SOC 1101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: George Herbert Mead, Pragmatism, Wilhelm Wundt

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 1101
• Professor: Joseph Sawan

Document Summary

Social interaction is defined as the process by which people act, interact, and react in the context of social relations. This is a shift from thinking about the large-scale societal processes that had characterized the work of theorists in the nineteenth century. Interactionists are focused on the problem of explaining how social order and social structure come about and persist, without losing the insight that reality is a product of social interaction that is both emergent and contingent. This is the opposite of the problem that faced durkheim, who struggled to explain the irregularities in the behaviour of group members. Social-interactionism and the contributions of george herbert mead. George herbert mead was among the first to clearly and extensively theorize social interaction, and his work has been key for the working ideas of social interactionists. His theories place the individual and her experiences, as well as any concept of society, firmly in the context of ongoing social interaction.