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--Djjr (talk) 17:39, 28 October 2011 (UTC) New progress? Take a look at Sociological Abstracts at Mills library electronic resources

I will edite the page: Herbert Blumer

1. What statements of what the article needs are right on the page?

      "This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. 
      Unsourced material may be challenged and removed."

2. What statements of what the article needs are on the Talk page?

      There are no notes at this time regarding specific recommendations of edits that have not already been taken care of. 
      The pages does state that the article is part of the WikiProject Biography, WikiProject Psychology, and WikiProject Sociology projects. 

3. What is the current outline of the page and about how many words devoted to each section?

1 Personal history (215 words)
2 Academic contributions 
   2.1 Symbolic interactionism (353 words)
      2.1.1 Criticisms of symbolic interactionism (70 words)
   2.2 Blumer's criticisms of Thomas and Znaniecki (171 words)
   2.3 Movies and Conduct (83 words)
3 Featured Works (3 mentioned)
4 Other works (6 mentioned, 2 are movies) 
5 Notes (20 notes)
6 References (7 references) 
7 Further reading (5)
8 External links (4)

4. What are examples of sections or subsections that are found in other Wikipedia articles similar to this one (e.g., biographies of social theorists)?

      - Early life
      - Death
      - "Personal history" is usually broken down into "personal life", "education", and "career."
      - Influences
      - Concepts (where information from "academic contributions would go)
      - Criticisms as its own section rather than a subsection. 

5. Start your research by familiarizing yourself with this page and the things it links to. Take notes as necessary. You should especially look at any external links listed in the current article. I suggest making a list of them along with some initial commentary about what they contain.

 Things page links to:
  - Symbolic interactionism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_interactionism
  - University of California, Berkeley. I'd like to see if they have more first hand information on Blumer. DJR: I suspect his papers may be there.  Check their library for a finding guide.  Wikipedia does not use primary sources but a bit of direction for the reader in terms of finding the papers and such would be appropriate.
 External links on page:
  - Symbolic Interactionism as defined by Herbert Blumer - This page is no longer valid.
  - A Blumer Bibliography - this is some sort of biography (bio or bib?), but does not cite anything written by Blumer (i.e., it's all secondary sources?).
  - Movies and Conduct - this is an excerpt from Herbert Blumer's book "Movies and Conduct," specifically chapter 11, which is the conclusion. 
  - Profile at DatabaseFootball.com - this is a database which gives statistics on Blumer's football activity (eh?).

6. Start a TO DO list. Any time you think of something that is wrong with or missing from the article, add it to the list.

- Check if Berkeley as books on this guy (DJR see Mills list in your email). 
- Try and find a picture of him. 
- Include George Herbert Mead, W. I. Thomas, Charles H. Cooley, and Robert Park in the section "Influences"
- Include Erving Goffman and Anselm Strauss as people who have been influenced by him.
- Find citations for information already on the page.

NOTES:

Article #1:

- “In the 1940s and 1950s, at a time when some were striving to establish sociology as a mainstream social science by borrowing natural science methodologies and models, Blumer fought against this tide.”

- Critiqued the “blind application” of natural science methods to that of sociological research.

- Believed that humans behaved always based on the attribution they place on objects around them, thus instinct theory could not be counted as a reliable social theory if it didn’t take this into consideration → symbolic interactionism was born. P.3

- B played key role in scholarly development of collective behavior.

- Blumer’s conceptual work = most important/

- Developed “axiomatic deductive” theory – works for symbolic interactionism. ***

- Insistence on clarity of thought, relentless pursuit for accurate explanations of human behavior. P. 11

- Article talks about Meadian social psychology, pragmatism, Park’s ideas on race relations & collective behavior. Quantitative vs. qualitative controversy.

Article #2:

- Made profound theoretical contributions to sociology:

              Like:

- Known for and affected sociology by insisting that soc relies on precision in though, ideas, numbers, and meaning.

Article # 3:

- “His insistence on the direct observation of people in their indigenous settings and his contention that human agency must be taken into account in explanations of social processes are difficult to counter.” And insisted that human agency must be taken into account when attempting to explain social progress. Acknowledging that this approach can create methodological difficulties, he insisted that there is no valid alternative.

- Blumer was an avid Meadian and kept an interest in him despite opposition.

- Blumer was a student of Park (who set up the subfield of soc, collective behavior) and kept this subfield viable despite opposition from structural-funtionaalists.

- Structural-functionalism = emergent and dominant paradigm in sociology during the 50’s, thus Blumer’s views were representative of a minority of social theorists → but during chaos of 60’s, SF was challenged and symbolic-interactionism became more popular.

- Professor Blumer = known as Mead’s prevailing interpreter and proponent (during 60’s), and although he was reluctant to make corrections or clarifications about Mead’s work, he forcefully advocated it’s appreciation.

