Evaluate action perspectives in sociology.

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Sociology A:  Evaluate action perspectives in sociology  Outcome 2

Gregor Leishman:  Class 1x

Social action theory regards the most important influence on an individual’s behaviour as being the behaviour of other individuals towards that person.  This means that the focus is on the way individual pieces of social interaction that takes place between individuals and how it is understood by these individuals.  Rather than looking at cultural rules and inequality between social groups.  Action theory also looks at how individuals decide what roles to play and in what social settings.  Action theorists argue that the essence of social life comes from the ability of humans to work out what is going on around them and their ability to choose to act in a particular way after interpreting the situation.  Also, action theorists argue that it is the individuals who shape society and not society that shapes the individual.  Plus nearly all human action comes from doing what they want to do in order to achieve a chosen purpose.  Action theory emphasises that humans decide what to do in the light of their interpretation of the world around them, meaning that choices are made by that person’s definition of a situation.  This shows that action theory deals with individual’s subjective states.

One of the key theorists involved in action theory was Max Weber.  Weber argued that sociological explanations of action should begin with observing and interpreting the subjective state of mind of people.  Weber saw people as actors who carry out actions to achieve goals.  The choices of goals and the means of achieving them are influenced by the actor’s perception of the social situation rather than the objective nature of a situation.  Weber also argued that if a person carries out an action which does not take account of the actions of others then it is not a social action, or if an action is carried out in private or with no other person present.  For example, an accidental car crash or a person praying alone in their bedroom.  Weber suggested that to explain social action, firstly it was necessary to understand the meaning attached to it by the person.  From this Weber argued that there are two types of understanding.  The first is aktueues verstehen.  This is roughly translated as direct observational understanding.  For example, it is possible to understand if someone is upset by observing their facial expression and body language.  Also it is possible to understand what is happening when a person’s foot hits a football, he is playing football.  But this for Weber was not a sufficient level of understanding to begin to explain social action.  This is where erklarendes verstehen comes in.  This roughly means, exploratory understanding.  With this form of understanding Weber believed that sociologists must try to understand the action in terms of the motives that creates the action.  For example, this type of understanding would require an understanding of why the person was kicking a football.  Was it to earn a wage, to keep fit or to express emotion.  Weber argued that to achieve this form of understanding it was necessary for a person to imagine themselves in the other person’s shoes or situation, to try and understand the motives behind the action.

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One person who sociologists saw as showing significant insights into sociology was a philosopher and psychologist, George Herbert Mead.  It was his insights into the social nature of human beings that was significant.  This insight was led to symbolic interactionism.  Mead started with making a clear distinction between human beings and animals.  This is because Mead thought that human beings have the ability to symbolise.  This was meant as the ability to make one thing represent another, for example, if a person said they had travelled to college by bus, then any person hearing this would have an idea ...

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