SOCIOL 3488 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Symbolic Interactionism, George Herbert Mead, Herbert Blumer
9 Sep 2016
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Herbert blumer: coined term in 1937, rejects reductionism. Sociological: action based on external, coercive structures: actors endow things with meaning, two major influences. Interpretation of social world can be done by actor. Nominalists: macro phenomena do not have independent and coercive effects on individuals b/c can accept, reject or modify. Radical behaviorism: stimuli elicits observable behavior (humans = just animals) Social behaviorism: stimulus elicits covert actions (attention, perception, imagination) and then overt actions (observable behavior) George herbert mead (1863 1931: most important theorist in symbolic interactionism, mind, self and society, the social is prior to the individual. Self conscious mental states arise from the social group (not the other way around: act = basic unit of theory. Consummation: fulfill requests on stimulus: gesture = basic unit of social action. Act involves single; gesture involves at least 2. Example: language: significant symbol = gesture that gets similar response from the addressee and the addressed (makes symbolic interaction)
