Assess the contribution of Social Action Theory to sociology Essay

Social action theories are known as micro theories which take a bottom-up approach to studying society; they look at how individuals within society interact with each other. There are many forms of social action theories, the main ones being symbolic interactionism, phenomenology and ethnomethodology. They are all based on the work of Max Weber, a sociologist, who acknowledged that structural factors can shape our behaviour but individuals do have reasons for their actions. He used this to explain why people behave in the way in which they do within society. Weber saw four types of actions which are commonly committed within society; rational, this includes logical plans which are used to achieve goals, traditional-customary behaviour,

For years, social action theorists have sought out to understand how society operates. Unlike structuralists for example Marxists, action theorists are a micro level approach where they find the study of the individual and their interactions within society more important to our understanding. Action theorists are more voluntaristic, they believe that individuals possess agency where they have the ability to be free agents in themselves and in shaping society.

Identity is a group of characteristics, data or information that belongs exactly to one person or a group of people and that make it possible to establish differences between them. The consciousness that people have about themselves is part of their identity as well as what makes them unique. According to psychologists, identity is a consistent definition of one’s self as a unique individual, in terms of role, attitudes, beliefs and aspirations. Identity tries to define who people are, what they are, where they go or what they want to be or to do. Identity could depend on self-knowledge, self-esteem, or the ability of individuals to achieve their goals. Through self-analysis people can define who they are and who the people around them

When the world we live in is viewed from an anonymous, unbiased standpoint the individuality of ‘I’ has a tendency to diminish away and be replaced by a society of eyes. Who view one’s identity differently then what the individual can see. Life moves on whether we like it or not and how individuals view themselves verses how others perceive them can leave a lasting impression. Everyone has a unique identity and perspective of the world they live in. The way individuals see themselves may appear to be different than what others see in them because of different values, morals and characteristics that shape’s ones identity.

This theory looks at how we present ourselves in social situations in terms of our identity.

Erving Goffman was a sociologist who studied and analyzed social interaction. He took special interest in explaining how people live their lives as if they were actors performing on stage. He looked at the world as if he were a “director” seeing what goes on in everyday life. He called this observation of the world dramaturgical analysis. He applied terms to this explanation, which include the concepts of status and role. He referred the “part in a play” as the status, and then the “script” is the role. His claim of presentation of self was used to describe “a person’s efforts to create specific impressions in the minds of others.” Goffman thought that when any individual is around others, they

The social action model is used when the problems that have arisen in the community can be solved by some kind of political means. This is generally the result of an unequal distribution of power within the community or a lack thereof. This model typically borrows a few methods from the other models as it requires a rather rounded approach when it comes to solving the problem.

The sociological concept ‘dramaturgy’, was developed by Irving Goffman (1922 – 1982) and initially used in his book The Presentation of the Self (1959). The concept was also a feature of subsequent works Behavior in Public Places (1963) and Interaction Rituals (1967), where the focus was on interaction and social scene rather than self-presentation and identity work. Dramaturgy uses the theatre as an extended metaphor to explain how people perform a variety of social roles, like actors in a play, and that society is made up of groups of players working together to up hold various social realities and functional institutions such as work, school, home, medical, legal or leisure. The two key components of this theory are ‘front and back’

The sociological perspective of dramaturgy is associated with Irving Goffman (1922 – 1982) who developed the concept in his book The Presentation Of The Self In Everyday Life (1959). Using theatre as an extended metaphor, dramaturgy explains the everyday interactions that uphold social reality. Life is like a play, and like actors in a play, people perform roles, working in teams to create the social world, like scenes in a play. This provides functional institutions of work, school, home, hospitals and other official bodies that constitute society. Social ‘performances’ are reliant on team-members understanding their role in the group and the aim of the scenario. Someone who undermines or disrupts a performance, by revealing hidden

Goffman uses actors and the theater to understand something about individuals and the way they interact in everyday life. In his conclusion, Goffman provides a theory of the self. According to Goffman, the self is composed of two parts the performer and the character. The theory being that the self is a performed character. The character being the real self, which is developed because of one’s actions. All the actions we make as individuals have risks, and these risks are part of our everyday performances.

Goffman’s Dramaturgical approach theory was inspired by William Shakespeare’s writings in which Shakespeare say’s “totus mundus agit histrionem,” which are Latin for “All the world is a theatre”. In his theory, Goffman views individuals as actors in society where “interactions are viewed as performances” (Barnhart, A.D.,) the individual attempts to create an impression on the world in which these impressions “exist regardless of the mental state of the individual” (Barnhart, A.D.,) meaning, how the individual acts is not entirely voluntary but also involuntary. Social structure refers to “ the people in a society considered as a system organized by a characteristic pattern of relationships” (the free dictionary) To explain social

Goffman was the first to introduce the topic of dramaturgy in his work. Dramaturgy is his idea that life is a play. The people are actors and the every day world around us is our stage. (1959, p.13) He uses the image of a theatre performance to express the behaviour of people in everyday social interactions. Although not always aware of it, every individual in a social situation is assigned a role in the performance. Every individual obtains a role in social interaction and the audience observes and reacts to the performance. Goffman discussed the three different regions of performance as the front stage, the back stage and off stage. Each region has a particular impact on one’s performance.

Social action theories are known as micro theories which take a bottom-up approach to studying society; they look at how individuals within society interact with each other. There are many forms of social action theories, the main ones being symbolic interactionism, phenomenology and ethnomethodology. They are all based on the work of Max Weber, a sociologist, who acknowledged that structural factors can shape our behaviour but individuals do have reasons for their actions. He used this to explain why people behave in the way in which they do within society. Weber saw four types of actions which are commonly committed within society; rational, this includes logical plans which are used to achieve goals, traditional-customary behaviour,

Goffman is usually described as ‘dramaturgical’; that is, it is an approach based on an analogy with the theatre, with its front and backstage regions. However, Goffman is not suggesting that the social world really is a stage, but that, using the dramaturgical analogy, we can study certain aspects of it and learn more about why people behave in ways they do. (Giddens: 268: 2009). In The Presentation of Everyday Life (1959), Goffman outlined a conceptual framework in which any occasion of face-to-face interaction can be interpreted as a theatrical performance. Expanding the ideas of Kenneth Burke, who pioneered a ‘dramatist’ approach. Burke identifies five elements that have to be taken account of in any discussion or analysis of

The essay will look specifically into the presentational self theory. The presentation of self theory was founded by Erving Goffman and was one of the best-known and most influencial American sociologist of the twentieth century due to the fact that his dramaturgical metaphor has become sociology’s second skin (Fine & Manning, 2003, p. 457). This paper will look at how Goffman’s self presentation theory came about, the assumptions and concepts surrounding the theory, the critiques that may have arised from the theory as well as the usage of this theory in research work.