Power of Words For the past four years I have worked at my family’s company that has been in business now for 47 years. Once my grandfather hit retirement, he had passed on the ownership of the business to my father. I thoroughly enjoy working with my family, but like all jobs - the work has its pros and cons. Being that I am the owner’s daughter, my co-workers have the tendency to cast judgment upon me for receiving perks and benefits or so called “royal treatment”, that is not equally distributed upon all who are employed. For example, I am not reprimanded when arriving late to work, I receive raises in my pay check without asking for it, I don’t need to work full-time if I am not in want or need of more hours, and when it comes to vacation …show more content…
This theory was derived primarily by George Mead and assisted by Charles Cooley. Symbolic interactionism looks at the social structures amongst individuals and a group of people, rather than looking at the large-scale perspective. Symbolic interactionism unveils different meanings through objects, events, and behaviors. These meanings can differ from the interpretations people assign to certain situations, and interpretations alter from one group of people to another. Verbal conversations are words that serve as one of the primary symbols within this theory. The words have a certain meaning for the one conveying these feelings, and if the communication is successful in the process, then hopefully the meaning remains the same with the individual who receives the spoken words. Words require intentionality in order to receive the interpretation one is hoping for. Conversation is an interaction of symbols between individuals who constantly interpret the world around them. Of course, anything can serve as a symbol as long as it refers to something beyond the symbol itself. This symbolism relates to my deviant act because I verbally showed my appreciation to my co-workers by writing out sincere letters. These letters were not written with fleeting words, but were written with great intentions because I put a lot of thought behind …show more content…
In Cooley’s theory of the “looking glass self,” he argued that the way we think about ourselves is likely due to our imagination of how we appear to others. We imagine the judgment that others cast upon us. And in result, our actions reflect to these perceived judgements. When following through with this deviant act, I had led myself to believe that I appeared as a selfish and over-privileged daughter of the owner to my co-workers. My imagination, by nature, gave me the impression that the people I work with judged me. And in response to these perceived judgments, I did an act of deviance that I thought would resolve the way my co-workers viewed me. Another principle that Cooley contributed to sociology was that although our perceptions and assumptions that we make of a situation are not always true, what we believe is more important in determining our behavior of the situation than what is actually real. A sociologist, W. I. Thomas, expressed the same idea as Cooley and noted, “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.” This quote of Thomas’s holds true to my situation because I defined the situation that I was in. I made the assumption from the very beginning that almost every in the office held a sense of anger and jealousy against me. The way I defined that situation was very real to me, but in return I had consequences with
Key terms will be pointed out and highlighted, as well as described in relation to the examples extracted from the film. To begin with the film started out with a communication climate that was both tense and without verbal communication. This was mainly due to the variance in membership constructs of the characters involved. The character's included the brain Brian, Andrew the athlete, the criminal Bender, the princess Claire, and the basket case Allison. There was a great deal of interesting nonverbal communication taking place between these people. Their reactions and responses to each other demonstrated perceptual errors, which would be shown as the story progressed.
Symbolic interactionism perspective is defined as “the study of how people negotiate the meanings of social life during their interactions with others” (Rohall, Milkie, and Lucas, 2014, p.27). It asserts that “we construct meaning about things that are important in our own lives and in our society” (Rohall, Milkie, and Lucas, 2014, p.28). These meanings derive from social interactions among individuals which
George Mead and Charles Cooley developed symbolic interaction and believed that symbols are in everyday life. Symbolic interaction is the human action and interaction are comprehensible through the exchange of communication or symbols. Humans are represented by acting and social interaction. Symbols are anything that can be specified, referred, or pointed to. For example, a friend, book, or language. Language gives people a way to negotiate meaning through symbols. People identify meaning in speech and acts with others. Symbolic interaction examines that people use symbols, and interpret the meanings of those actions and symbols for themselves and for
In the world we live in today, deviance happens to play an integral role in within the societies that scatter our globe, whether we like it or not. Deviance describes actions or behaviors that violate the social norms of our society. These behaviors can violate formally enacted rules, such as laws that are put into place by government, as well as the informal type of “guidelines” that various cultures have informally established and shaped for themselves. As one may come to understand, norms are essentially expectations that are standard to a certain culture. These norms gently guide people in a society in “what to do,” and “what not to do,” in compliance with their societies' norms. With this said, it is important to keep in mind that social norms differ from culture to culture. One act that may be considered deviant in a particular society, may be generally accepted in another. Three main sociological theories of deviance include the cultural transmission theory (also known as the differential association theory), the labeling theory, and the control theory.
Deviance is any behavior that departs from societal or group norms. Deviance is not aimed at directly just once topic. It can range from criminal behavior, to sexual behavior, to religious behavior, and a lot more. Society is based around order and stability, without these two things conformity and predictability in human behavior would not exist. Because deviance can be so defined as so many different things, often people take offense to what they believe is wrong. The way I would define deviance is a mishap, in a person’s beliefs, and behavior that society does not agree with. The concepts 'Social Control ' and 'Deviance ' to my understandings of these terms are that they try to categorize, regulate and define different kinds of antisocial behavior. I believe that a lot of time, we as humans are afraid to break out of our shell and speak our mind because we are so afraid of what others may think. Society tells us that you have to act, be, and look a certain way, and if you do not fit these standards, then you are breaking conformity.
