Sociology Lesson 2 PDF

## SOCIOLOGY ### LESSON 2 ### INTRODUCTION How do you see yourself in the social world? Do you need to just observe or are you obliged to interact with them just to get the definition of your self? These are just two questions that will be answered by different proponents in sociological perspect...

## SOCIOLOGY ### LESSON 2 ### INTRODUCTION How do you see yourself in the social world? Do you need to just observe or are you obliged to interact with them just to get the definition of your self? These are just two questions that will be answered by different proponents in sociological perspective of self. Read more below and check how these ideas can be related to you. ### LESSON PROPER #### GEORGE HERBERT MEAD * Sociologist from University of Chicago * Symbolic Interactions Perspective #### THEORY OF SELF * **Two parts of Self:** * Self-awareness * Self-image * Our bodies age biologically, but the self is something that emerges through social interaction * Self is developed as we age, as we grow * Self develops through interacting with others, through reflecting on that interaction, to thinking about how others are perceiving you, and that helps you generate an image of yourself * Our self is mirrored in the reaction of the other * Self-image was developed in recognizing how others are perceiving us, we are constantly trying to put ourselves in the shoes of another and think about how they are seeing this event or situation or this action transpiring - this is **imitation** * When you have internalized the widespread cultural norms, mores, and expectations of behaviors - this is **generalized others** * By taking the role of other, we can become **self-aware** * #### THE "I" and "ME" of the SELF * **"I"** - what is out there, acting, being spontaneous, doing things in the world * **"me"** - an object, the aggregate combined image of yourself that has been given to you from interacting with society #### HENRI de SAINT-SIMON (1760-1825) * Historic founder of French Socialism * Origin of many ideas elaborated into Comtism * His idea of the reconstruction of society were conditioned by the French Revolution and by feudal and military system * He insisted on the necessity of new and positive reorganization of society * Industrial chiefs should control society * In medieval church, spiritual direction of society should fall to the men of science * Industrial state directed by modern science, in which universal association should suppress war * Men who are successfully able to organize society for productive labor are entitled to govern it * The social aim was to produce things useful to life * Call for "society of science" - influenced his disciple Auguste Comte #### HERBERT SPENCER (1820-1903) * **Synthetic Philosophy** - Encompasses realms of physical, psychological, biological, sociological, and ethical * **Moral Philosophy** * **Social Statistics:** * Human happiness can be achieved only when individuals can satisfy their needs and desires without infringing on the right of others to do the same * In obtaining full satisfaction, one must derive pleasure from seeing pleasure in others * **Principles of Ethics** - basic law of ethics and morality * Extension of laws in the natural world, and much of his scientific justification for his moral position * **Moral dictum:** Once physical and biological realms are discovered, humans should obey them and cease trying to construct, through political legislation, social forms that violate these laws * **Scientific position:** The laws of social organization can no more be violated than can those of the physical universe, and to seek to do so will create, in the long run, more severe problems * Humans should be as free from external regulation as possible - "implicitly obey them!" * **Social Statistics:** * Moral laws and laws of laissez-faire capitalism converge and how they reflect biological laws of unfettered competition and struggle among species * In the union of many men into one community - the law of **individuation** * While decrying war as destructive, it allows more organized "races" to conquer the "less organized and inferior races," increasing thereby, the level and complexity of social organization #### DAVID EMILE DURKHEIM (1858-1917) * French sociologist, cited as the principal architect of modern social sciences * Established academic discipline with Marx and Weber * How societies could maintain their integrity and coherence in modernity, an era in which a traditional social and religious tie are no longer assumed, and in which new social institutions have come into being * Acceptance of sociology as a legitimate science #### Sociology of Knowledge * How concepts and categories of logical thought could arise out of social life * Certain aspects of logical thought common to all human did exist, but they were products of collective life and that they were not universal a priori since the content of categories differed from society to society #### Collective representations * The symbols and images that come to represent the ideas, beliefs, and values elaborated by a collectivity and are not reducible to individual constituents * Created through intense social interaction and are products of collective activity * Controlled by society (as a whole) yet simultaneously by virtue of that individual's participation within the society * A language product of collective action, language contains within it a history accumulated knowledge and experience that no individual would be capable of creating on their own * Language - a social product that structures and shapes our experience of reality #### ALBERT BANDURA (1925) Social Learning Theory * Theory that attempts to explain socialization and its effect on the development of the self * It looks at the individual learning process, the formation of self, and influence of society in socializing individual * Formation of one's identity is a learned response to social stimuli * An individual's identity is not the product of the unconscious, but instead is the result of modeling oneself in response to the expectations of others * Behaviors and attitudes develop in response to reinforcement and encouragement from people around us #### Self-Efficacy * People's belief about their capabilities to produce designated levels of performance that exercise influence over events that affect their lives * This belief determines how people feel, think, motivate themselves, and behave * People with high assurance in their capabilities approach difficult tasks as challenges to be mastered rather than as threats to be avoided * They set themselves challenging goals and maintain strong commitment to them despite series of failures * They attribute failure to insufficient effort or deficient knowledge and skills which are acquirable * Not on their personal deficiencies, on the obstacles they will encounter, and all kinds of adverse outcomes * They approach threatening situations with assurance that they can exercise control over them #### Four Main Sources of Self-Efficacy 1. Mastery Experience * Successes build a robust belief in one's personal efficacy * A resilient sense of efficacy requires experience in overcoming obstacles through perseverant effort 2. Vicarious Experience * Provided by social models * Seeing people similar to oneself succeed by sustained effort raises observers' beliefs that they too, possess the capabilities to master comparable activities required to succeed * People seek proficient models who possess the competencies to which they aspire 3. Social Persuasion * People who are persuaded verbally that they possess the capabilities to master given activities are likely to mobilize greater effort and sustain it than if they harbor self-doubts and dwell on personal deficiencies when problem arises * People who have persuaded that they lack capabilities tend to avoid challenging activities that cultivate potentials and give up in the face of difficulty 4. Psychological Responses * People rely partly on their somatic and emotional states in judging their capabilities * They interpret their stress reactions and tensions as signs of vulnerability to poor performance #### KARL MARX (1818-1881) * **Theory of Self-Estrangement or Self-Alienation** * "the alienation of man's essence, man's loss of objectivity and his loss of realness as self-discovery, manifestation of his nature, objectification and realization" * When a person feels alienated from others and society as a whole * A person may feel alienated by his work by not feeling like he has meaning to his work, therefore losing their sense of self at the workplace #### MAX WEBER (1864-1920) * German sociologist and political economist * Capitalism developed out of a Protestant ethic, a religious calling * "iron cage" - as the religion became peripheral, capitalism decoupled from its roots and established itself as the dominant force in society #### Exercise Self-Help Imagination * "Personality" makes little sense in its modern usage * "an inner devotion to the subject and only to the subject" which raises one "to the height and dignity of the subject" * You gain personality within a field only by stepping out of your own self * Teach the subject, not your interpretation of the subject * Make your students interested in the subject itself, rather than in the person teaching it #### LEWIS MORGAN * The Leasguge of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee or Iroquois (1851) * This presented the complexity of Iroquois society in a path-breaking ethnography that was a model for future anthropologists * He wanted to provide evidence for monogenesis, the theory that all human beings descended from a common source * The structure of the family and social institutions develops and change according to a specific sequence #### Theory of Social Evolution * Kinship relations as a basic part of society * Critical link between social progress and technological progress