sociology essay social reality
Sydney Brooks
Aice Sociology AS
January 28, 2015
Ms. Gedney ‘Social reality is created through the interactions of individuals. There are no structural forces shaping human behavior.’ Explain and assess this view. Social reality means different things to different sociological perspectives. Symbolic interactionists for instance, would claim that social reality is the product of shared symbols and interactions between people. Positivism, which claims that the same scientific methods we use in natural science can also be used in social sciences, and believe that social reality is nothing but the social facts, or data that is collected about human actions. Ethnomethodology on the other hand, believes there is no such thing. To argue that there are no structural forces shaping human behavior though, is in direct conflict functionalism. Symbolic interactionists would agree with the view that social reality is created through the interactions between people, though not with the statement that there are no social forces shaping human behavior. Started by Robert Mead, this perspective mainly revolves around the socialization of people, and how our social self is created through shared realities and the exchange of meaningful symbols between individuals. ‘The structural forces’ for this theory would be in the form of the generalized other, which is the organized and general attitudes to which an individual defines themself, and through socialization we learn what is acceptable and expected from us. The generalized other is a form of social control, and is the way in which community gains control over the actions of individuals. Though this is not a hard rule, and we do have the freedom of initiative to choose our own specific course, we generally conform to the societal norms of our society. The way in which we learn how to socially conduct ourselves is through the ‘I’ and the ‘me’. The ‘I’ responds to the attitudes of others, and the ‘me’ is the social self and how
Aice Sociology AS
January 28, 2015
Ms. Gedney ‘Social reality is created through the interactions of individuals. There are no structural forces shaping human behavior.’ Explain and assess this view. Social reality means different things to different sociological perspectives. Symbolic interactionists for instance, would claim that social reality is the product of shared symbols and interactions between people. Positivism, which claims that the same scientific methods we use in natural science can also be used in social sciences, and believe that social reality is nothing but the social facts, or data that is collected about human actions. Ethnomethodology on the other hand, believes there is no such thing. To argue that there are no structural forces shaping human behavior though, is in direct conflict functionalism. Symbolic interactionists would agree with the view that social reality is created through the interactions between people, though not with the statement that there are no social forces shaping human behavior. Started by Robert Mead, this perspective mainly revolves around the socialization of people, and how our social self is created through shared realities and the exchange of meaningful symbols between individuals. ‘The structural forces’ for this theory would be in the form of the generalized other, which is the organized and general attitudes to which an individual defines themself, and through socialization we learn what is acceptable and expected from us. The generalized other is a form of social control, and is the way in which community gains control over the actions of individuals. Though this is not a hard rule, and we do have the freedom of initiative to choose our own specific course, we generally conform to the societal norms of our society. The way in which we learn how to socially conduct ourselves is through the ‘I’ and the ‘me’. The ‘I’ responds to the attitudes of others, and the ‘me’ is the social self and how