COMM250 1 COMM 250 Exam 2 General Comments and Guidelines The exam will be 50 multiple choice questions The exam will cover Chapters 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 and 12 in your text West Turner I would like you to know names associated with the theories Dates are less important i e I will not test you on dates Focus will be on class notes but questions from the text will be asked you should use your text in conjunction with your class notes to further your understanding of the topics discussed in class The exam will require you to know more than just class terms and definitions although you must know these You will be asked 1 to identify examples of the theories acting in real life situations and 2 to apply your understanding of the topics learned for the first exam i e metatheoretical assumptions theory building and testing to the theories we discussed up until this point The Self and Messages Theories Symbolic Interaction Theory SIT George Herbert Mead 1934 Story about Roger beginning his new job as an engineer What is the goal purpose of SIT To understand how humans through interaction with one another create symbolic worlds and how these worlds affect behavior What are the assumptions regarding meanings and behavior People act based on symbolic meanings created between them o Meaning is created through interaction between people o Meaning is modified through an interpretive process o Created meaning affects behavior What are SIT s concepts Mind Self Society o Ability to use symbols that have common social meanings o Ability to reflect on ourselves from the perspective of others o The web of social relationships humans create What are SIT s explanations Mind o We cannot interact with others until we learn language Shared system of verbal and nonverbal symbols organized in patterns to express thoughts and feelings o Language uses significant symbols symbols with shared meanings that is generally agreed upon by many people COMM250 2 o Through language we Share meanings Anticipate responses of others o Mind reflects and creates society the social world o How Language to learn norms of society Change norms Learn the social norms and culture values that constrain them Learn ways to change and shape that social world through interaction o Mind allows thought inner conversation o Without social interaction we cant think o Why Language develops through interaction Use language to think o Thought allows role taking Thought is an inner conversation When Roger got ready for his first day he went over all the experiences that brought him to that place and thinks about his families support his teacher and tells himself he will do well he sorted out the meaning of his new situation Without social stimulation and interaction with others people would not be capable of holding inner conversations or sustaining thought o Role taking taking perspective of others The most critical activities that people accomplish through thought If Helen thought about Roger after their meeting and reflected on how he must have felt to be newer and younger than most of the other employees then she would be role taking o Role taking leads to Empathy Development of self o Humans develop minds through interaction with others Self o Self develops from role taking o Imagining how we come across or look to others o We learn about ourselves from the ways others treat us view us and label us Looking glass Self Cooley 1912 Our ability to see ourselves in the reflection of another s gaze Three principles o We imagine how we appear to others o We imagine their judgment of us o We feel hurt or pride based on these self feelings Pygmalion Effect Living up or down to another s expectations of us Society COMM250 3 o Exists prior to individuals but is also created and shaped by the individual acting in concert with others o Created by individuals interaction o Creates individual self s Particular others significant others Usually family members friends work colleagues and supervisors We look to them to get a sense of social acceptability and a sense of self When Roger thinks of his parents opinion of him he is deriving a sense of self from particular others Influence our sense of social acceptability and our sense of self Sometimes there is conflict between what friends want and what families want Generalized others society as a whole The attitude of the whole community social group or culture Provides information about roles rules and attitudes shared by the community Gives us a sense of how other people react to us and of general social expectations Influential in developing a social conscience May help mediate conflicts generated by particular others o The web of social relationships that people create o Individuals engage in society through behaviors that they choose actively and voluntarily society thus features an interlocking set of behaviors that individuals continually adjust What research has been generated from SIT Chicago School o Mead and Blumer Blumer s 3 assumptions Humans act toward others on the basis of the meanings those others have for them o Explains behavior as a loop between stimuli and the responses people exhibit to those stimuli o The meaning behind behavior o Look how people make meanings that are congruent with the social forces that shape them Roger saw the ages of people and since they were older assumed they had more experience he applied commonly agreed upon interpretations to the way he sees things Meaning is created in interaction between people o Three ways of accounting for the origin of meaning Being intrinsic to the thing a chair is a chair Meanings are in people not in things Isolating the psychological elements within an individual that produce a meaning COMM250 4 Seeing it as it occurring between people Meaning are social products or creations that are formed in and through the defining activities of people as they interact Meaning is modified through an interpretive process o Two steps Communicators point out the things that have meaning consists of people engaging in communication with themselves when Roger gets ready for work he communicates to himself about the areas that are meaningful to him Communicators select check and transform the meanings in the context in which they find themselves when Roger talks with Helen he listens for her remarks that are relevant to the areas he has decided are meaningful Iowa School o Manford Kuhn The New Iowa School o Carl Couch What is the research related to
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