SA 150 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Nationstates, John Foxx, Class Discrimination
CHAPTER 5: Social Roles, Interaction, and Organization
Georg Simmel
• Help us to think about small-scale, face-to-face social interaction
• Part of the first generation of German sociologists
• Friend of Max Weber
• His father ran a successful chocolate factory
• When his dad died Simmel inherited a lot of money
• Was once shot at by disgruntled tenant of his uncle’s property
Charles H. Cooley
• Another sociologist working in daily, one-on-one social interactions
• The Looking-Glass self has three components
1. How you imagine you appear to others
2. How you imagine those others judge your appearance
3. How you feel about yourself
Erving Goffman
•Dramaturgical approach: sociological research that utilizes methodology of life taking
place on a stage with a front stage for public display and back stage for personal
encounters.
•Impression management: the tactics people employ when presenting themselves
publicly
• Actors in social situations attempts to act in such way to attempt to avoid
being embarrassed or embarrassing others.
• Actors seldom accept shame or embarrassment passively; instead they try to
manage it, by avoidance if possible
• Argues that if shame or embarrassment cannot be avoided, them people often
actively deny it, attempting to save on face on one hand and to avoid pain on the
other during the performance.
• Shame signals and generates alienation; shame is part of social control, a very
effective one.
Social Status
• It is a recognized social position that a person occupies
• Can have multiple roles
• Implies responsibilities and expectations that establish the individual’s relationship to
others
•Status set: the number of statuses people have.
Achieved: status you were not born into but entered at same stage in your
life (did something to earn it)
Ascribed: status you were born into such as ‘female’, ‘male’, ‘daughter’, ‘son’,
citizenship, religion (last two can change to be achieved)
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Document Summary
Charles h. cooley: another sociologist working in daily, one-on-one social interactions, the looking-glass self has three components, how you imagine you appear to others, how you imagine those others judge your appearance, how you feel about yourself. Erving goffman: dramaturgical approach: sociological research that utilizes methodology of life taking place on a stage with a front stage for public display and back stage for personal encounters. It is a recognized social position that a person occupies. Implies responsibilities and expectations that establish the individual"s relationship to others: status set: the number of statuses people have. Achieved: status you were not born into but entered at same stage in your life (did something to earn it) Ascribed: status you were born into such as female", male", daughter", son", citizenship, religion (last two can change to be achieved) Master status: everett c. hughes: signifies the status that dominates all other statuses and plays the greatest role in the formation of social identity.