- His unconventional stance towards social science methodology created the impression that he was anti-scientific and even an extremist.

- He was very compassionate towards his graduate students → created a strong group of colleagues with personal loyalties to his theories and outlooks → possibly multiplied his influences in the field?

- Blumer is regarded by some as a scholar ahead of his time, contributing greatly to an approach to the study of human behavior that is both humanistic and scientific.

- Blumer’s most original contribution to the field, expressive symbolism = still widely unknown.

- He saw Sociology as aiming to develop verifiable knowledge through empirically grounded observation.

- Believed that human behavior is not determined by group structure, attitude, or cultural patters and that social change is not derived from external or immanent forces impinging on social structures. (p.8)

- Refuted simplistic cause and effect explanations.

- Skeptic of formulating precise generalizations of human behavior.

Blumer on Soc Methodology:

- Main argument against current social scientific research methodology was the blind application of research methods that were proven useful in natural sciences

o Harsh critic on the widely accepted idea that the valid science is conducted subjectively.

o As the social sciences were just begging to emerge, he suggested that is would be more productive to examine the techniques of natural science’s pioneers and use that as basis for exploration for the social sciences rather than apply the more advanced natural scientific methodologies to a field that was not of equal development.

• He is most scrutinized this critiques of social science methods.

- To adequately explain human social life, the autonomous power each participant has must be taken into consideration.

- Placed high importance on the conceptual framework of social scientist themselves as he argues that all perception is selective → therefore = analysis that is viewed as objective will be bias and come to incorrect conclusions.

o Argued for naturalistic observation where observer learns to understand how the subjects experience their world.

o To understand the subject, one has to understand how they construct their conduct, therefore understand how they define their situation.

• Believed that what makes humans unique = that they regulate behavior based on interoperation of what situation they are in.

- His rejection of all mechanistic explanations of individual and group behavior lead to controversy → disapproved of all explanations that treated human behavior as activated by stimulus.

o Rejected any outlook on human behavior that didn’t take into consideration the importance of human agency.

Blumer and Symbolic Interactionsim:

- Kept this approach alive – based on the work of George H. Mead (social psychologist)

- Meaning = key concept to their theory (Mead said this could be observed through behavior, but Blumer never followed through on this outlook on “meaning”).

o Didn’t respect behaviorism → was empirical means of study

- To understand any human behavior, one must understand that actor’s perception and definition of the situation, her location within the context, and expectations she projects to others, what she wants to do, and the choices she makes based on her perception of alternatives.

o This process is possible only because humans objectify self → the characteristics we attribute to self restrict our thinking.

• Self objectification makes us distinct organism → possible for specific types of social interaction

- Individuals act based on personal definition of situation, each situation being defined by the meanings of relevant objects (things, events, self, institutions, people, ideas).

o Each person at standpoint of generalized other (???) → people from similar cultures = easier to maintain consensus → social control = from the bottom up!

Blumer and Collective Behavior:

- Played key role in the theoretical development of collective behavior.

- Blumer was study of crowd behavior as point at which new conventions emerged and was one of the main ways society changed → such observations had been ignored by structural-functionalists.

- Most of his theoretical ideas were elaborated by his students.

- Blumer’s imprint on the concept of collective behavior is extremely noticeable.

- “Accounts for the magnification of emotional reaction in crowds through the interstimulation and response in non-symbolic interaction” (following Mead’s distinction between significant symbols and conversation of gestures).

o I don’t understand what that means.

Critique of Blumer:

- He did not show understanding that concepts are not testable but empirically grounded hypothesis are

Article #6: Blumer’s Methods

Critiques

- Blumer’s sociology is NOT useful in modern, scientific context because it is not rooted in “imperial” (quantitative, objective) findings that can be replicated methodologically.

o Approach = too fluid, with no empirical handle, tools, or methods for researching his ideas.

o Not operational.

- “appreciative perspective”/subjectivtivity = greatest weakness of his sociology.

- Does not provide scholars with concrete, step by step method

- Does not take into consideration societal structural impact

- Claim that Blumer’s approach to research is analogous to relativism and thus should be devalued.

o Yet what Blumer argues for is understanding that there are no absolute and/or universal social truths as social reality is constructed subjectively.

Method:

According to Herbert Blumer, the most valid and desirable social research is conducted through qualitative, ethnographic methodology.

- challenges the thought process of traditional sociological which is limited to positivistic methods (objective and quantitative).

o Argued this is ignorant to the empirical realties of social world.

o Argued against the validity of understanding the world objectively

• Thus tool-like approaches to social research are invalid

• They have no means to access the process through which society is constructed.

• His methodological contribution is approach, rather than method, driven and joins theory to method.

