, etc..giving us the desired results in everyday life, without thinking too much, e.g, stopping at a red light to drive safely. 
  • The social world is a shared, inter-subjective world that only exists when we share meanings.
  • The natural attitude - We assume that the social world is a solid, natural thing out there, e.g, if we post a letter to a bookshop to order a book, we assume that some unseen individuals will perform a series of operations to make that happen. However, we just have shared meanings, that allow us to co-operate & achieve goals. 
  • Criticisms - Berger & Luckmann; society is not merely inter-subjective, it becomes an external reality that reacts back to us. 
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Ethnomethodology (EM)

  • Garfinkel; social order is created from the bottom up, social order is an accomplishment & members construct it everyday using common sense knowledge. 
  • Idenxicality & reflexivity - Meanings are always potentially unclear, meaning everything depends on the context, however reflexivity (commonsense knowledge in everyday interactions to construct a sense of meaning & order) stops indexicality from occuring, it is a paradox.
  • Language - When we describe something, we are simultaneously creating it, our description gives it reality, removing uncertainty about what is going on. We are constructing a set of shared meanings. 
  • Breaching experiments - Distrupting social order, e.g, acting as guests in their own families. Challenging people's taken for-granted assumptions shows that the orderliness of everyday situations is not inevitable. Social order is 'participant produced' by members. 
  • Suicide & reflexivity - Coroners make sense of deaths by selecting features from the infinite number of possible 'facts' about the deceased, e.g, mental health or employment status, they use these facts to assume patterns as to why the person killed themselves. The assumed pattern because self-reinforcing, telling us nothing about any external reality. 
  • Criticisms - Craib; trivial, spends a lot of time 'uncovering' taken for granted rules that turn out to be no suprise to anyone, e.g, one person speaking at a time. 
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Structure & action

  • Structuration theory - Giddens; there is a duality of structure, structure & action cannot exist without eachother. Through our actions we produce & reproduce structures over time & space, while these structures are what makes our actions possible in the first place. 
  • For example; a language is a structure, made up with a set of rules of grammar that govern how we use it to express meanings, yet language would not exist if nobody used it, it is reproduced overtime through the actions (communication) of individuals speaking & writing.
  • These actions can also change the structure, people give words new meanings & create new rules. 
  • Reproduction of structures through agency - Structure is made of rules & resources (economic & power), that can be reproduced or changed through human action.
  • However, Giddens argues that we usually reproduce structure because societies rules contain a stock of knowledge about how to live our lives, e.g, when we go shopping we use always money, further reproducing the existing structure of society.
  • We also have a deep-seated need for ontological security (the world is what is appears to be, & is orderly/predictable), which encourages action to maintain structures. 
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Structure & action pt2

  • Change of structures - We reflexively monitor ourselves, choosing a new course of action for a particular result, & our actions may change the world, but not as intended, e.g, Calvinism unintentionally causing the emergence of capitalism. 
  • Criticisms - Archer; underestimates the capacity of structures to resist change, e.g, slaves may wish to abolish slavery, but lack the power to do so. 
  • Craib; isn't really a theory, doesn't explain what actually happens in society, instead describes the kinds of things we will find when we study society, e.g,rules, resources & actions. He fails to unite structure & action, it is just a 'thoroughgoing action theory', reducing structure to the rules governing routine, everyday action. 
  • Giddens fails to explain how his theory applies to large-scale stuctures such as; the economy & the state. 
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