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Symbolic Interactionism Theory Analysis

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Every moment of our daily lives consist of many interactions and activities occurring at the same time whether they are specifically directed to us or not. To put this in a nutshell, we are always engaging in some sort of emotion management, the process in which we respond appropriately to our situation based on norms and rules that we have accustomed to (Brym and Lie 2012). An experience from my life when emotion management was in play would be when I had to go run an errand for my teacher; I had to print something for my teacher and bring it back immediately. According to my teacher, I printed the wrong documents and had to have a chat with the teacher. For one, I wanted to tell to my teacher that he didn't explain properly about what I …show more content…
Symbolic interactionism helps us explain the relationship between people and society through the use of symbols (Brym and Lie 2012). This theory can be seen when we start "seeing ourselves from other people's point of view" (Mead, in Brym and Lie 2012:79). When this happens, the idea of the looking-glass self comes in. According to Charles Horton Cooley, "This allows us to imagine how we appear to them", therefore allowing us to understand ourselves depending on the responses we get (Cooley, in Brym and Lie 2012:56). Comparing symbolic interactionism to my example, certain characteristics can be seen by the way I behaved. For one, depending on the cultural norms in society, it would be considered impolite or rude if I talked back to my teacher in my position. Secondly, my responses depended on how the teacher gestured and talked to me. To elaborate on this, George Herbert Mead mentioned that this happens when we start adjusting ourselves by the way we interpret other people's signals and words to fit their expectations (Mead, in Brym and Lie 2012). In order for me to understand my environment, symbolic interactionism took place in order to distinguish between student and teacher behaviors. In the setting that I was in, we were talking inside a school, which represented an education system of students and teachers, …show more content…
As I have mentioned in the beginning, we are constantly engaging in interactions in society. Applying this into the sociological imagination helps us understand that what we do are shaped by our situation, values, environment, and how it all leads to an outcome (Brym and Lie 2012). When comparing my example to the general public, it is crucial to understand that emotion management plays a large role in society. If I didn't control my emotions back then, I would have gotten myself into more trouble. This is the same with society as people would need to engage in emotion management or else they will be constantly upsetting one another. Societies in general, have interactions occurring every moment and with that in mind, emotion management and symbolic interactionism is always in play as we have to adjust and control our emotions (Mead, in Brym and Lie 2012). If we were angered by someone and didn't manage our emotions by "obeying our 'feeling rules' and acting appropriately", we would be having many problems in society (Brym and Lie 2012:77). This generally applies to everything as emotions determine how we think and behave. By being able to respond to others through emotion management, many trivial problems are avoided like the issue with anger. Having symbolic interactionism in our lives helps us use emotion management to its best as it lets us know how to respond to society, whether it

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