Exam 2 Study Guide Symbolic Interaction Theory SIT 04 09 2014 George Herbert Mead Humanist Goal of SIT to explain how humans through interactions with one another create symbolic worlds and how these worlds Key Concepts Mind Self Society o Mind ability to use symbols that have commonly understood meanings learn language Explanation we can t interact with others until we Shared system of verbal and nonverbal symbols organized in patterns to express thoughts Language uses significant symbols symbols with shared meaning Through language we share meanings and anticipate responses of others Mind reflects and creates society Use language to learn norms of society change norms and allows us to think o Without social interaction we can t think Thought allows role taking Role taking leads to empathy and development of self o Self the ability to reflect on ourselves from the perspective of others Explanation self develops from role taking We do that by imagining how we come across to other people Looking glass self think of oneself base on what other people think and see Our ability to see ourselves in the reflection of another s gaze adopting the feelings others have about us Pygmalion effect living up to other people s expectations The labels other people give us we internalize the labels and feel the way we were told to feel Actions and behaviors reflect how others see us o Society the web of social relationships humans create Explanation exists prior to individuals Created by individuals interacting Created individual sense of self Particular others significant others o Peers family spouse the people that are important to us o Does not need to be positive people Generalize others society as a whole Research o Chicago school Mead and Blumer Tested in a qualitative way o Iowa school Manford Kahn Tested in a quantitative way o New Iowa school Car Couch Tested in a qualitative way Evaluation of SIT o Bad Scope too broad Precision ignores important concepts emotions self esteem How does SIT define communication o Intentional symbolic interaction cognition thought perception human to human Ontological assumptions o Context matters social have choices Epistemological assumptions o Knowledge arises through social constructivism qualitative Axiological o Just describe no values Coordinated Management of Meaning CMM Cronen Pearce and Harris closer to Humanist but not Goal of CMM to explain how people co create meaning in conversation CMM is a rules theory o Explains specifically rules Explanations What happens in conversation as a result of following What happens when different rules meet o People use rules to create and interpret meaning o Use different rules get different meaning o Meaning is constantly coordinated Assumptions guiding CMM o People create systems of meaning Organize meaning hierarchically People take a look at the words and look at different things about the words to figure out what they mean Temporally Time to make sense of the conversation it must start at some place look at conversations as having beginnings middles and ends o Co create a social reality o Behavior not interpretable except in context of larger system Personal and interpersonal meaning Personal the meaning we create for ourselves Interpersonal the meaning we create between us o Context dictionary definition of the words o Speech acts the intent behind our words insulting complementing praising o Contract the relationship that two people in the interaction o Episodes we look at conversations in time order even though a transactional period may not have a beginning and end we punctuate the end we decide where the event starts giving that event meaning to us o Life scripts our field of experience helps us determine o Cultural patterns when people culturally can t see eye to have meaning eye Hierarchy of meaning The coordination of meaning exists when people attempt to make sense of messages in conversations 3 Possible outcomes when people try to coordinate meaning o Succeed coordinate management of meaning o Fail don t succeed o Partial meaning compromise must go back and forth to totally coordinate meaning Coordination depends on o Sense of morality ethics The roles that we play in life because of the different roles we play we have different rights and responsibilities when we go into conversation with people o Available resources The stories myths experiences that we have and bring with us in order to make sense and create meaning o Following the rules most important We can come to coordination through following rules Descriptions of how to process information Provide common symbolic framework for communication Provide opportunity for choice Rules of CMM o Constitutive Definition rules What a message should mean within a given context o Regulative behaviors Guidelines for behavior based on meaning for the words Ex I love you to a romantic partner so the behaviors associated o Intercultural communication o Interpersonal relationships relationship between people in order to determine if miscommunication or coordination of meaning Research o Applied in therapeutic situations ex marriage counseling Evaluation o Good communication theory valid has utility o Bad too broad inconsistent CMM says we create unique language systems but we share a language Issues in defining communication o Correspondence symbolic actions cognition thought perception intentional have choice Ontological assumptions o Choice social context matters Epistemological assumptions certain Axiological assumptions o Values don t matter o Learn through social constructivism qualitative knowledge is Cognitive Dissonance Theory CDT Leon Festinger hardcore Social Scientist Goal of CDT to explain and predict how inconsistent beliefs and behaviors lead to attitude change and predict attitude change Assumptions behaviors o People strive to be consistent in the cognitions thoughts and o Inconsistency creates tension which is unpleasant tension provides motivation to restore consistency o Motivation to restore consistency will only occur with awareness of inconsistency o Consistency is cognitive Concepts o Cognition thoughts attitudes beliefs o 3 thought types Consonance our thoughts are consistent with one another everything in sync Dissonance the thoughts are not in sync and do not match up Irrelevant thoughts are not related at all o Cognitive Dissonance feeling which occurs when there is an imbalance among cognitions behaviors o Dissonant cognitions
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