Generic Processes in Aligning the Multiple Bases of Identity: The Case of Becoming a Ministry Student

Identity theory distinguishes three bases of identity—role, group, and person—but studies have typically focused on one identity at a time. The interrelationship among the multiple bases of identity remains understudied. This study examines the multiple bases of identity individuals engage on their way to becoming ministry students. The results reveal the advantage of examining the multiple bases of identity as subcultural processes, the utility of qualitative research for expanding the empirical scope of identity theory, and the possibility of employing structural symbolic interactionist concepts within a processual symbolic interactionist agenda.     

Interaction Ritual Theory and Structural Symbolic Interactionism

This article develops a comparison between structural approaches to symbolic interaction, as described by Sheldon Stryker (1968, 1980, 2008) , and interaction ritual theory, elaborated by Randall Collins (1981, 1998, 2004) . The value of this comparison lies in both the similarities and differences between the perspectives: each is committed to developing empirically grounded, general knowledge and emphasizes interaction as an emergent unit of sociological analysis. However, their disparate intellectual heritages lead them to stake out different positions regarding the nature of interaction, the self, and social structure. We suggest that the differences between structural symbolic interaction and interaction ritual theory offer important areas for theoretical innovation, and we highlight a few directions that seem especially promising.     

Stories of Non‐Becoming: Non‐Issues,Non‐Events and Non‐Identities in Asexual Lives

In contrast to conventional models of positively “becoming” an identity through social interaction, this article explores the inverse, negational process of “non‐becoming,” whereby actors start but do not continue along an identity career trajectory. Through cumulative attrition, interactions and encounters at key moments create an overall pattern of non‐progression. Using asexuality as an example, we identify three main trajectory stages of non‐awareness, communicative negation and non‐consolidation, each involving interactional contingencies. With a wider applicability to other repudiated identities, this model shows how even negational symbolic social objects (non‐issues, non‐events, and non‐identities) are constituted through social interaction.     

Little Theories and Big Problems: Chicago Sociology and Ethnic Conflicts*

Since this society is oriented toward a specific theory, I thought I ought to say something about theories in general and our little theory in particular. Let me get that off of my chest. I am not overly fond of terms like “theory” and “theorist,” both of which seem to suggest the importance of the person who claims the identity more than anything else. They are pompous terms. To the extent that we are thoughtful about what we are doing and how we are going about it, all sociologists are theorists and methodologists. But if that is all we are, then we are literally people of no substance. We have no substantial knowledge of or concern for the empirical world. The little theory we share is extraordinarily empirical. It is, as one of its most prominent practitioners called it, a “grounded theory” ( Glaser and Strauss 1967 ). I confess that several years after receiving my degree I had no real sense of what symbolic interaction was and how it might differ from other theoretical orientations. Arnold Rose enlightened me on this when he asked me to submit a paper for a new collection he was editing ( Rose 1962 ). I was pleased and flattered. Rose was a mentor of mine, and I had never before been asked to contribute to an edited volume. But I was unsure of what would be appropriate for a book about symbolic interaction. I screwed up my courage and asked Arnold: “Exactly what is symbolic interaction”” He shrugged off my ignorance, turned on his heels, and muttered over his shoulder, “It is what they do at Chicago.”     

Symbolic Interaction and Social Work Education

This paper summarizes the findings of an empirical study that utilized symbolic interaction theory as an underlying framework. It focused on a basic tenet of symbolic interaction theory which states that individuals take the role of significant others in order to pattern their responses to meet the expectations of these significant others. The central hypothesis inferred that there was a relationship between the students' cognitive reorganization of the meaning of certain social work concepts and the formal socialization process that they experience in a graduate school of social work. It was found that during the first semester of graduate study this did not exist.     

Thinking with the Mind,Syncing with the Body: Ballet as Symbolic and Nonsymbolic Interaction

Symbolic interactionist theory describes self‐consciousness as arising through symbolic interaction. I use one empirical case, ballet training, to suggest that symbolic interaction can, by producing self‐consciousness, cultivate unself‐consciousness. Using in‐depth interviews with twenty‐three individuals reporting on training experiences in six countries and twenty‐three American states, I show that dancers can learn, through self‐conscious symbolic interaction, how it feels to embody what an audience sees, as they strive to train their bodies to portray an institutionalized aesthetic. The embodiment of technique facilitates a markedly unself‐conscious “flow” experience while performing. In contrast, having an acute awareness of embodying an incompatible physiology inhibits flow and often motivates dancers to self‐select out of ballet. These interactionist sources of “nonsymbolic” interaction both evoke and suppress “mind” through social interaction.     

Some Consequences of the Meadian Self*

Mead's conception of the self is analyzed as an internal interaction process, with the “I” viewed as taking perspectives rather than being simply a biologic response. Conceptualizing the self as an intrapersonal process of interaction from differentiated perspectives permits a better understanding of false fronting, autonomy, and creativity. Emergence theory allows us to take a Phenomenological view of the self. Several levels of consciousness in Mead's theory are analyzed, and connections with Berger and Luckmann's conceptions of objectivation and the symbolic universe are suggested.     