There are many different kinds of deviancy in today’s society. In this essay I will tell you the meaning of deviance, the different kinds of deviancy, the biological, social, and psychological factors on deviant behavior, and how they differ from each other.
We live today in the societies which are shaped by rules and norms that must be follow. At the same time, people establish their own way to do things or not and when these people break or not respect the established rules, that’s is called deviance. According to Henslin “Deviance is the violation of norms (rules or expectations)”. I will define deviance as set of behaviors that are beyond the rules accepted by society or a group of people.
From a sociological understanding, deviance is any behavior or physical appearance that is condemned from social standards because it defies social norms or social expectations. Sociological understanding of deviance is not always associated with a negative outcome, but can have positive effects for the individual or soceity. With the Civil Rights Movement, Rosa Parks was seen deviant for sitting at the front of a bus and refusing to move when a white male came on board. This act of civil rights not only made a stance for improving African American rights, but also helped change social norms.. From an everyday understanding, deviance is any behavior or physical appearance that is seen with a bad or negative outlook. An example of an everyday understanding of deviant behavior can be seen as an individual having tattoos all over his or her body. Some individuals would consider tattoos covering someone’s entire body are bad or a negative appearance, even if the tattoos had significant meaning to that specific individual.
Deviance is defined as actions or behaviors that violate socials norms. In turn the concept of deviance is dependent on the social observation and perception. “By it’s very nature, the constructionism through which people define and interpret actions or appearances is always “social.” ”(Henry, 2009 , p. 6) One’s perception of a situation may be completely different from another depending on cultural and social factors. The way someone talks, walks, dresses, and holds themselves are all factors that attribute to how someone perceives another. In some cases what is socially or normally acceptable to one person is deviant in another’s eyes. For this reason there is a lot of gray area involving the topic of deviance because actions and behaviors are so diversely interpreted.
What is deviance? What does it mean? What determines a behavior as deviant? Deviance is anything that violates a social norm. For example, when a child burps at the supper table but doesn’t excuse himself. Who we socialize and spend time with will determine what we deem as deviant behavior. There are many types of deviant behaviors, some of these behaviors may not be considered deviant to one culture but to another they are.
In the late 1970's, W. Barnett Pearce and Vernon Cronen introduced their theory of Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM). Their primary findings indicated that talk creates the social environment in which we participate. Prior to Pearce and Cronen, the common method of observing communication was through a transmissional view. This taught theorists and scholars to focus on the pieces of conversation while ignoring the overall effect of the interaction. CMM theory examines interactions from a participants point of view, and is able to get a feel for the interaction as a whole through this process. Outside observation does lead to learning about the interaction, but participating in the interaction leads to more in depth study of communication patterns.
From a young age, children in are taught to behave in a way that satisfies their society's standards of behavior. Each society has its own standards of behavior, also known as norms. One set of norms may be similar to those of another society, or one society's own set of norms can be the complete opposite of those of another society. But no matter how different or similar, norms are a part a society's core for they are the guidelines to how members are expected to act, and draws a line between what is acceptable and unacceptable. Despite efforts to enforce norms through social control, there are many people who deviate from these norms. Deviance is behavior that violates the standards of a group or society (Witt, 2013, p. 135). The act of deviance comes in many forms that range from harmless acts like a girl shaving her head, or it might be an action that is more extreme like committing murder.
There are many symbols that people encounter when communicating. In a verbal exchange there are abstract and concrete symbols. A concrete symbols represents a specific object (Hybels & Weaver, 2007, pg. 10). There is little room for a person to interpret a concrete symbol or to put another meaning to this. If, for example, the concrete symbol is a television, there may be different types, but the word will have a common picture in everyone’s mind. Abstract symbols are those which stand for ideas (Hybels & Weaver, 2007, pg. 10). As Hybels and Weaver (2007) state, the way in which these words are understood are based on the experiences of the person interpreting the words ( pg. 10). Take the word love; most people will have different ideas and feelings towards what the word love means. When abstract words are used over concrete words in the workplace, the can allow for more miscommunications or misunderstandings to occur. If one person has a very positive understanding of an abstract word, bu...
Sociology defines deviance as a behavior that violates norms set by a society, the violation of which leads to social disapproval. Social deviance can range in severity from acts such as murder and incest to simple body modifications like tattoos, and even the smallest departure from the norm can be seen as deviance. Social deviance is also relative to the community in which it is seen, for example one society might consider driving on the right side of the road normal while it could be seen as deviant for others. So as a way to explore the topic of minor deviant behaviors, and public reaction to those behaviors, this paper will discuss the results of social experiments involving
I have learned about body language, and the tone of ones voice and the words you choose can make a difference in the way the message is received. Again, I think that this course has introduced me to a meaning and understanding of these types of messages that are more in depth, and complex then I expected. I feel as though the verbal codes are still a little confusing to me. For some of the codes, I can figure them out by looking at the prefix of a word such as morphology; the smallest form meaning in a language, and phonology; the combining of basic sound units of a language. For others, I wasn 't aware that there were words that define a concept, such as semantics, which is the study of the meaning of words. The majority of nonverbal messages in intercultural communication make sense to me. I can think of examples of when they are used in everyday life, but I think it is interesting that we, as least I, do not think of them when we they actually occur. For example, when I talk I do not think of the nonverbal behaviors I am doing that are tied to what I am saying, or illustrators. However, there are a few messages that are so close in similarity that I do have to think about them, such as the difference between regulators and vocalics, and proximity and