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Essential Of Sociology Summary

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Chapter 4 of Essential of Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach by James M. Henslin is about both social structure and social interaction, which are performed at different levels of analysis. Macrosociology, used by functionalists and conflict theorists, focuses on broad features of society, such as the relationships of groups to one another and social structure. Microsociology focuses on social interaction, and it is typically used by symbolic interactionists. Social structure, the framework of society consisting of the ways that people and groups are related to one another that sets limits on our behavior, has several components, which are culture, social class, social status, roles, groups, and social institutions. Functionalists identify …show more content…

Emile Durkheim came up with an idea about what holds society together involving mechanical solidarity, unity that people feel resulting from performing the same or similar tasks, and organic solidarity the interdependence that results from the division of labor. Ferdinand Tönnies came up with the idea of gemeinschaft, a type of society where everyone knows one another, and gesellschaft, a type of society that is dominated by impersonal relationships, individual accomplishments, and self-interest. Symbolic interactionists pay attention to stereotypes, personal space, eye contact, smiling, and body language in regards to social interaction Dramaturgy, created by Erving Goffman, is an approach to analyzing social life in terms of drama or the stage. We have ideas about how we want others to think of us, and we use our roles in everyday life to communicate these ideas. Stages, role performances, role conflicts, role strains, sign vehicles, and teamwork all apply to social interaction. We also become the roles we play and apply impression management to …show more content…

When I was living at home, I had a whole entire floor of my house to myself. Moving into the dorms was sort of difficult for me because I was always surrounded by people. Since I had a roommate and shared a community bathroom, I no longer had a backstage, a place where I could rest and plan my future performances. I was forced to spend a lot more time on the frontstage. To make a good impression, I was very observant when I first got to campus. I took note of people’s conversations, behaviors, and sign vehicles, and I tried to follow the trends I noticed to fit in. The impression management became exhausting, and I would go on walks, sit outside, or drive around to get away from

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People are constantly observing behavior and forming theories about your competence, character, and commitment, which are rapidly disseminated throughout the workplace. It is only wise to add my voice in outlining others ' theories about who I am and what I can accomplish. I have used impression management to enhance my own professional image the accuracy of my self-awareness could drive successful decision-making when it comes to my personal and professional life. By becoming more self-aware and maintaining a level of self-awareness, even when everything around us is changing.

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Do you feel you make a good impression on people ? The way people dress and act says alot about them , In the “ Skin I’m In” by Sharon Flake , every character might have similar attitudes but they all dress differently and it shows their true colors. The way people carry themselves shows how much they care about how they come across people, our status more times not is defined by what we look like, how we dress, and where we come from. For example, your status is your everyday life,

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Impression forming is not a solitary process in the

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Ervin Goffman Symbolic interactionism starts from the idea that people interact in terms of symbols, the most important of which is language. To understand human action, it is essential to learn the meanings which people use to guide, interpret and make sense of their own actions and others. Ervin Goffman in the presentation of self in everyday life he analyses the techniques we use to influence how others see us. This process which we all employ, he calls impression management, as social actors, we give continuous performances in that we present an appearance of keen student hard working professional lecturer or caring parent our facial movements, body language, speech content, style and so on are coordinated to create an impression. Are

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Looking at society as a whole with individual units that work together to make society function efficiently is the structural functionalism concept. Each unit has a part and is describe as institutions such as family, religion, education, politics, economy and inequality. Because structural functionalism looks at social structure and patterns of behavior it is able to create values for society. As well as, distinguish between visible and suppressed problems within the social structures that may need to be addressed. For instance, homelessness is indication of dysfunction in structural functionalism system.

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Functionalism Functionalism emphasizes how social structures maintain or undermine social stability in macrostructures (Brym,

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There are many techniques that sociologists use in order to explain everyday social interactions. This essay will delve into the use of the 'front stage ' and 'back stage ' technique. Many sociologists avail of this method to explain why humans act the way they do. This 'front-stage '(how you portray yourself to people and the public in order to present the best version of yourself) and 'back-stage ' (your more true/real/raw self) method is used universally by many sociologists and offers an excellent insight into whether we always act as our true selves or whether we act differently in our 'front-stage ' and 'back-stage ' in different contexts and situations.

