SYMBOLIC INTERACTION

A few ideas gleaned from todays musings, all of which contribute to the concept of performance writing about ‘writing identity’

Goffman

Erving Goffman believed that when an individual comes in contact with other people, that individual will attempt to control or guide the impression that others might make of him by changing or fixing his or her setting, appearance and manner. At the same time, the person the individual is interacting with is trying to form and obtain information about the individual.

Symbolic Interactionism is a social theory that focuses on the analysis of the patterns of communication, interpretation and adjustment between individuals. The theory is a framework for understanding how individuals interact with each other and within society through the meanings of symbols. Both the verbal and nonverbal responses that a listener then delivers are similarly constructed in expectation of how the original speaker will react. The on-going process of Symbolic Interaction is like the game of charades; only it is a full-fledged conversation.

Blumer

Herbert Blumer (1969) set out three basic premises of the perspective:

•    "Humans act toward things on the basis of the meanings they ascribe to those things."

•    "The meaning of such things is derived from, or arises out of, the social interaction that one has with others and the society."

•    "These meanings are handled in, and modified through, an interpretative process used by the person in dealing with the things he/she encounters."

Mead

While establishing the idea of self, George Herbert Mead introduced a distinction between the ‘I' and the 'me', respectively, the active and socialized aspects of the person. The "me" is a similar concept to Cooley's looking-glass self. An example of these concepts is the Pygmalion effect whereby a person (I) behaves to match the sense of self (me) they derive from others, in a form of self-fulfilling prophecy.

There are five central ideas to symbolic interactionism according to Joel M. Charon, author of Symbolic Interactionism An Introduction, An Interpretation, An Integration:

1-    "The human being must be understood as a social person. It is the constant search for social interaction that leads us to do what we do. Instead of focusing on the individual and his or her personality, or on how the society or social situation causes human behaviour, symbolic interactionism focuses on the activities that take place between actors. Interaction is the basic unit of study. Individuals are created through interaction; society too is created through social interaction. What we do depends on interaction with others earlier in our lifetimes, and it depends on our interaction right now. Social interaction is central to what we do. If we want to understand cause, focus on social interaction.

2-    The human being must be understood as a thinking being. Human action is not only interaction among individuals but also interaction within the individual. It is not our ideas or attitudes or values that are as important as the constant active on-going process of thinking. We are not simply conditioned, we are not simply beings who are influenced by those around us, we are not simply products of society. We are, to our very core, thinking animals, always conversing with ourselves as we interact with others. If we want to understand cause, focus on human thinking.

3-    Humans do not sense their environment directly, instead, humans define the situation they are in. An environment may actually exist, but it is our definition of it that is important. Definition does not simply randomly happen; instead, it results from on going social interaction and thinking.

4-    The cause of human action is the result of what is occurring in our present situation. Cause unfolds in the present social interaction, present thinking, and present definition. It is not society’s encounters with us in our past, that causes action nor is it our own past experience that does. It is, instead, social interaction, thinking, definition of the situation that takes place in the present. Our past enters into our actions primarily because we think about it and apply it to the definition of the present situation.

5-    Human beings are described as active beings in relation to their environment. Words such as conditioning, responding, controlled, imprisoned, and formed are not used to describe the human being in symbolic interaction. In contrast to other social-scientific perspectives humans are not thought of as being passive in relation to their surroundings, but actively involved in what they do."

Herewith a little lecture provided by you-tube