Every day we are interacting with people, whether it be in the workplace, at school, in stores and even just by staying home. Therefore, social interaction is inevitable. According to Macionis, social interaction is the process in which people act and react in relation to others. Those who often interact with others have substantial benefits in their daily lives. Throughout this paper we will be discussing the important social structure, how we construct reality into social interaction and three applications of interaction in everyday life. As we analyse these topics and connect them to our day-to-day experiences we will find that face-to-face interaction will become easier.
In our society every individual holds a social position or status
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To fully understand the elements of social interaction we must comprehend three dimensions on life which are emotion, language and reality play. Firstly, our emotions are the social construction of our feelings. Feelings are influential because how we feel about something is more important than what we do with about it. According to Paul Ekman, humans have 6 emotions: happiness and sadness, anger and fear, disgust and surprise. He added that these emotions have already been biologically programmed into us but our culture is what triggers it. We use emotional management to control our emotions in our everyday lives. Take for example the Prime Minister of our country, whatever he is going through in his personal life must not be displayed through his emotions on the decision making for our country. A few years back his wife got ill, instead of his emotions getting the best of him, he let the deputy prime minister lead the country at that …show more content…
Macionis explains that humour is produced by the social construction of reality. This means that we create and contrast two different versions of reality every day, a conventional reality and an unconventional one. The function of humour is that it works as a safety net when tackling controversial discussions without being offensive. Take for example the classic comedic cartoon comics of our politicians in our local newspapers, these artists use humour to get the message across. Since our politicians are supposed to be well verse in their element of reality they understand that it is merely a joke of Belizean humour. Also, the advertisement of our two telecommunication services: Smart and Digicel. They often use playful jokes against their rivalry as a marketing trait in most, if not all, of their advertisements. The humour in both parties is used to interact with the Belizean
A characteristic of humanity is social contact, each individual needs significant social interaction. Not only must humans have interaction, but must share things in common to care and love. This h...
"This report . . . is concerned with the structure of social encounters--the structure of those entities in social life that come into being whenever persons enter one another 's immediate physical presence. The key factor in this structure is the maintenance of a single definition of the situation" (1959,
Communication is the sending and receiving of information. It is the “interactive exchange of information, ideas, feelings, needs, and desires” (Heward, 2009, p.297). The act of communication allows us to understand relationships between people, things, and actions. Types of communication include spontaneous requests, spontaneous comments, responsive requests, responsive comments, and imitation (Bondy & Frost, 2002). Receptive communication occurs when incoming information is interpreted, while expressive communication occurs when an individual conveys information (Heward, 2009). Communication requires a sender and a receiver of information. Thus, as humans, communication allows us to relate to our peers. We can express o...
Of the several theories we have discussed involving commitment, I have taken a particular interest in M.P. Johnson’s Theory of Commitment as I feel it very effectively dissects the primary drives that reside behind one’s desire, or lack thereof, to remain committed in a relationship. In his theory, Johnson describes three kinds of perceived commitment that ultimately lead one to the decision to stay in their relationship. These three kinds of commitment discussed are personal, moral and structural commitment (Berscheid & Regan, 2005).
From a social perspective, emotions address the goal of relational survival at the “individual, dyadic, group, and cultural level” (Keltner & Haidt, 1999, p. 505). Primarily, emotion serves a function for the interpersonal relationship; however, emotions may serve a social function on the individual level as well (Keltner & Haidt, 1999). Specifically, emotional experiences allow individuals to assign meaning to their social interactions (Keltner & Haidt, 1999). For example, feelings of love may indicate one’s personal degree of commitment towards another individual (Keltner & Haidt, 1999). In addition to affective appraisal, the cognitive and physiological processes that accompany emotion prepare individuals for necessary action (Keltner & Haidt, 1999). This process begins at the autonomic level and involves c...