Extending the Symbolic Interactionist Theory of Interaction Processes: A Conceptual Outline

This article outlines the elements of a more robust symbolic interactionist theory of interpersonal processes. I argue that George Herbert Mead's conceptualization of interaction processes can be extended to explain not only micro‐level social processes but also key elements of meso‐ and macro‐level dynamics. By expanding Mead's and more recent symbolic interactionist theorizing, and incorporating key ideas from other theoretical traditions outside symbolic interactionism proper, it becomes possible to develop a theory of interaction that fills in important conceptual gaps in theories on the dynamics of micro‐, meso‐, and macro‐level social phenomena.     

The Social Psychology of Robert E. Park: Human Nature,Self, Personality and Social Structure

Robert E. Park is widely recognized today for his contributions to urban sociology, race relations and collective behavior but his social psychology has been largely neglected. Park's inclusive and loose framework covered his interest in: (1) human nature and the bio-physiological instincts which for him were raw materials of personality; (2) formulation of self concept as an organization of roles; and (3) micro-macro linkages between individual and social structure. Each one of Park's three themes is still important for symbolic interaction theory and offers insights into contemporary investigations of emotions, role acquisition and identity.     

Symbolic Interaction Theory and Architecture

Architectural sociology is receiving renewed attention but still remains a neglected area of investigation. As a major theoretical perspective within sociology, symbolic interaction helps us understand how the designed physical environment and the self are intertwined, with one potentially influencing and finding expression in the other; how architecture contains and communicates our shared symbols; and how we assign agency to some of our designed physical environment, which then invites in a different kind of self‐reflection. This article discusses numerous instances of symbolic interaction theory–architecture connections, with applied examples showing how symbolic interactionists and architects can collaborate on projects to the benefit of each, and to the benefit of humanity.     

MYTHIC FACTS AND HERBERT BLUMER'S WORK ON RACE RELATIONS: A Comment on Esposito and Murphy's Article

Luigi Esposito and John Murphy (1999) have argued that research using Blumer's group position theory of race relations using statistical analysis of survey data research actually undermines Blumer's theory of race relations by ignoring its definitional and dynamic emphases, as well as its emphasis on human agency. Furthermore, they argue that surveys and other quantitative data are directly antithetical to Blumer's perspective and symbolic interaction in general, which instead supposedly espouse nongeneralizing, idiographic, interpretive methods, such as "sympathetic introspection.' This commentary focuses on these latter points of their argument. I think Esposito and Murphy present questionable interpretations of Blumer's view of scientific concepts, of his methodological position, and symbolic interactionism. I first discuss Esposito and Murphy's depiction of Blumer's perspective as being "non-generalizing' with a focus on the sensitizing-definitive continuum of concepts. Second, I address the question of whether Blumer, and symbolic interactionism in general, is antiquantitative. I conclude by noting the importance of this debate for understanding race relations as well as the present and future place of symbolic interactionism in sociology.     

General symbolic definitions and subjective well‐being

In recent years evidence has suggested that demographic factors such as income and status have only a modest relationship to subjective well‐being. As a result, much attention has been paid to internal rather than external factors. Discrepancy perceptions approaches, particularly multiple discrepancy theory, link internal subjective factors with external conditions in explaining subjective well‐being. This study suggests that discrepancy perceptions are only one way people differ in defining reality, and that symbolic interaction theory provides a broader and better framework with which to examine subjective well‐being. Specifically, using the General Social Survey, this study tests whether differing general symbolic definitions have an independent influence on subjective well‐being. Results indicate that general symbolic definitions influence subjective well‐being, and this influence does not depend on their conditioning discrepancy perceptions or demographic life conditions.     

Symbolic Interaction with Consumer Products: An Affect Control Theory Approach

Symbolic interactionism is one of the few social psychology perspectives that recognizes the important role of physical artifacts, including consumer products, in social life. Consumer products are artifacts people can use to maintain the expressive order within social life – the order that is embedded within the shared meanings of a culture. As a formal theory of symbolic interactionism, affect control theory emphasizes culturally shared affective meaning, the impressions produced within social events, and identity processes that rely on those cultural meanings and social events. We contend that affect control theory provides a framework for understanding and researching how consumer products influence people's social experience and interaction. First, we specifically explore how affect control theory's concepts of affective meaning, identity modification, and impression management can be applied to understanding consumer products. Building on this foundation, we then consider how affect control theory might also contribute to three new research directions: social interaction with consumer products, affective design of consumer products, and the prosumer identity created from consumer products. Our conclusion is that affect control theory provides sociologists with a means of exploring the important and fascinating questions that emerge when we consider people's symbolic interaction with consumer products.     

“You Just Might Get It Right One Day”: On Being Informed By Carl J. Couch

The founders of the intellectual tradition that became known as symbolic interaction theory were the first to articulate the principle that society exists in communication…. Let us focus our analytic powers on social acts.     