- Methodological contributions =

- Two major points of sociological research:

o Appreciation of actors viewpoint

• Sociological understanding of the world needs to incorporate actor’s interpretation of the world.

o (Against scientific research) Social research needs to acknowledge the difference between humans and animals (cognitive ability to make conscious opinions and act on them plus the active role humans take in shaping their world) and thus methodology that works in the natural science world is not appropriate for social sciences.

• Because people act towards the world based on the subjective meanings they attribute to different objects (symbolic interactionism), individuals construct different worlds.

• Therefore for a researcher to truly understand sociological phenomena, they must understand their subject’s subjective interoperations of the society.

o Empirical research must focus on the interactions that construct social activity.

- Blumer’s sensitive, subjective, and qualitative research manner have political implications:

o It is anti-elitist as it acknowledges that there are different kinds of knowledge expressed through the expertise ordinary people display in their day to day lives.

• It rejects that there are correct and incorrect ways of doing social activity (as social reality is constructed through subjective attributions of meaning).

• Thus it demands that the actors view cannot be ignored.

o Thus, research conducted in Blumerian tradition gives voice to those who have been excluded in tradition sociological research as it calls for findings that incorporate the subjective understandings, interpretations, and viewpoints of the subject under analysis.

• Humans to do express social structure, they create it.

• According to Blumer, positivism is a bias distortion of empirical reality.

Blumer on Positivism:

- Discounts subjective understanding → therefore when positivist study humans that are different to themselves, their findings are intrinsically bias because of the researchers statues as an outsider.

o Intrinsically applies assumptions based on own reality that may not be real for the subject at hand.

o This results in the researchers creating bias “empirical” results that, under the rule of positivism, are taken as unquestioned, universal truths.

- Thus “experts” who use positivistic methodology actually documenting the absence or presence of their subjective understanding of their subject, creating distorted and inaccurate “empirical truths” about their research subject.

Encyclopedia of Sociology – Symbolic Interaction Theory

- Dirived from Mead’s thinking (which has roots in Scottish moral philosophy, + overlaps with Cooley & William Thomas)

o Society and person = two sides of the same coin

o If humans define situation as real, consequences of situation = real

Symbolic Interactionsim: society = web of communication

- Neither society or the individual come first, rather they create each other

o Through interaction, individuals create society

o Society, being a web of interaction and communication, create the social being

• Thus neither exist without the other.

o Thus the concept of the “self” requires a person (as subject) to respond to themselves as objects.

- Choices, a unique cognitive ability of humans, are thus limited to the subjective experience of that individual’s subjectively defined social reality.

- Human beings (both individually and collectively) = active creators of (rather than simply responding to outside stimuli) social reality.

o Environment of human action = symbolic

• Symbols = product of interaction/reflexivity (and thus can be manipulated in course of that interaction)

• Human thought = used to anticipate effectiveness of action (and thus problem solve)

o Choices = key feature of human conduct

• Conclusion = social interaction = literally constructed “in the course of interaction itself”.

• Thus social interaction has degree of uncertainty, and cannot be predicted only on the given circumstances/conditions/factors prior to interactions.

- Meaning = fundamental to theory.

o Gestures = means of communication

• Meaning of gestures = the behavior that will follow the gesture

• (If the meaning of the gesture is the same for both people in the interaction [received + sender], the gesture is called a significant symbol).

o If definitions are unclear, they are tested through ongoing interactions.

• Meanings are not universally shared (or shared in detail)

- Significant symbols to cues to anticipate future behavior, they are tools as to which humans create a plan of action.

o Behavior is organized based on what significant symbols symbolize.

• Behavior is changed based on meaning of symbols to meet the individuals goals (satisfy impulses and/or resolve problems)

- Objects = meanings, ideas, relationships among things + ideas are symbolized as objects.

o Thus objects derive their meaning for social interaction

- The meaning of any object is to derive a plan of action. (This includes the idea of the self)

- Most important symbolic definitions, from the point of view of the individuals involved, are the definitions that help them define who they are within the context of the situation

o Done some be defining self in relationship to the definition of others (what categories they are in – a.k.a. Roles)

• Helps self predict behavior of others

• Thus, organizes one’s own behavior in reference to definition of others

- Symbolic interationsim is more a theoretical framework than applicable theory

Blumer on research method:

- Because actor’s definitions are in continuous development based on new information from interactions, it is impossible to use pre-existing conceptions in social analysis.

- Thus Blumer discredited analysis who’s positivistic means did not capture the subjective meanings of the actors.

Critique:

o it is a theoretical framework restricted to the realm/issues of social psychology.

o Neglects to incorporate large-scale social systems such as the economy, the state, etc.

• Nor does the theoretical framework address interrelationship between the large-scale variables.

• Under this framework, hard to analyze power

o Hard to apply sociological concepts within the framework of this theory.

