Sociology in the Fastlane:

The Mechanisms of Social Reality

SOCIAL INTERACTION ON EVERYDAY LIFE

• Social Structure: Guides human behavior rather than rigidly determining it

• A collective reality that exists apart from individuals, constructing the context in which people interact

• Social System: An arrangement of relationships existing apart from the specific people involved

• Social Interaction: The process by which people act and react in relation to others

• Acts people perform toward each other and the responses they give in return

• Personal Agency: The Ability to have an effect on one's own environment

COMPONENTS OF INTERACTION: STATUS

• Status: A recognized social position that an

individual occupies

•A position in society that is characterized by

certain rights and obligations

• Status Set: The collection of statuses that a

person occupies at any one time

COMPONENTS OF INTERACTION: STATUS

Ascribed and Achieved Status

• An Ascribed Status is a social position that someone

receives at birth or involuntarily assumes later in life

• An Achieved Status is a social position that

someone assumes voluntarily and that reflects

personal ability and effort and luck

COMPONENTS OF INTERACTION: STATUS

• Master Status: A status that has exceptional

importance for social identity, often shaping

a person's entire life

• One status that is more important than

the others

COMPONENTS OF INTERACTION: ROLE

• Role: A role consists of behavior expected of someone who holds a particular status

A status is a social position; a role is the behavior of that position

• Role Expectation: A group or society’s definition of the way a specific role ought to be played

• Role Performance: How a person actually plays a role

COMPONENTS OF INTERACTION: ROLE

• Some characteristics of roles:

•Role performance differs from role

expectation

•Roles are relational, organizing our behavior

toward some other person

COMPONENTS OF INTERACTION: ROLE

• Role Set refers to a number of roles

attached to a single status

•A collection of roles associated with a

given status

COMPONENTS OF INTERACTION: ROLE

Role Conflict

• Role conflict refers to incompatibility among roles corresponding to two or more different statuses • Incompatibility of different roles played by a single person – or

difficult moral choices. • Competing and conflicting demands stemming from a role set

• It can be reduced by: • Defining some roles as more important than others • Setting priorities • Insulating roles from one another

COMPONENTS OF INTERACTION: ROLE

Role Strain

• Role Strain refers to incompatibility among roles

corresponding to a single status

•The attempt to meet incompatible expectations

within a single status

COMPONENTS OF INTERACTION: ROLE

Role Stress

• Role Stress: The anxiety produced by being

unable to meet all role requirements at the

same time

COMPONENTS OF INTERACTION: ROLE

Role Exit

• Role Exit: The process by which people

disengage from social roles that have

been central in their lives

COMPONENTS OF INTERACTION: ROLE

Role Distance (Goffman)

• Role Distance: This is where we play our roles in

society without really meaning it, and with an ulterior

motive in mind

•We play our roles with the thoughts in the back of

our heads that these actions are contrary to what

we really think and believe

THEORIES OF INTERACTION

1. Social Construction of Reality: The process by which individuals creatively shape reality through social interaction

• The Thomas Theorem: states that situations we define as real become real in there consequences

• Ethnomethodology (Harold Garfinkel): studies the way people make sense of their everyday lives and focuses on the very basic rules and assumptions of everyday life

• The goal is to bring these rules to the surface and determine the effect they have on our behavior.

• Demonstrate these unspoken rules by conducting experiments • Breaching experiment: a procedure whereby the experimenter violates a

suspected rule and observes people’s reaction to the violation

Orderly social interaction is only possible if we all abide by social rules that we rarely notice

THEORIES OF INTERACTION

2. Exchange Theory: Focuses on the exchanges that we perform

with one another on a daily basis

• Norm of Reciprocity: If you do something for a person, they must

do something of approximately equal social value in return

• If someone continually fails to reciprocate, we usually end the social

interaction

• Exchange creates complex social relations to the point that

whoever is involved in the most profitable exchanges becomes

the more powerful

THEORIES OF INTERACTION

3. Dramaturgy (Goffman): Consists of the definition of social

interaction in terms of theatrical performance

• It focuses on the everyday occurrences we experience in

life

•We gain meaning from social interaction and common

situations

• Social interaction can be viewed as a series of small plays

DRAMATURGY

• Presentation of Self

•A person’s efforts to create specific impressions in the minds of others

•Also called “impression management”

•Begins with the idea of personal performance

DRAMATURGY

• Performances

•Reveal information consciously and unconsciously • Includes

• Dress (costume)

• Objects we carry (props)

• Tone of voice and way we carry ourselves (demeanor)

•Vary performances according to where we are (the set)

DRAMATURGY

Nonverbal Communication

• Communication using body movements, gestures, and facial expressions rather than speech

• Body language

• Using parts of the body to convey information to others

• Eye contact is another crucial element

• Gestures add meaning to spoken words

• Body Language and Deception

• Body language can contradict planned meaning

• Because nonverbal communication is hard to control, it provides clues to deception

• Recognizing dishonest performances is difficult

• Key to detecting lies is to view the whole performance with an eye for inconsistencies

DRAMATURGY

Gender and Performance

• Women are more sensitive to nonverbal communication than men

• Central element in personal performances

• Demeanor

• The way we act and carry ourselves

• Clue to social power

• Because women generally occupy positions of less power, demeanor is also a gender issue

DRAMATURGY

Use of space

• Personal space • The surrounding area over which a person makes some claim to privacy •Men, because of their greater social power,

often intrude into women’s personal space •Woman moving into a man’s personal space

can be taken as a sign of sexual interest

DRAMATURGY

• Staring, smiling, and touching Women hold eye contact more than men in social

conversations Men stare

Claiming social dominance and defining women as sexual

objects Smiling can be a sign of trying to please or of submission In a male-dominated world, women smile more than men Mutual touching suggests intimacy and caring Touching is generally something men do to women But rarely in our culture to other men

DRAMATURGY

• Idealization

•We construct performances to idealize our intentions

•We try to convince others (and perhaps ourselves) that

our actions reflect ideal cultural standards rather than

selfish motives

• Rarely do people admit the more common less-honorable

motives

•We all use idealization to some degree

DRAMATURGY

Embarrassment

• Embarrassment

• Discomfort after a spoiled performance

• “Losing face”

• Embarrassment is an ever-present danger because idealized performances typically contain some deception

• One thoughtless moment can shatter the intended impression

• Curiously, an audience often overlooks flaws in performance, allowing the actor to avoid embarrassment

DRAMATURGY

Tact

• Helping someone “save face”

• Members of an audience actually help the performer recover from a flawed performance

• Tact is common because embarrassment creates discomfort for the actor and everyone else

• People who observe the awkward behavior are reminded of how fragile their own performances are

• Although behavior is spontaneous in some respects, it is more patterned than we like to think