Symbolic Interactionism in Canada: Shared Meaning and the Perpetuation of Ideas

In this paper I critically discuss Helmes‐Hayes and Milne's institutional perspective, as well as Neil McLaughlin's emphasis on scientific intellectual movements and Coserian intellectual sects, in explaining the emergence and potential future of symbolic interactionist theory in Canada. I contest claims that the interactionism is on the verge of disappearing and instead offer an explanation grounded in insights about shared meaning. I conclude that it is ironic that debates over the presumed demise of symbolic interaction may well contribute to its continued existence within the canon of Canadian sociology.     

SIGN,SYMBOL, AND METALANGUAGE: AGAINST THE INTEGRATION OF SEMIOTICS AND SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM

Dean MacCannell's proposal for a “rapprochement” between symbolic interaction-ism and semiotics, in which the “generality” of symbolic interactionism's conception the sign is “raised” to that of semiotics, is examined. By turning exclusively to Saussurian semiotics, MacCannell does not adequately reflect the distinction between “natural” and “arbitrary” representation in Peirce's semiosis that is the most fruitful link with Mead's symbolic interactionism. Consequently, MacCannell's argument at the level of terminology is flawed. Rather than merging, the perspectives might benefit from a radical rethinking of representation. This would involve preserving the distinction between the “natural” and “arbitrary,” while at the same time recognizing that in mass society “arbitrary” representation has become a kind of “second-order” (Barthes) indexical metalanguage of membership within which symbolic interaction may occur. As Baudrillard claims, “commutation of signs” has replaced “interaction of symbols,” yet strains against an unfulfilled symbolic demand. Efforts should be directed at generating a theory of representation capable of addressing the tension that produces this symbolic demand.     

Inequality and the Self: Exploring Connections from an Interactionist Perspective

Symbolic interactionism provides a major contribution to understanding inequality by illuminating the various manifestations and contexts of inequality at the micro, everyday level of social life. Drawing on a spectrum of symbolic interactionist theory and research, we examine the range of symbolic and interactional manifestations of social inequality, the consequences of being the object of patterned interactional affronts, and the strategies people use to negotiate interactional stigmatization in everyday life. We argue that symbolic interaction's unique contribution to understanding inequality results from two of the perspective's central features. First, symbolic interactionism emphasizes the necessity of investigating social life in situated social interaction. Second, it highlights social actors' capacities to interpret and construct lines of action rather than respond directly to the stimuli they encounter. Symbolic interactionist research and theory thus contribute to a more complex understanding of social stratification than that provided by perspectives focused exclusively on macroscopic structural factors.     

Semiotic Theory and Environmental Evaluation: A Proposal For a New Approach and a New Method

People evaluate their physical, urban environment through processes of interpretation. The environment is considered a collection of signs with symbolic content. With meaning neglected as a central issue, current theories are lacking. The theoretical background of this study is semiotics, while elements are drawn from symbolic interactionism and phenomenology. By means of a case-study the author has attempted to describe a new approach and methodology. The aim is to elucidate the processes underlying positive and negative evaluation of a modern shopping center. The analysis successively demonstrates differences in affective response, sign-vehicles, codes and meanings and, lastly, in beliefs and values connected to structures of relevance and life-situation of the consumer. The long-term purpose of the study is to identify the codes and values that operate within the consumption and production of the urban environment, and to describe the function of urban elements as a potential counterbalance against the colonization processes of the life-world.     

Chomsky Versus Mead

G. H. Mead's model of language and mind, while perhaps understandable at the time it was written, now seems inadequate. First, the research evidence strongly suggests that mental operations exist prior to language onset, conversation of gestures, or social interaction. Second, language is not just significant symbols; it requires syntax. Third, syntax seems to be part of our bioinheritance, that is, part of our presocial mind/brain—what Noam Chomsky has called our language faculty. Fourth, this means syntax probably is not learned nor a social construction that is internalized as a cultural template. Fifth, this suggests a basic reversal of the prevailing model of symbolic interaction, mind, language, and perhaps the self as well, although there has not been the time or space to engage that topic here. Therefore, symbolic interaction may turn out to be a more Chomskyan than Meadian process. Given the bioinheritance of our mind/brain we are able to engage in symbolic interaction; it does not appear that symbolic interaction creates our mind or the basic computational algorithms of language .     

The mobility imperative for rural youth: the structural,symbolic and non-representational dimensions rural youth mobilities

Mobilities of money, symbols and young people themselves are central to the formation of the contemporary youth period. While rural young people remain marginal to theoretical development in youth studies, this paper shows that mobilities are especially significant for rural youth, who experience a kind of mobility imperative created by the accelerating concentration of economic and cultural capital in cities. Drawing on theory and evidence from contexts including Europe, Australia, Africa and South America, this paper explores the mobility imperative for rural youth and offers a new theoretical framework for understanding rural youth mobilities. The framework understands mobilities across three dimensions: the structural, the symbolic and the non-representational. These dimensions refer to material inequalities between rural and urban places in a global context; symbolic hierarchies that concentrate the resources for ‘youthfulness’ in cities and the affective entanglements between embodied subjectivities and spaces that emerge as young people move. The paper shows how these dimensions interact in the production and experience of the mobility imperative, offering an ontological and theoretical platform for future research into rural youth mobilities.