Social Action Theory

• concerned with the actions of individuals
• structural and action are important to understanding human behaviours

2 sociological explanations:

- the level of cause - explaining the structual factors that shape peoples behaviour

- the level of meaning - understanding the meaning that individuals attach to their behaviour

The Protestant Work Ethic: work developed a religious meaning for Calvinists so individuals were motivated to work for God

The Numerous Meanings:

• instrumentally rational action - the actor calculates their actions and the best way of achieving their goals
• value-rational action - working towards a desired goal
• traditional action - customary or routine behaviour
• affectual action - expressing emotion through action

• all actions are meaningful to those involved
• meanings are not fixed entities
• they depend on the context of the interaction
• meanings are continually created, modified and developed through interaction

Labelling Theory:

1 - the definition of the situation - when we define, we label it, if we declare it as real, it will have real consequences

2 - the looking glass self - Cooley (1922) we continually take the role of others to develop our own self concept, others responses allow us to judge what we are like

3 - career - occupation and what we are completely defined by e.g. medical students and mental patients

• our behaviour is fixed and pre programmed by instinct
• we respond to situations, attaching significance and meaning
• this is achieved through symbolds
• humans have no instincts to direct behaviour or genetically programmed to act to certain stimulus

Blumer

• developed Mead's work after his death
• behaviour is partly predictable
• always room for negotiation and choice in how we perform our roles

Evaluation

• very descriptive and not explanatory
• not all actions are meaningfull

• reject the idea that there is social structure influencing in behaviour
• society is a construct
• we impose order and meaning by contructing mental categories 

Schutz:

• categories are not unique
• typifications allow us to organise shared experiences
• the meanings used will change depending on  social context
• typifications stablises and clarify meanings
• we can communicate and cooperate with one another to achieve our goals
• 'recipe knowledge' - common sense knoweldge is not knowledge, it is the world
• the world only exists if we share its meaning

• developed in the 1960s
• society is not a real objective structure
• members of society actively contruct every day life
• interested in the methods and rules we use  to produce meanings, not the effects of those meanings
• nothing has fixed meaning - indexicality
• we cannot take meanings for granted
• reflexivity - we use commonsense explanations to construct a sense of meaning and order
• every time we describe something, we create it

Evaluation:

• shows how we actively contruct order, ratrher than being puppets
• findings are trivial
• spend time uncovering things that are already taken for granted
• their argument is counter - intuitive, by suggesting we create all knowledge, their theory is in fact a creation and fake

• uses drama as a framework
• we must continually give a convincing performance of our roles

Impression Management -

• language
• tone
• gestures
• facial expression
• props
• setting

Presentation of Self -

• control of our performance
• we must make it convincing