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It focuses on how humans use symbols like, signs, gesture and language, to develop their views of the world, others and themselves and see this as an important aspect in social interaction. Interactionists believe that humans use these symbols to define themselves by comparing them to the others around them and regularly change the view of themselves. For example, if Ashley and Mike were best friends but Ashley sees Mike as a potential boyfriend but he doesn’t have those same feelings, they will act differently with each other. If Mike were to do something nice for Ashley, she may take that as a sign that he likes her the same way she likes him but he still sees her as just a friend. But what if one day Ashley were to develop the courage to tell Mike how she feels will the way, then she might change the way he sees her since he now knows how she

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The goal of self-presentation is to present oneself in a certain way to other people (McCornack, 2016). When trying to project a positive social identity I often find that I downplay some of the positive aspects of my personality to better fit in with the people around me, and as a result I negatively affect my

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Rather than looking at a social system overall, such as the total population of a country, interactionism focuses on a smaller-scale social interactions, such as the interactions between characters or small social groups. Interactionism in sociology focuses on the way that we act, or make careful choices concerning our behaviours that continue from how we understand situations. In other words, humans are not only reacting to social provocations; we are social actors and need to alter our behaviour based on the actions of others. Interactionism in sociology reviews how different social actors make sense of or understand the behaviour of those surrounding us. This evidence can be used to understand the social construction of the world, which is focused on not only the meanings that we give to behaviour, but also how we understand the meanings of behaviour of ourselves and others.

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Influencing Others' Perceptions of Me Impression management is an active self-presentation of a person aiming to enhance his or her image in the eyes of others. In this assignment, I will be discussing in three different situations how I will be influencing others perception of me. Perception taking occurs when we use our imagination to perceive the world as others perceive it. In this assignment, I will tell you how I am influencing others perception of me by giving you the reasons behind impression management, ways in which I manage my impressions, and if I was successful or not with impression management.

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Functionalism Sociology is the study of a society and the analysis of the behaviour of the society socially. Parsons (1951) suggests that functionalist sociologist are interested in society and how it works. Parsons (1951), a functionalist was interested in the structures of society, which are families, education and work. Parsons (1951) then argues there four different systems and different sociological theories. Functionalists such as Parsons (1951) suggest that society is based on consensus rather than conflict.

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In order to live up to these social norms, Athletes, Physicians, Politicians, College instructors, and even parents sometimes feel obligated to change the way they act around others, for fear of being judged harshly. This mask they wear is described in the social theory of Dramaturgy. This theory was adapted from the theatre by Erving Goffman in his book “the presentation of self in everyday life’. People consciously or subconsciously implicate a technique called impression management. Impression management refers to the process by which individuals try to influence the impressions others have of them (Rosenfeld, Giacalone, &

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As I interacted with my classmates, I found myself focusing on a few key attributes of the other people including their non-verbal communication and traits that we might both share. I also asked them about their major and their extra-curricular activities to begin to form my opinion of them. Non-verbal communication was extremely important because both of us as "actors" ,as Goffman characterized people interacting, would try to portray ourselves as pleasant individuals with whom to interact. I would smile and use non-verbal communication while simultaneously reading the other person 's non-verbal communication. By analyzing our communication using Goffman 's theory of dramaturgy, I realized that the reason I found myself focusing on commonalities between myself and the person with whom I was interacting was so that I could figure out which part I was to play in the interaction.

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Dramaturgy Dramaturgy is a sociological perspective that focusses on the management of everyday life. Erving Goffman is credited as being one of the chief proponents of this field. He compares the human world to a theatre and drew comparisons between humans in everyday life and actors that played roles on-stage. Dramaturgy tries to understand how order and ordering is established by a performance.

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