2.5: Symbolic Interactionism

While Functionalism and Conflict appear situated more toward different ends of the perspective scale (the former more optimistic and the latter more pessimistic), Interactionism runs in an entirely different direction through a somewhat neutral perspective. Interactionism’s glasses are much more focused on close and intimate interactions, framing its view of the social world through the interpretation of symbols, roles, expectations, and the like. By playing close attention to these features, it is through this perspective that human social interaction may be seen as a series of interesting nuances that create and recreate our social realties.

Although not necessarily the originator of Interactionism, much of Max Weber’s work is considered instrumentally influential to its development. To explain, Weber introduced the concept of verstehen—a Deutsch word for empathic understanding—in such a way that it emphasizes the importance understanding the human interactional experience through the very people that experience it. In other words, it’s a way of ‘putting oneself in the shoes of others’ to understand their experience, as opposed to simply ‘explaining’ a given phenomenon without this empathetic insight and failing to emphasize the importance of the input from actual subjects the researcher is studying.

For Weber, this shift to understanding others in their terms was also a way of creating what he called a “value-free sociology,” or a sociology that limits the imposition of the researcher’s biases. In other words, by being true to the perspectives and experiences of the research subjects and situating them as the arbiters of how they see themselves, prevents the sociologist from explaining away, diminishing, or worse dismissing, the subjects’ interpretations of themselves. This, of course, is a boon to neutrality as there’s less of a subjective angle to be had.

As mentioned above, Weber’s work, however so important to the development of Interactionism, is more influential than informative. Yet at least three other sociologists from what has come to be known as the Chicago School of thought were far more defining of the way we understand this perspective today. For this reason, we will also put glasses on these individuals and add them to the view of Interactionism.

The first individual is George Herbert Mead (1863-1931). Mead’s seminal contribution to Interactionism was actually a 1937 book pieced together by his students titled Mind, Self, and Society—each term of this title is in reference to a concept uniquely characterized by Mead in his lectures to his students. “Mind,” for Mead, refers to how individuals engage with symbols and craft meaning about the world around them, mostly with the symbolic nature of language. The term “Self” takes up the concept of the individual in self-reflection, or an internal understanding of how one is understood by others. In many ways, this concept of self becomes very important in subsequent theories of Interactionism, situating the individual and their sense of how they create and recreate reality at the center of interpretation.

In Mead’s concept of “Self,” there are two parts in constant dialogue with each other: the “I” and the “Me.” In the latter, the Me, the social self emerges where the expectations and understandings of others are defining the meaning of the world around us. For example, with race and ethnicity in mind, this Me would constitute the acknowledgement of the various labels and characteristics individuals use to describe what it means to be a Person of Color or even White, as it were. Conversely, in former, the I, is another part of the Self that is, again, in constant dialogue with the Me, interpreting what the meanings from the Me can mean in actuality. In this way, this I is the individual self that intervenes in the meanings that the social self of the Me creates. If this is confusing, another way of understanding it is that our Self is made up of what society defines for us—the Me—and what we do to mediate those definitions on a personal level—the I. So, where the Me would create labels and characteristics about race and ethnicity on social level, the I may step in and modify or even personalize these labels and characteristics in ways that make more sense to us, or even square with a more authentic rendering of how we’ve understood them through experience.

Finally, there is Mead’s concept of “Society.” Although there are many ways to define this, it may be easiest to understand Society as a field upon which all the social interaction takes place. In other words, the use of Society emphasizes a sociological plane over a psychological one. Within this sociological plane, it is through interaction between individuals that reality is crafted, not merely within the mind itself. For the notions of race and ethnicity this seems rather obvious, as we understand their meanings on a social level through interaction, as opposed to a completely individual level wherein the mind and imagination are considered the arbiters of their realities.

Notwithstanding the importance of Mead, it was actually Herbert Blumer (1900-1987), the second individual, that really introduced Mead’s work to the sociological discipline. A former student of Mead, Blumer refined Mead’s ideas about Symbolic Interaction, suggesting that individuals act toward things and others based upon their pre-existing meanings—meanings generated by social interaction and adjusted through subsequent interpretations.

For example, Yale sociologist, Elijah Anderson’s 1999 book, Codes of the Street, details how inner-city African Americans construct informal codes that insulate individuals from being disrespected, lest they engage in defensive acts of violence and intimidation to regain that respect. For Anderson, such acts of aggression are not inherent in the individuals themselves but instead result from an historical pattern of inequitable treatment toward African Americans that has left them in a situation of economic despair and limited opportunity brought about by systemic racism. In other words, there is a deep-seated sense of desperation that has socially-conditioned these individuals to push back against disrespect due to the historical record of violence and subjugation toward them. Blumer would see this violence, or potential for violence, as interaction that is directly linked to these informal codes, or pre-existing meaning. The way in which meaning is generated through social interaction, and adjusted based upon interpretations of respect or disrespect, would also square with Blumer’s channeling of Mead’s work.

The third individual associated with this Chicago School of thought, Charles Horton Cooley (1864-1929), also contributed to the Symbolic Interactionist perspective, and as a contemporary of Mead, was most certainly influential of his theories. One concept in particular, “the looking glass self,” from his 1902 book Human Nature and the Social Order, runs parallel with Mead’s concept of “Self.” According to Cooley, individuals do not independently construct the impressions they give off but instead are influenced and informed by others’ impressions of them. In other words, individuals manage the presentation of themselves based not upon how they see themselves, but how others see them. At least one implication of this is that social interaction is literally creating our social realities, as we are highly impressionable.

A typical view on race through the looking glass self illustrates how individuals construct their own racial categories through the influences of others. In research that explores the factual relevance of this concept to racial construction, Saperstein and Penner (2014) first outline the way in which this framework is commonly understood.

Social science research on race typically takes for granted that racial self-identification is constrained by one’s appearance and, by extension how one is perceived by others. That is, one cannot publicly claim to be a member of a racial population if one does not exhibit the physical characteristics stereotypically associated with that group—or, at the very least, one should not expect such a claim to go unchallenged. This follows from the commonsense understanding that race, and racial difference, is determined by reference to visible and heritable traits, such as skin color, hair texture, and facial features. (187)

It then follows that at least some of the racial categorization project and sense of identity within such a racial category are informed by the internalization of the perspectives of others.

Viewing race and ethnicity through the glasses of Interactionism provides a perspective that highlights one’s experience with the symbolic construction of race and ethnicity; the roles that society suggests must be assumed when engaging with phenomenon central to race and ethnicity; and the social expectations that emerge when considering what race and ethnicity should introduce.