A theory of social interaction by Jonathan H.

Turner Stanford University press Stanford California 1988 Mead and Schutz came from very different intellectual traditions American pragmatism and behaviourism for Mead, German phenomenology for Schutz. But these respective analyses converged and, at the same time, complemented each other. [] Taken together, these early works of Mead and Schutz made behaviourism and phenomenology the conceptual cornerstones for a theory of interactional process []73-74 GH Mead sometimes employed the concept of triadic matrix to describe the essential dynamics in all interaction. First, an organism GESTURES AS IT MOVES IN THE ENVIRONMENT, AND IN SO DOING, IT SENDS OUT SIGNALS TO OTHER ORGANISMS. Second, another organism perceives this movement by becoming aware of gestures, and then responds to these gestures by altering its movements in the environment, thereby sending out its own signals. Third, the original organism perceives these latter signals and responds to them by altering its course of behaviour. When these three events have occurred, the triad is complete, and interaction has taken place. 74 Mead: gestures (conventional, significant), role take, self, mind, generalized others Mead appears to have borrowed the concept of generalized other from Willhelm Wundts notion of mental communities I which actors are see to share certain attitudes (communities of attitudes are attached to ongoing patterns of coordinated interaction) 77 In particular, the generalized other provides the criteria for self-assessment, for reflective thought, for signaling, and for interpreting the signals of others. 77 In a sense act of attention correspond to the perception phase of the act in Meads motivational scheme. The essential point os that, for whatever motivational reasons, actors become selectively attuned to aspects of their environment. Such selective perception determines how they see themselves as objects ego how they think action and how they frame, or put into perspective a situation (stocks of knowledge). (schutz) 80 First, Schutzs conceptualization of stocks of knowledge is more precise than Meads analysis of the generalized other. For Schutz , humans past experiences are present as ordered, as knowledge or as awareness of what to expect , just as the whole external world is present as ordered. Ordinarily and unless humans are forced to solve a special kind of problem, they do not ask questions about how this ordered world was constituted (after Schutz, 1932, 81) Thus though stocks of knowledge are implicit, they frame and order situations in terms of past experiences. 81 Whether a great deal or only a little penetration can or should occur is determined by stocks of knowledge that provide guidelines on what is possible and appropriate in a situation. At the more surface level of role taking , actors mutually typify or place each other into stereotypical categories, and then proceed to interact without great effort to achieve more intimate intersubjectivity 82 But Turner adds an important element to this conceptualization: humans operate with the folk assumption that behaviour is organized into identifiable roles. That is, people assume, that the gestures of others constitute a syndrome or system of signals. 86 While Turner argues that actors typically possess only loose cultural frameworks of norms , beliefs, values, and contexts for interpreting gestures and imputing roles, I advocate a more extreme position: competent actors possess relatively fine tuned conceptions of roles and they use these as guidelines in role-taking, imputation, and verification. 87 These cultural frameworks, ordered by folk norms of consistency, lead actors to develop (through socialization and experience) an inventory of role-conceptions, which represent clusters of syndromes

of behaviours denoting both general classes and more specific types of roles quaintance, serious student, etc. 87 A critical casual force in these role-making efforts is a persons self-conception. The particular roles that individuals select from their inventory of role conceptions and the way that they signal during role-making are influenced by their conceptions of themselves as certain kinds of individuals deserving of particular responses from others. 88 The processes of role-making and role taking constitute a cycle that reinforces (of fails to do so) selfconceptions, inventories of role-conception cultural frameworks, and folk norms. 89 In turn, the degree of reinforcement of self influences an individuals role-making for if the interaction is to proceed smoothly and without tension, self must be reinforced. Otherwise interaction will be short term, or, if it cannot be chronically unreinforced by others, then role 0 making and role-taking will involve such overlays of anxiety and use of defense mechanisms that normal interaction becomes exceedingly difficult. 89 In Goffmans view and here he borrows form Schutz as well as from Durkheim individuals possess a large inventory of shared understandings and orientations. Interaction involves using these in the process of calculating and negotiating with others; and as these shared cultural orientations are employed, they are reinforced , especially through the emission of rituals. 92 Individual->gesture->emit rituals>frame an interaction In addition to signaling frames and rituals, actors also use the psychical props of a situation, including their capacity to juxtapose themselves in varying proximity to each other, as yet another vehicle for signaling. 93 Thus, interaction often revolves around peoples use of relative positioning of bodies, movement back and forth between backstage and frontstage regions and employmet of physical props to signal a course of action. Such stage-making tells others what to expect from a n individual an what is expected in return for a particular performance. 93 At the least, if there is no stable core self , individuals reveal multiple and contextual selves that they seek to affirm through stage making, frame-making, and ritual making. Moreover, there are dozens of passages in Goffmans work that suggest he sees as exerting great influence in how individuals interpret the staging, framing, and ritual activities of others, is to some degree, influenced by self. 94 But, unlike much contemporary micro theory (eg.Collins) tat makes people into interpersonal chameleons, I believe that self is structured and resistant to change, especially in the short term. I am thus siding with those who assert that there is a core set of attitudes, dispositions, definitions and meanings about ones self that are organized into a sense of identity 103 [] Part of this core self, however, involves situational definitions . Self is not simply an inflexible structure that is invariant across situations; on the contrary, part of its structure includes varying definitions, dispositions and attitudes in different types of situations. 103 A generalized other is thus a framework that is both imposed upon, and at the same time, emergent from interaction. 104 Generalized other also vary in terms of their level of abstraction. 104 As a result he misses (Goffman) the far more fundamental (and perhaps less clever) insight that interaction cannot proceed easily without some degree of physical, demographic, and sociocultural and under certain conditions personal framing. The crucial point is not so much that people shift and manipulate frames, although they do indeed do this, but they signal and interpret to achieve a relatively stable framework for emitting other gestures during the course of an interaction a view that is closer to Meads generalized other. 111