Social Action Theories
Sociology: AQA A Level, topic 1.1.3
Action Theory
Max Weber classified human actions into four ideal categories.
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.
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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
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.
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.
‘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.
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.
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.
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.
Test yourself on Social Action Theories
Studying for a degree to secure a good job is an example of what type of social action?