Blog 11- Peter Burger

My favorite sociologist that we talked about last week was Peter Burger.
The biggest topic we covered was the Social Construction of Reality. He says that "society is a human product." Which means every way that we interact was all made up by society. The way we say hello, the way we eat, the way we dress was all made up by us.

He says that there is a process of how things become par of society.
First there is externalization. That is where someone thinks of an idea on how they interact with someone and then they act upon it.
Next is habitualization. It becomes a habit for this person; they do not even think about doing it and why they do it. It then also spreads to people around this person and it becomes a habit for them too and they also will not even think about the action before they do it.
Then the last step is institutionalization. This means that people almost enforce this new social norm. They may give them a weird stare or scold them for being deviant to the normal behaviors.

An example of this could be how people dress and what peopl consider to be modest clothing. For instance before the 1920's women wore longer dresses. One woman or a group of women may have thought that women should be allowed to wear shorter dresses, so she began to wear them. Because the way of dressing was not normal, they may have gotten scolded or yelled at for dressing like that. Other women might have seen them wear that and wanted to wear this too. Soon a majority of women were wearing dresses like this and they did not even think twice about dressing differently.
Below is two different pictures. The one on the left is a dress and hat advertisement from 1910. The one on the right is from 1925 or 1926. I actually did more research and found out that dresses again got longer after 1929. (If anyone was interested.) I think that is how most fashion trends come about.
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Blog 10- Talcott Parsons

Last week in class, we talked about Talcott Parsons. The main thing that we talked about was how he categorized interactions. One of the set of categorizes that he made was pattern variables. Pattern variables mean the expectations and structures that happen throughout a span of different relationships.

Here are a few examples of the 5 pattern variables he mentions.

-Affectivity – affective neutrality is the amount of emotion that happens in an interaction. For instance, I experience more emotion in my roommates’ relationship than I would with the cashier at Walmart. I give my roommates hugs and spend a lot of time with them. The interaction with the cashier would be pretty close to no emotion at all, any more emotion shared than that it would get uncomfortable.

-Achievement-ascription is the process of how we obtain different statuses. Achievement is where we have earned the status and ascribed status is where society gives us our status. For an example, my achieved status is student with a great GPA and my ascribed status is 21 year-old white female.

I think the pattern variables are really interesting, but I think that it almost puts interactions in a box and there is no deviance from those 5 ways to interact.

I took this picture of the internet and I think this is a good example of ascribed status. This is a picture from a German newspaper from 1929, Der Stürmer. People of that time would just label people as a Jew without even trying to include any other attribute of theirs. They would then use that label to add to what their status was. They would use words like “crook” and say they stole money from the rest of Germany. This example shows the power of what an ascribed status can do to a group of people.

Blog 9- The World is a Stage

Last week, we talked about self and identity. One of the sociologists that come up was Erving Goffman. Some of the topics he goes over is presentation of self, status and roles, self labeling and dramaturgy. 

Probably the most intriguing topic for me in class was dramaturgy. This term was really relateable, because I was in one musical and I was back stage crew for a lot of productions in high school. 

Dramaturgy is using the analogy of stages. We all have different stages that we are apart of. For example, I have a stage as a student and as a roommate. I act differently in both areas. At home, I would not be raising my hand to talk to my fellow roommates nor would I be sitting in class wearing sweatpants watching Doctor Who on Netflix. Note that I said that I would never wear sweatpants to class. Sweatpants would be considered "props" in terms of Goffman's dramaturgy theory. They would be considered a prop, because those sweatpants would be seen by others and they would base their ideas of me off of what I wear. It perhaps it may give off a signal that I like being comfortable, I do not care how I look or I am lazy. I do not wear sweatpants, because I use my clothes as a prop to portray to people who I am and I think sweatpants would give off a vibe to people that I am lazy first. (Sorry to all of you sweatpants fans out there.) This just shows the power of the audience. People are watching you; they have expectations for you and they will interpret your acting whether you like it or not. If the audience or society had no power, no one would care what other people wear and I would probably be sporting my sweatpants everywhere. 

"Rehersal on Stage" by Edgar Degas

Blog 8 - Me and I

 

In class today, we talked about George Herbert Mead.

His most famous theory was the theory of self. Self is someone's identity. There are actually two parts to the self and he calls them "I" and "me." The "me" is how you view yourself. "Me" is your own personality, your hobbies, your interests, etc.; it is all how you view yourself. The "I" is how others perceive you. This is how people view your personality, your hobbies, your interests, etc.

One may think that these two things are the same. However, that can be completely far from the truth. Perhaps someone does not like that they are quick to anger. They may try to hide it from the rest of society because they do not want people to look down on that person. So in simple terms the “me” is quick to anger, but the “I” does not have an anger issue at all or has the occasional, but not bothersome, spurts of anger.

 We also talked about Facebook in class and how people can present their “I” much differently than their “me” actually is. Some people may present themselves in a caring and selfless person on Facebook, but they may be self-centered in real life; their “me.”

I said in class that I sometimes use Facebook to see if people view my “I” as I see my “me.” I like to think that I am funny, so I post funny things on Facebook and people have the opportunity to like and validate my perception of myself. I normally do not get upset if people do not think of me is funny, but it is nice to hear when people let me know that I am funny.

I chose this photo, because I think it matches Mead’s ideas. The left side of the photo perhaps signifies how you perceive yourself, the “me”, and the right side of the photo could be how society views you, the “I.”    

"Split Personality" by Alexey Teterin