Question

In your own words define symbolic interaction and provide an example.

Answer 1

INTRODUCTION :- Symbolic interaction is a part of social psychology,which says that an individual defines his surrounding,or society or we can use the term reality on the basis of his interaction towards them.The more the interaction,the more are the chances that one tends to change their own previous perception.The original creator of this theory was George Herbert Mead,and after his demise the idea was further followed by one his student named Herbert Blumer. Symbolic interaction not only limits up to defining the interaction,rather it has wide scope.According to Mead,while interacting with others,symbols play a vital role,and by symbols he means either the words the other person speaking,or the gestures he is showing,or the meaning behind his words or sentence.By getting the hidden meaning behind the words,one defines the other person.Further,Mead even states that this symbolic interaction even helps the person in interacting with the society on the basis of their own perception and eventually does not let others to rule you.With repeated interactions,either the relation between the person gets much better,or gets worse,because with more and more interaction the perception regarding the person also change,as social reality is not constant and it changes with time.

FOR EXAMPLE :-When we meet a person for the first time,and due to their avoidance and inappropriate response we might consider that the particular person has some high attitude issues,which is not letting them to speak  to others properly,thus on the basis of few words and avoidance behavior,we forms the perception that the person has attitude problem.But further,meeting them again for few times,we get to realize that it's not the issue of their attitude,rather they are introvert,which does not make them to get along freely with others.Then again,our symbolic interaction works,and now again we define their behavior on the basis of this interaction,and their words.Thus,symbolic interaction here helps in the manner that with the first meet it alerts us with attitude of person,so we try not to engage with them,so it can be problematic to us in future,but still when we get a chance to interact again few times,it change the social reality of that person in my mind .