Article #7:

- Mead argued that humans process stimuli differently than animals:

      Animals take incoming stimuli as signs
     Humans take incoming stimuli as symbols  (signals that need to be processed cognitively, and subjectively, before they can become acted  
     upon.

Article #8:

Critiques of Symbolic interactionsim

- Deflects attention from the influence of other sociological topics, such as social structure, culture, the state, massive institutions.

- Theory focuses on subjective experience rather than social structure & organization

- Blumer's interpretation of the theory focuses too strongly on the subjective role individuals play, leaving out other major aspects of the theory

MAIN POINTs - Combination of facts from all my research

Main Points:

-Blumer believed that, through collective and individual action, we create and change our own social reality (#1) -Blumber believed “that the task of social psychological sciences is to improve human judgment – not to supply fizzed, rules, laws, or rigid generalizations” (#1) -“Reality as an ongoing emergent process” + “pragmatic (****) stance” = two reoccurring themes throughout his life. (#1) -Skeptic of generalizations about human behavior. (Tam) -“Direct observation of humans in their indigenous setting” (Tam) -“approach to human behavior that is both scientific and humanistic” (Tam)

Research:

“Human life should be studied in terms of action”

I. Biggest critique was of the blind application of research methods that had been proven as empirical in the natural sciences but not in the social sciences. (Tam)

II. Persistently critiqued the dominantly accepted idea that the only form of valid knowledge is derived through a totally objective perspective (Tam).

III. Because society is composed of interaction between individuals, there is no empirical reality in society that does not stem from human action 9.

a. Thus contextual understanding of human action 9 that takes autonomous action into consideration (Tam) is intrinsic to valid social research 9.

i. To understand what/why an individual does, the observer must internalize the actor’s subjective interpretation of the situation. (Tam)

1. Thus measurement and operational definitions do not apply to social research (Tam)

i. Thus the sensitive observation of day-to-day interaction is fundamental to the empirical understanding society (Tam)

IV. As Blumer believed that social reality is created through interaction, and thus that all perception is subjective, he placed great emphasis on the conceptual framework of the researcher (Tam).

a. According to his theory, “objective” analysis is intrinsically subjective the researcher’s social reality and thus yields bias findings (Tam + wiki)

i. Thus, sensitive, subjective research based in role-taking of the observed is the only way to uncover social realities of individuals that different from one’s self. (Tam + wiki)

V. It has been argued by some that Blumers focus on subjective, role-taking research has political implications. (Tam + ____)

a. If researchers do not adopt the perspective of their subjects, they are bound to their own stereotyped beliefs and will inevitably make assumptions that are only reflective of their lack of understanding of their subjects at hand (Tam +_____) RE-WRITE

Collective Behavior:

I. Based of Robert Park’s work, Blumer, in a 1939 article, called to attention a subfield in sociology. (Tam) .

a. This (at the time) new area of inquiry, collective behavior, is devoted to the exploration of collective action and behavior that are not yet institutionalized (Tam).

b. Blumer was particularly interested in the spontaneous collective coordination that takes place when anomalies disrupt standardized group behavior (Tam).

i. He saw phenomena as key factors leading to societal transitions (Tam).

Critiques:

- Deflects attention away from the impact that social structure and culture has on society 8

- Subjective theory 8

- Because Blumer rejected the behaviorism approach to study of meaning, research of society from symbolic interactionist framework poses empirical challenges. (tam)

Symbolic Interaction Theory:

I. Based on the work of Mead’s work on social psychology (Tam)

II. Society exists of people engaging in social interaction 9

a. Thus reality only exists in the realm of human experience 9

III. More of theoretical framework that applicable theory (encyc)

a. Based on:

i. Interaction between individuals 8

ii. Meaning (subjective meaning) (8 + Tam)

IV. Individual behavior:

a. Because Blumer saw humans as actively choosing behavior based on subjective interpretation of symbols (as opposed to animals who unconsciously react to environmental stimuli), personal meaning is the key factor that results in differences in human behavior (Tam + Enyc + article 7 [Dingwall])

b. Individual actors regulate their behavior based on the meaning they attribute to objects in their relevant situation (REF) (Tam)

i. COMPLEX PROCESS

ii. (Behavior is built step by step” (Tam)

1. Because individuals acknowledge that others are equally autonomous, they use their subjective interpretations/derived meanings of objects (others) to make decisions about their own behavior in the hopes of reaching their goal (Encyc).

a. Thus, when individual actors in a situation share a common meaning of the objects that make up that situation, coordination ensues (Tam).

2. Only possible because humans form objects of themselves (Tam)

V. Social structure:

a. Social structures are the visible residue of habitual social interactions 9

i. Exemplified in the behavior of organizations and groups 9

1. Thus, he argued, to blame social behavior on institutions and social structure is inaccurate 9

a. Because individuals act based on symbolic meaning of objects, social structure are as much determined by individual actors and they determine the actions of individual. 9