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Symbolic interaction, also known as interactionism, is a sociological theory that places emphasis on micro-scale social interaction to provide subjective meaning in human behavior, the social process and pragmatism.
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The theory originated with two key thinkers, George Herbert Mead and Max Weber. George Herbert Mead was the front man with this theory and believed that the true test of any theory was that "It was useful in solving complex social problems" (Griffin 59). He was a social activist, and as such this theory is very phenomenologically based. He believed that the "Most human and humanizing activity that people engage in is talking to each other" (Griffin 60).[1] Herbert Blumer, a student and interpreter of Mead, coined the term and put forward an influential summary of the perspective: people act toward things based on the meaning those things have for them; and these meanings are derived from social interaction and modified through interpretation. Blumer was also influenced by John Dewey, who insisted that human beings are best understood in relation to their environment.[2] Yrjö Engeström and David Middleton explain the usefulness of symbolic interactionism in the communication field in a "variety of work setting including, courts of law, health care, computer software design, scientific laboratory, telephone sales, control, repair, and maintenance of advance manufacturing system.[3]
Herbert Blumer (1969) set out three basic premises of the perspective:
Blumer, following Mead, claimed that people interact with each other by interpret[ing] or 'defin[ing]' each other's actions instead of merely reacting to each other's actions. Their 'response' is not made directly to the actions of one another but instead is based on the meaning which they attach to such actions. Thus, human interaction is mediated by the use of symbols and signification, by interpretation, or by ascertaining the meaning of one another's actions (Blumer 1962). Blumer contrasted this process, which he called "symbolic interaction," with behaviorist explanations of human behavior, which does not allow for interpretation between stimulus and response. Blumer believed that the term symbolic interactionism has come into use as a label for relatively distinctive approach to the study of human group life and human conduct. (Blumer, 8). Other scholars he credits in this field are, Mead, Dewey, Thomas, Park, James, Horton, Cooley, Znaniecki, Baldwin, Redfield, and Wirth.[4]
The emphases on symbols, negotiated meaning, and social construction of society brought on attention to the roles people play. Erving Goffman (1958) was a social theorist who studied roles dramaturgically, through the analogy of theater, to describe human social behavior as roughly following a script and humans as role-playing actors. Role-taking is a key mechanism that permits people to see another person's perspective to understand what an action might mean to another person. There is a improvisational quality of roles; however, actors often take on a script that they follow. Because of the uncertainty of roles in social contexts, the burden of role-making is on the person in the situation. In this sense, we are proactive participants in our environment.[5]
Sociologists working in this tradition have researched a wide range of topics using a variety of research methods. However, the majority of interactionist research uses qualitative research methods, like participant observation, to study aspects of 1) social interaction, and/or 2) individuals' selves. Participant observation allows researchers to access symbols and meanings, as in Howard S. Becker's Art Worlds (1982) and Arlie Hochschild's The Managed Heart (1983).[6] They argue that close contact and immersion in the everyday activities of the participants is necessary for understanding the meaning of actions, defining situations and the process that actors construct the situation through their interaction. Because of this close contact, interactions cannot remain completely liberated of value commitments. In most cases, they make use of their values in choosing what to study; however, they seek to be objective in how they conduct the research.
Sociological subfields that have been particularly influenced by symbolic interactionism include the sociology of emotions, deviance/criminology, collective behavior/social movements, and the sociology of sex. Interactionist concepts that have gained widespread usage include definition of the situation, emotion work, impression management, looking glass self, and total institution. Semiology is connected to this discipline, but unlike those elements of semiology which are about the structures of language, interactionists typically are more interested in the ways in which meaning is fluid and ambiguous.[6]
Ethnomethodology, an offshoot of symbolic interactionism, questions how people's interactions can create the illusion of a shared social order despite not understanding each other fully and having differing perspectives. Harold Garfinkel demonstrated this by having his students perform "experiments in trust," called breaching experiments, where they would interrupt ordinary conversations because they refused to take for granted that they knew what the other person was saying. They would demanded explanations and then explanations of the explanations (Garfinkel 1967) to gain understanding of each other's definitions and perspectives. Further and more recent ethnomethodologist research has performed detailed analyses of basic conversations to reveal the methods of how turn-taking and alternative conversational maneuvers are managed.[5]
As studies of online community proliferate, the concept of online community has become a more accepted social construct. Studies encompassed discursive communities;[7][8] identity;[9][10] community as social reality;[11] networking;[12] the public sphere;[13] ease and anonymity in interactions.[14] These studies show that online community is an important social construct in terms of its cultural, structural, political and economic character.
