Interactionism and the Social Construction of the Self
Interactionism is a micro-level, action perspective arguing that society and the self are not fixed in advance but are actively built up through everyday interaction and the meanings people give to symbols, gestures and labels.
Before you start
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Method
- Learn the core interactionist claim: identity and society are actively constructed through everyday interaction and shared meanings, not simply fixed by structure.
- Learn Mead's idea of 'taking the role of the other' and Cooley's 'looking-glass self' as two related explanations of how the self develops through interaction with others.
- Learn Goffman's 'front stage' idea that people manage a performance to control the impression they give others in social situations.
- Learn Becker's labelling theory and the self-fulfilling prophecy, and practise applying it to a specific situation, such as a pupil labelled by a teacher or an offender labelled by the police.
- Distinguish a first, relatively minor act from secondary deviance, behaving according to a label after it has been applied and internalised.
- When applying interactionism to a scenario, identify who is doing the labelling, what label is applied, and what effect it has on the person's self-image and future behaviour.
- For evaluation, use structural perspectives, such as functionalism, Marxism or feminism, to argue that interactionism underplays wider structures of power that shape who gets labelled in the first place.
Worked example
A teacher repeatedly describes Aaron as 'the naughty one' in front of the class after he talks out of turn a few times in Year 7. By Year 9, Aaron is regularly getting into trouble and describes himself as 'just someone who doesn't do well at school'. Using interactionist ideas, explain how Aaron's identity may have been shaped by this process.
- Identify the initial act: Aaron talking out of turn a few times is a relatively minor, occasional type of behaviour before any label is attached.
- Identify the labelling: the teacher repeatedly and publicly labels Aaron 'the naughty one', an example of a powerful agent, a teacher, attaching a label.
- Apply the looking-glass self and taking the role of the other: over time, Aaron begins to see himself the way he believes his teacher and classmates see him, which shapes his own self-image.
- Identify the self-fulfilling prophecy: Aaron starts to internalise the label and behave in ways that match it, getting into more trouble, turning the label into something that becomes true.
- Note the shift towards secondary deviance: by Year 9, Aaron's identity, 'someone who doesn't do well at school', reflects the label rather than only his original behaviour, showing how far the label has become part of who he thinks he is.
- Conclude: this shows the interactionist argument that identity is not fixed at birth but built up through interaction, in this case through a label applied by a teacher and gradually accepted by the pupil himself.
Practice questions
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Q1What is the core claim of interactionism about how society is formed?Show answer
Answer: That society and identity are built up from the bottom, through the meanings individuals give to their everyday interactions with others, rather than being fixed by a wider structure.
Q2What did George Herbert Mead mean by 'taking the role of the other'?Show answer
Answer: Imagining how you appear from another person's point of view, which Mead argued is central to how the self develops.
Q3What is Cooley's 'looking-glass self'?Show answer
Answer: The idea that a person's self-image is built up from how they imagine other people see and judge them.
Q4What did Goffman mean by comparing everyday life to a theatrical performance?Show answer
Answer: He argued people manage a 'front stage' performance to present a particular impression of themselves to others in social situations, similar to actors performing a role.
Q5What is a self-fulfilling prophecy in the context of labelling theory?Show answer
Answer: When a person who has been given a label comes to believe it about themselves and begins to behave in ways that match the label, making the label appear to come true.
Q6Give one criticism of interactionism from a structural perspective.Show answer
Answer: Structural sociologists, such as Marxists or feminists, argue interactionism focuses too much on small-scale interaction and ignores wider structures of power, such as class or gender, that shape which groups are more likely to be labelled in the first place.
Q7A police officer stops and searches a group of teenagers repeatedly because of how they are dressed. What interactionist concept could this illustrate?Show answer
Answer: Labelling, and potentially the start of a self-fulfilling prophecy if the teenagers begin to see themselves and act the way the label suggests.
Q8Why is interactionism sometimes called a 'micro' perspective?Show answer
Answer: Because it focuses on small-scale, face-to-face interaction and the meanings within it, rather than large-scale structures of society as a whole.
Exam-style questions
Written in the style of a GCSE Sociology exam paper, with a full mark scheme.
Explain two ways in which labelling can affect a person's identity.
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Explain two criticisms of the interactionist perspective.
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Item E: Interactionists argue that a person's sense of self develops through their interactions with others, and that labels given to a person, for example by teachers, the police or the media, can become part of how that person sees themselves and can even lead them to act in a way that matches the label. Discuss the view that labelling by others has a greater effect on a person's identity and behaviour than the person's own choices.
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See real GCSE Sociology past-paper questions, with official mark schemes →
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