1.1.3

Social Action Theories

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Action Theory

Max Weber classified human actions into four ideal categories.

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Weber

  • Weber argued that in order to gain a full understanding of human behaviour, sociologists should analyse the meanings behind the actions taken by the individual.
  • He classified actions into four ideal categories.
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  1. Instrumentally rational action

  • Instrumentally rational action:
    • How actors attempt to achieve a given goal in the most effective manner.
    • Each individual aims to achieve success in different ways even if they have the same goal. 
    • E.g. studying for a degree to secure a good job.
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  1. Value-rational action

  • Value-rational action:
    • How actors pursue a goal based on its desirability rather than its logical benefits.
    • Because their desires are more important than the method of achieving the goal, the individual often does not mind how efficient the means are. 
    • E.g. going to university because your family want you to.
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  1. Traditional action

  • Traditional action:
    • Actions that occur through custom or routine that happens because it always has done and therefore isn’t challenged.
    • E.g. eating Sunday Lunch with family, or celebrating religious holidays.
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  1. Affective action

  • Affective action:
    • Actions based on feelings and emotions that have no rational reasoning.
    • This is the most irrational social action.
    • E.g. crying at a funeral, cheering a success, or going to university because you love to learn.

Symbolic Interactionism

Individuals shape their identities based on the labels that other people attach to them.

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George Mead

  • Individuals shape their identities based on the labels that other people attach to them.
  • Mead believed that each individual interacts with others through the use of symbols.
  • For example words, facial expressions, hand gestures, etc.
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Symbolic meanings

  • The issue is that each symbol can have a variety of different meanings depending on who the individual is interacting with.
  • Mead argued that humans do not act based on instinct like animals; instead, they have to assess the social situation by placing themselves in the place of the other person.
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‘I and me’

  • Mead argued that social actors experience an ‘I and me’ moment, whereby they present their ‘me’ to the outside world rather than their true selves.
  • The ‘me’ is an altered version of yourself to fit your social surroundings.
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Erving Goffman

  • Goffman put forward the idea of the dramaturgical model.
  • This is the theory that suggests that our lives are like a theatrical performance, in which we are the social actors who are constantly changing characters by moving back and forth between being upstage and backstage.
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The dramaturgical model

  • Our social self is an act, and therefore is a false representation of ourselves that is designed to appeal to that particular social audience.
  • He refers to this as ‘impression management’.
  • Goffman argues that each individual has a public persona, a version of themselves that they want the world to see.
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The ‘looking-glass self’

  • Charles Cooley’s study of the ‘looking-glass self’ believes that this is how individuals form their own view of themselves; essentially internalising the labels that their social audience places upon them.
  • He calls this the ‘self-concept’.
  • By doing this, the individual starts to view themselves in a different way and therefore becomes the label that they have had imposed upon them.

Jump to other topics

1Theory & Methods

2Education with Methods in Context

3Option 1: Culture & Identity

4Option 1: Families & Households

5Option 1: Health

6Option 1: Work, Poverty & Welfare

7Option 2: Beliefs in Society

8Option 2: Global Development

9Option 2: The Media

10Crime & Deviance

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