Social Interaction

By Sadia Jamil
Social Interaction
• A social interaction involves two or more people to
interact with each other.
• It is the interplay between the actions of these
individuals.
• Social Interaction is a central concept to understanding
the nature of social life.
• How we interact with others?
• Via constantly talk, listen, observe, evaluate, and judge
situations based on the ways we have been socialized to
understand and react to them.
Social Construction of Reality
• The Social Construction of Reality is the process by which
people interact and shape social reality (Berger and
Luckmann 1966). Humans create it through social
interactions.
• Socially constructed reality is seen as an on-going
dynamic process; reality is re-produced by people acting
on their interpretations of what they perceive to be the
world external to them.
• Berger and Luckmann argue that social construction
describes both subjective (personally influenced) and
objective (not personally influenced) reality.
Concepts of Interaction

• Ethnomethodology: is the study of the sets of rules

or guidelines that individuals use to initiate behavior,
respond to behavior, and modify behavior in social
settings Garfinkel (1967).
• The study of people’s methods to make sense of life,
by using commonsense, and understandings to make
sense out of their lives.
 Dramaturgy
• It refers to the way individuals present themselves in
everyday life Erving Goffman (1922 – 1982) .
• He says that dramaturgical analysis is about people’s
action and behavior in social situations.
• Thus, social life is likened to a drama or stage.
• Individuals are born into the stage of everyday life.
• It is to create an impression, people play roles, and
their performance is judged by others who are alert
to any slips that might reveal the actor’s true
character.
Types of Social Interaction
• Nonverbal Behavior: The way we communicate and interact
with one another by using body movements. This study of body
movements, known as kinesics, attempts to examine how such
things as “slight head nods, yawns, postural shifts, and other
nonverbal cues (wink, wave), whether spontaneous or
deliberate, affect communication”.

• Exchange: When people do something for each other with the

express purpose of receiving a reward or return, they are
involved in an exchange interaction. E.g. relationship of
employee and employer, student and teacher, shopkeeper and
consumer etc.
• Cooperation: cooperative interaction occurs
when people act together to promote common
interests or achieve shared goals. E.g.
Basketball team, academicians etc.
• Conflict: Conflicts arise when people or groups
have incompatible values or when the rewards
or resources available to a society or its
members are limited. Thus, conflict usually
involves an attempt to gain or use power.
• Competition: is a form of conflict in which
individuals or groups confine their conflict
within agreed-upon rules.
• Competition is a common form of interaction
in the modern world, not only on the sports
field but in the marketplace, the education
system, and the political system. National
presidential elections, for example, are based
on competition.
Elements of Social Interaction

• Social Status: It is a socially defined position or rank a person

or a group of persons occupy in the social system.
• Ascribed Social Status: They are acquired by birth. For
example, being a male or female, boy or girl, black or white
person, son or daughter, father or mother, etc.
• Achieved Social Status: Some positions in society are to be
attained by competitions, making efforts, commitments,
choices, decisions, and other mechanisms. Examples include
being a husband or wife, a student or teacher, a physician, a
nurse, an athlete, etc.
• However, there are some of the statuses which may be both
ascribed and achieved. For example, one can be an Ethiopian
by birth or through other mechanisms e.g. British Pakistani.
Social Roles
• Statuses alone are static. Roles are the culturally
defined rules for proper behavior that are associated
with every status.
• The expectations, duties, responsibilities, obligations,
etc, which are associated with a given social status.
• Every person/ group of persons is/ are expected to
behave, act and demonstrate skills, knowledge and
attitude that are fitting to the given status or statuses.
• Every person is expected to play two or more roles.
• A status can include a number of roles, and each role
will be appropriate to a specific social context.
Role Sets
• Multiple statuses are associated with multiple roles.
• The different roles associated with a single status are
called role set.
• All the roles attached to a single status are known
collectively as a role set.
• However, not every role in a particular role set is
enacted all the time.
• An individual’s role behaviors depend on the statuses
of the other people with whom he or she is
interacting.
Role Strain
• Even though most people try to enact their
roles as they are expected to, they
sometimes find it difficult.
• When a single role has conflicting demands
attached to it, individuals who play that role
experience role strain (Goode, 1960).
 Role Conflict
• An individual who is occupying more than one status at a
time and who is unable to enact the role of one status
without violating that of another status is encountering
role conflict.
• As society becomes more complex, individuals occupy
increasing numbers of statuses. This increases the
chances for role conflict, which is one of the major
sources of stress in modern society.
Role Playing

• The roles we play can have a profound influence on

both our attitudes and our behavior.
• Playing a new social role often feels awkward at first,
and we might feel we are just acting pretending to be
something that we are not.
• The roles we play can transform not only our actions
but also ourselves (Berger, 1963).
Globalization and Internet
• As the complexity of society grows, so does the
complexity of the issues involved in socialization.
• The larger world provided by globalization and
information technologies are changing the processes
and outcomes of socialization.
• Researchers are focusing on how families can better
prepare their children for a globalized world.