Symbolic interaction

Symbolic interactionism is a sociological perspective which developed around the middle of the twentieth century and that continues to be influential in some areas of the discipline. It is particularly important in microsociology and social psychology. Symbolic interactionism is derived from the American philosophy of pragmatism and particularly from the work of George Herbert Mead. Symbolic interactionism is an American theory that develops from practical considerations and that alludes to people's particular utilization of dialect to make images, normal implications, for deduction and correspondence with others.

Herbert Blumer, a student and interpreter of Mead, coined the term and put forward an influential summary: people act toward things based on the meaning those things have for them, and these meanings are derived from social interaction and modified through interpretation.

Sociologists working in this tradition have researched a wide range of topics using a variety of research methods. However, the majority of interactionist research uses qualitative research techniques, like participant observation, to study aspects of (1) social interaction and/or (2) individual selves.

Symbolic interaction was conceived by George Herbert Mead and Charles Horton Cooley. Mead argued that people's selves are social products, but that these selves are also purposive and creative, and believed that the true test of any theory was that it was "useful in solving complex social problems" (Griffin 59). Mead's influence was said to be so powerful that sociologists regard him as the one "true founder" of the symbolic interactionism tradition. Although Mead taught in a philosophy department, he is best known by sociologists as the teacher who trained a generation of the best minds in their field. Strangely, he never set forth his wide-ranging ideas in a book or systematic treatise. After his death in 1931, his students pulled together class notes and conversations with their mentor and published Mind, Self and Society in his name (Griffin 59). It is a common misconception that John Dewey was the leader of this sociological theory; according to The Handbook of Symbolic Interactionism, Mead was undoubtedly the individual who "transformed the inner structure of the theory, moving it to a higher level of theoretical complexity" (Herman-Kinney Reynolds 67).

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