Social norms are the rules of behavior that are acceptable within members of a society. They are acceptable expectations that must be followed by a group or society. Some social norms are flexible according to the environment or situation. These norms also vary within different cultures, social groups, and social classes. Interactions provide the social setting for appropriate behavior and is the basis for the social roles that individuals play as a member of a social group. As each social role is portrayed, a proper behavior must manifest to fit the expectations of that role. These basic terms of social norms, interactions, and roles are associated with the Symbolic Interactionism Theory, which focuses on the actions of an individual and the social interaction that individual contributes to. The framework of the theory is dependent upon the social interactions between individuals and the meaning that is given to their actions.
Social media is the current fad and has been increasing over the past three decades. Today’s generation is all about who is on Facebook, Twitter, or Intagram, but what they are forgetting is who is actually sitting right beside them. At any given location, one can find several people sitting together at a table in a restaurant. What they see is different from decades before. People are not talking to each other instead they are on social media sites “talking” to someone else, maybe even in another country. That is the problem. People have lost the ability to be social among people in face to face interactions. There are two theories, Structural Functionalism and Symbolic Interaction, that can help
People have the fundamental desire to maintain strong connections with others. Through logic and reasoning, Sherry states, “But what do we have, now that we have what we say we want, now that we have what technology makes easy?”(Turkle). Face to face conversations are now mundane because of the accessibility to interact at our fingertips, at free will through text, phone calls and social media. Belonging, the very essence of a relationship has now become trivial.
Social Psychology of Emotions can be defined as a form of mental states that has the potential to give rise to various behaviors in an individual. Research suggests that most of the emotions experienced by a person are inherently social, which implies that they cannot be encountered in the absence of other feelings (Baumeister & Finkel, 2010). Baumeister and Finkel, are of the opinion, that the social aspect of emotions is what forces people to interact more with others as they seek a means of illustrating what they may be feeling. Some of the notable emotions experienced by individuals include affection, jealousy, shame, and sympathy.
In interpersonal communication there are many theories that are similar yet different in many ways. The theories can be combined to describe people and how those people interact and communicate with each other. Many of these theories help explain how people in society form impressions of others, how they maintain these impressions, why people interact with certain people in society, and how people will use these impressions that they have formed later on in life. These theories also help people to better understand themselves, to better understand interpersonal communication, and to better understand people in general. There are two theories in interpersonal communication that, despite their differences, can go hand in hand. The first is interaction adaptation theory and the second is emotional contagion theory. These two theories’ similarities and differences and their relevance to my everyday life will be discussed in this paper. These two theories are very important in understanding how people interact with others and why people do the things they do sometimes.
Social interaction is defined as the process by which people act and react in relation to others (Macionis 583). Symbolic Interaction Theory is a micro-level orientation, a close up focus on social interaction in specific situations. Social construction of reality, the foundation of the symbolic-interaction theory, is the process by which people creatively shape reality through social interaction. Quite a bit of reality remains unclear I everyone’s mind, so we present ourselves in terms that suit the setting and our purposes, we try to guide what happens next, and as others do the same, reality takes shape. Reality then is a product of social
Social interaction is a constant and innate part of human nature. It is the contact between two or more persons. Humans were not made to be alone and therefore social interaction comes naturally to us. However, this interaction also influences our behaviors depending on how and who we are interacting with. Simply put, the society influences how we interact with each other. There are various terms, concepts and explanations surrounding human interaction and the way it helps us to function in society.
In today’s society, Technology is the main player in the way we communicate. Cell phones and social media made the communication easier for people to contact each other. It extends time less to connect between long distance friends. Also, it helps people to spread and enlarge circle of friendships around the world. However, people are losing the way of face-to-face conversation. Sherry Turkle is an expert on culture and therapy, mobile technology, social networking, and sociable robotics argued in her article “the flight from conversation” how using technology can affect our behavior in conversation.
Lawler, E. J., & Thye, S. R. (1999). Bringing emotions into social exchange theory. Annual
Social interactions are the manner in which we socialize and react to other people. Social interaction has been around humanity since the beginning. It is so important that without it, settlements and groups wouldn’t have formed the way we know it today. It is the building block of society, people get together and design rules, institution and select officials to guide their way of living. It means interaction is social relationship among the individuals. It is a sort of action and reaction position among the people. It involves the acts that people do to others and the return the expect. Social interaction consists of many concepts which are: Exchange, competition, cooperation, conflict and coercion.