Major Social Sciences Theories: An Overview: Module 2 Lesson 1

Major Social Sciences
Theories:
An Overview
MODULE 2 LESSON 1
SYMBOLIC
INTERACTIONISM
Symbolic Interactionism
• The symbolic interaction perspective, also called symbolic
interactionism, is a major framework of sociological
theory. This perspective relies on the symbolic meaning
that people develop and rely upon in the process of social
interaction. Although symbolic interactionism traces its
origins to Max Weber's assertion that individuals act
according to their interpretation of the meaning of their
world, the American philosopher George Herbert Mead
introduced this perspective to American sociology in the
1920s. Mead argued that people's selves are social
products, but that these selves are also purposive and
creative, and believed that the true test of any theory was
that it was "useful in solving complex social problems"
• Symbolic interaction theory analyzes society by
addressing the subjective meanings that people impose
on objects, events, and behaviors. Subjective meanings
are given primacy because it is believed that people
behave based on what they believe and not just on what
is objectively true. Thus, society is thought to be socially
constructed through human interpretation. People
interpret one another’s behavior, and it is these
interpretations that form the social bond.
 This considers the symbol and details of everyday life, what these
symbols mean, and how they interact with each other.
 Gives serious thought on how people act, and then seeks to
determine what meanings individuals assign to their own actions
and symbols, as well as to those of others.
• Using symbolic interactionism, physical reality does
indeed exist by an individual's social definitions, and that
social definitions do develop in part or in relation to
something "real". People thus do not respond to this
reality directly, but rather to the social understanding of
reality, i.e., they respond to this reality indirectly through
a kind of filter which consists of individuals' different
perspectives. This means that humans exist not in the
physical space composed of realities, but in the "world"
composed only of "objects".
DIFFERENT IDEAS
OF SYMBOLIC
INTERACTIONISM
• Three
assumptions frame symbolic
interactionism (West and Turner, 2018)
 Individuals construct meaning via the
communication process.
 Self-concept is a motivation for behavior.
 A unique relationship exists between the
individual and society.
• There are five central ideas to symbolic
interactionism according to Joel M. Charon (2004):
 "The human being must be understood as a social person.”
 The human being must be understood as a thinking being.
 Humans do not sense their environment directly, instead,
humans define the situation they are in.
 The cause of human action is the result of what is occurring
in our present situation.
 Human beings are described as active beings in relation to
their environment.
C.H. COOLEY’S LOOKING GLASS SELF
• Cooley argued that the self is a product of our social
interactions with other people that involves three steps:
 The imagination of our appearance to other people and associated
feelings.
 Imagining that others are evaluating our behavior.
 We develop feelings and react to the imaginary evaluations of
ourselves as objects.
• Example:
 If you are talking to a group of people and you state something and
everyone laughs at you, even calling you stupid, you might begin to see
yourself as stupid. You adopt the looking glass, the mirror image of
yourself that is being reflected back to you by others. Vice versa, if you
say something intelligent, and this is the image reflected back to you,
you might begin to see yourself as intelligent.
STRUCTURAL
FUNCTIONALISM
Structural Functionalism
• The theory of function was developed by Herbert Spenser lived in 19th and early 20th
century and Emile Durkheim in 19th century.
• The whole point of this theory is to liken society to a living organism – complex body parts
and all – whose objectives are self-preservation and self-perpetuation.
• States that what keeps society together is the function or role that all parts of a system
perform, assert and play in order to preserve, maintain, and sustain society for
prosperity.
• No society would want to destroy itself so that each and every part, institution and sector,
must perform expected roles and functions.
• The indirect benefit for people would be the promotion of a feeling of solidarity ad unity
among them, which lessen stress and thereby make them happy and secure deeply inside.
• Each aspect of society is interdependent and contributes to society’s functioning as a
whole.
• Society is seen as a complex system whose parts work together to promote stability and
social order.
Social Consensus or Cohesion
• Under functionalism, society is held together by
social consensus or cohesion which means
members of society agree upon and work together
to achieve what is best for society as a whole.
Two Kinds of Social Consensus
• Mechanical Solidarity-a form of social cohesion that
arises when people in a society maintain similar values
and beliefs and engage in similar types of work. ex.
Family of farmers, fisher folks, etc.
• Organic Solidarity-a form of social cohesion that arises
when the people in a society are interdependent, but hold
to varying values and beliefs, and engage in varying
types of work.
Social cohesion and integration are a matter of high
importance in order to keep all the parts functioning
together as a single unit toward a common goal or
purposes.
Two Types of Human Function
(Robert Merton)
• Manifest Functions: intentional and
obvious
Ex. Going to school to learn.
• Latent
Functions: unintentional and
not obvious
Ex. Going to school to make social
connections.
SOCIAL CONFLICT
THEORY
Social Conflict Theory
• Viewssociety as being composed of
different groups that struggle over scarce
resources-like power, money, land, food, or
status.
Class Conflict (Karl Marx)
• Views society as having different classes based
on their relationship to the means of production.
• Two Classes under Capitalism
 Bourgeoisie-owns the means of production.
 Proletariat-sells their labor to survive
Marx made class struggle the central fact of

social evolution. “The history of all hitherto
existing human society is the history of class
struggles.”
• In Marx’s view, the dialectical nature of history is expressed in class
struggle. With the development of capitalism, the class struggle
takes an acute form. Two basic classes, around which other less
important classes are grouped, oppose each other in the capitalist
system: the owners of the means of production, or bourgeoisie, and
the workers, or proletariat. “The bourgeoisie produces its own grave-
diggers. The fall of the bourgeoisie and the victory of the proletariat
are equally inevitable” (The Communist Manifesto) because the
bourgeois relations of production are the last contradictory form of
the process of social production, contradictory not in the sense of an
individual contradiction, but of a contradiction that is born of the
conditions of social existence of individuals; however, the forces of
production which develop in the midst of bourgeois society create at
the same time the material conditions for resolving this
contradiction. With this social development the prehistory of human
society ends.
• When people have become aware of their loss, of their
alienation, as a universal nonhuman situation, it will be
possible for them to proceed to a radical transformation of
their situation by a revolution. This revolution will be the
prelude to the establishment of communism and the reign
of liberty reconquered. “In the place of the old bourgeois
society with its classes and its class antagonisms, there
will be an association in which the free development of
each is the condition for the free development of all.”
• But for Marx there are two views of revolution. One is that of a final
conflagration, “a violent suppression of the old conditions of
production,” which occurs when the opposition between bourgeoisie
and proletariat has been carried to its extreme point.
• The other conception is that of a permanent revolution involving a
provisional coalition between the proletariat and the petty
bourgeoisie rebelling against a capitalism that is only superficially
united. Once a majority has been won to the coalition, an unofficial
proletarian authority constitutes itself alongside the revolutionary
bourgeois authority. Its mission is the political and revolutionary
education of the proletariat, gradually assuring the transfer of legal
power from the revolutionary bourgeoisie to the revolutionary
proletariat. (Britannica.com, 2020)

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Major Social Sciences

Marx made class struggle the central fact of

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