Making Sense Of Communication: Symbolic Interactionism

Symbolic interactionism is a theory that emerged in sociology that spread to other fields such as anthropology and social psychology. This theory looks at interactions and their meanings. With this, he manages to understand the processes by which people become members of societies. In other words, it studies social activities and the construction of the “I”.

Symbolic interactionism is based on interpretations. People are going to give different interpretations of reality and these interpretations are going to be more similar among the people around us. One of the biggest cultural differences that cause problems when traveling is symbols. If someone extends the palm of their hand towards another person, I would understand that it means to stop, to be quiet, but a Greek would take it as an insult and for a Lebanese they would be neutralizing the evil eye.

Beginnings of symbolic interactionism

Symbolic interactionism stands against absolute truths. It states that there is no single truth, but different situated truths. That is, the “truth” is going to be different in each community. To understand these different “truths”, interactionism studies the relationships between people and symbols: the ultimate goal is to understand individual identity and social organization.

A classic example of symbolic interactionism is found in tea. This drink can be consumed accompanied by different rituals, in turn with different symbolism. For example, tea does not represent the same for a European person as for a Japanese. Possibly, the European drinks the tea to activate himself and does not give more importance to the preparation or the consumption of the tea. However, the Japanese will perform a preparation ritual and will have tea in company, just like the Pakistani. The meanings of the tea are going to be different for all three.

Synthesizing, symbolic interactionism suggests that people define ourselves taking into account the meaning of being an individual in a specific context. Since we are social animals, this meaning of “individual” will depend largely on the interactions we have with other people.

Generations of symbolic interactionists

There are two great generations of symbolic interactionists who propose different interpretations: the first considers that actions always make sense, while the second considers that social life is a theater.

First generation

At first the proposal was that personal identity is built through relationships with other people. These relationships always had meaning, they were symbolic. Therefore, the identity of each person was formed in specific situations and places when relating to others. The meaning given to those interactions would define personal or individual identity.

This proposal declared that the actions were more than habits or automatic behaviors. All the actions were going to be able to be interpreted. Thus, language was understood as the representation of the attitudes, intentions, positions and objectives of the speaker. Language was a form of interaction: through it reality was constructed.

The individual, from this perspective, is a representation that is constructed through language. That is, the individual is constructed through the meanings that circulate while interacting with other individuals. However, what is constructed is not the person but the “self” of that person, the “myself”, the identity.

Second generation

The second generation introduced a strong change. For them, identity was also understood as the result of the roles that people adopt. When we act with other people we tend to adopt social roles. These are patterns of behavior defined by society. One way to understand roles is to watch reality TV shows . In them the participants adopt the same roles in each season. There is always one who is opposed to others, another who is alone and does not stop crying, two who end up being a couple, etc.

With this second generation, a new perspective also arises according to which people are actors. Individuals act and play a role that is determined by social roles. We do what we are expected to do depending on our role. But the interpretation of this role not only occurs when we interact with other people, but also in the spaces and moments in which those other people are not seeing us. That is, in some way it is a role that we end up internalizing and attaching to our identity.

Symbolic interactionism in social psychology

The relationship of symbolic interactionism with psychology is explained above all in the context of social psychology. According to this branch, people form social identities that have specific norms and values. As social identities become more important, people will be more likely to act on those norms and values.

Although social psychology goes beyond roles and accepts that behavior is guided by social norms, it has its beginnings in symbolic interactionism. Something undeniable is that people develop our identities, both individual and social, when we interact with other people. Therefore, interacting with people from different cultures while maintaining an open mind will help us to know ourselves better, to redefine our personal identity and change the way we understand the world.