It has been demonstrated that people's ideas about community are formed, in part, through interactions both in online forums as well as those in face to face interactions. As a result, people act in their communities according to the meanings they derive about their environment, whether online or offline, from those interactions. This perspective reveals that online communication may very well take on different meanings for different people depending on information, circumstance, relationships, power, and other systems that make up communities of practice. People enact community the way it is conceived and the meaning of community evolves as they come up with new ways to utilize it. Given this reality, scholars are continually challenged to research and understand how online communities are comprised, how they function, and how they are connected to offline social life.[15]
Symbolic interactionists are often criticized{{By whom{{ for being overly impressionistic in their research methods and somewhat unsystematic in their theories. These objections, combined with the fairly narrow focus of interactionist research on small-group interactions and other social psychological issues, have relegated the interactionist camp to a minority position among sociologists, although a fairly substantial minority. Much of the criticism arose during the 1970s in the U.S. when quantitative approaches to sociology were dominant. Perhaps the best known of these is by Alvin Gouldner.[16]
Some critiques of symbolic interactionism are based on the assumption that it is a theory, and the critiques apply the criteria for a "good" theory to something that does not claim to be a theory. Some critics find the symbolic interactionist framework too broad and general when they are seeking specific theories. Symbolic interactionism is a theoretical framework rather than a theory (see Stryker and Vryan, 2003, for a clear distinction between the two as it pertains to symbolic interactionism).[17] Thus, specific theories, hypotheses, and conceptualizations must be (and have successfully been) derived from the general framework that symbolic interactionism provides before interactionist theories can be assessed on the basis of the criteria a good theory (e.g., containing falsifiable hypotheses), or interactionist-inspired conceptualizations can be assessed on the basis of effective conceptualizations. The theoretical framework, as with any theoretical framwork, is vague when it comes to analyzing empirical data or predicting outcomes in social life. As a framework rather than a theory, many scholars find it difficult to use. Interactionism being a framework rather than a theory makes it impossible to test interactionism in the manner that a specific theoretical claim about the relationship between specific variables in a given context allows. Unlike the symbolic interactionist framework, the many theories derived from symbolic interactionism, such as role theory and the versions of Identity Theory developed by Stryker,[18][19] and Burke and colleagues,[20][21] clearly define concepts and the relationships between them in a given context, thus allowing for the opportunity to develop and test hypotheses. Further, especially among Blumerian processual interactionists, a great number of very useful conceptualizations have been developed and applied in a very wide range of social contexts, types of populations, types of behaviors, and cultures and subcultures.
In addition to methodological criticisms, critics of symbolic interactionism have charged that it is unable to deal with social structure (a fundamental sociological concern) and macro sociological issues. A number of symbolic interactionists have addressed these topics, the best known being Sheldon Stryker's structural symbolic interactionism[18][22] and the formulations of interactionism heavily influenced by this approach (sometimes referred to as the "Indiana School" of symbolic interactionism, including the works of key scholars in sociology and psychology using different methods and theories applying a structural version of interactionism that are represented in a 2003 collection edited by Burke et al.[23] Another well-known structural variation of symbolic interactionism that applies quantitative methods is Manford H. Kuhn's (Kuhn and McPartland, 1954) formulation which is often referred to in sociological literature as the "Iowa School." Negotiated Order Theory" also applies a structural approach.[24]
The work of structural interactionists such as Stryker and Kuhn has had a significant influence on subsequent symbolic interactionists, some of whom use survey research and experimental methods (whereas "Chicago School" interactionism following Herbert Blumer's version relies on ethnography and qualitative in-depth interviewing). But Chicago School or "processual" versions of interactionism currently maintain greater recognition and influence within sociological teaching and research, presented in some texts and coursework as if they were the only variations of symbolic interactionism that exist. This fuels criticisms of the symbolic interactionist framework for failing to account for social structure, as well as criticisms that interactionist theories cannot be assessed via quantitative methods, and cannot be falsifiable or tested empirically. The published literature indicates that structural and processual variations of interactionism are both alive and well in sociology, as is the Blumerian tradition of interactionism, and interactionism has been used more explicitly and more frequently in psychology and anthropology as well. Much of the symbolic interactionist framework's basic tenets can be found in a very wide range of sociological and psychological work, without being explicitly cited as interactionist, making the influence of symbolic interactionism difficult to recognize given this general acceptance of its assumptions as "common knowledge." Many scholars do not know they are applying interactionist ideas in their own theoretical assumptions and formulations.[17]
The Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction (SSSI) is a scholarly association for symbolic interactionists. SSSI holds a conference in conjunction with the meeting of the American Sociological Association in August and sponsors the Couch-Stone Symposium each spring.[25] It also sponsors the journal Symbolic Interaction.[2]