Test Bank Chapter 12 Symbolic Interactionism And Dramaturgy

Test Bank

Chapter 12: Symbolic Interactionism and Dramaturgy

Multiple Choice

1. Which scholar coined the term “symbolic interactionism”?

a. Erving Goffman

b. Herbert Blumer

c. George Herbert Mead

d. Arlie Hochschild

2. Which of the following is one of the basic premises that informs Blumer’s understanding of a symbolic interactionist approach to social life?

a. Behavior, not meaning, is at the core of interactions.

b. Meaning is derived from social interaction.

c. Meaning is determined by the introduction of social structure.

d. People are assigned roles that tell them how to behave.

3. Herbert Blumer’s theoretical orientation would most closely align with which of the following statements?

a. Social life is a dynamic process with actors creating patterns of behavior.

b. Actors approach social interaction motivated to maximize their rewards.

c. Meanings are fixed and govern actors’ behaviors in a social interaction.

d. Institutions originate joint actions and their resultant behaviors.

4. Blumer emphasizes interpretation in his analysis, which he defines as ______.

a. assigning roles to self and to others

b. the threefold relation of gesture, response, and completion

c. an internal conversation wherein the individual takes the attitude of the other

d. an internal dialogue of words and meanings

5. Who were two of the leading theorists in the “Chicago School” of sociology?

a. Goffman and Thomas

b. Thomas and Mead

c. Mead and Blumer

d. Blumer and Goffman

6. Goffman defines impression management as ______.

a. the work we do to present an appropriate image of our self to others

b. internal work we do to manage our emotional faculties

c. social etiquette done to minimize embarrassment

d. how we “do” emotion to fulfill our jobs

7. Goffman’s notion of self built on the work of which theorist?

a. Émile Durkheim

b. William Thomas

c. George Herbert Mead

d. Georg Simmel

8. Goffman deviated from William I. Thomas’s approach to the definition of the situation when Goffman argued that definitions are largely ______.

a. the work of an individual’s efforts

b. due to subjective processes of examination and deliberation

c. a matter of convention built into situations themselves

d. constructed via introspective cognitive processes

9. Goffman was influenced by Durkheim’s emphasis on what aspect(s) of modern society?

a. the economic division of labor

b. the increased rationalization of interaction

c. the decreased interactions resulting from mechanic solidarity

d. the rituals that structure social life

10. Deference and demeanor’s relationship can best be described as ______.

a. parallel

b. inverse

c. reciprocal

d. negative

11. The kitchen in your favorite restaurant can best be described as the ________ for a waiter or waitress.

a. setting

b. backstage

c. audience

d. front stage

12. Goffman suggests that the definition of the situation is often based on a “working consensus,” meaning that ______.

a. actors conceal their immediate feelings to maintain an agreement

b. actors feel free to express themselves honestly and candidly

c. the prevailing definition of the situation changes after the situation ends

d. the self is divided between the “character” and the “performer”

13. Our speech, appearance, and other expressive equipment are all components of the ______.

a. character

b. setting

c. personal front

d. backstage

14. Which of the following would meet Goffman’s definition of a total institution?

a. exclusive gym

b. monasteries

c. public schools

d. nuclear families

15. The process of losing multiple selves when entering a total institution is called ______.

a. impression management

b. emotional labor

c. mortification of self

d. emotion work

16. Goffman defines secondary adjustments as ______.

a. attempts on the part of an individual to play a fictitious role

b. backstage responses to situations that happen on the front stage

c. attempts to reduce feelings of embarrassment after a situation has broken down

d. distancing practices used to preserve an independent self

17. In a total institution, why do residents need to find new ways to present themselves?

a. They no longer have access to their belongings.

b. They find they have too many competing roles.

c. They have to make sense of their new situation.

d. They often have more power than they did before.

18. The organismic model of emotions focuses on ______.

a. the role of social processes in shaping self-consciousness

b. how emotions are rooted in an individual’s biology

c. how emotions interact similar to organs within a body

d. the role of cognitive processes in forming conceptions of the self

19. Upon what three models did Hochschild build her emotion-management model?

a. Organismic, interactional, and impression management

b. Symbolic interactionism, organismic, and structural functionalism

c. Organismic, impression management, and exchange theory

d. Interactional, exchange theory, and symbolic interactionism

20. Hochschild refers to efforts to alter or manage the intensity or type of feelings as ______.

a. impression management

b. emotional labor

c. emotion work

d. organismic labor

21. When our natural capacity to engage in emotion work is sold for a wage, we are experiencing ______.

a. rationalization of the self

b. alienation

c. commodification of feelings

d. emotional labor

22. In The Managed Heart, Hochschild connects emotive experiences and expectations to ______.

a. social structures such as institutions

b. modern economic positions

c. introspective cognitive processes

d. gender identity

23. Which group of people tends to be expected to perform more emotion work?

a. people who are highly educated

b. people in low-status categories

c. people with managerial jobs

d. people who work in teams

24. According to Hochschild, female flight attendants are often assumed to embody the loving mother and ______

a. quiet leader

b. assertive boss

c. career woman

d. supportive wife

25. How can female flight attendants minimize the stress they feel on the job?

a. They invoke different feeling rules.

b. They start doing less emotion work.

c. They can try to act more like the male flight attendants.

d. They can separate their “real” self from their self on the job.

True/False

26. Blumer and Stryker approached symbolic interactionism in similar ways.

27. Blumer argues that actors behave based on prescribed by roles and norms.

28. Blumer’s approach to symbolic interactionism builds on Mead’s concept of significant gestures.

29. Goffman’s interest in studying rituals was influenced in part by Durkheim’s study of religious ceremonies.

30. Presentational and avoidance rituals are both forms of deference.

31. When a professor works alone in their office, they are likely on the front stage.

32. Goffman identified himself as a symbolic interactionist.

33. Goffman explored how social arrangements themselves shape the organization of the self.

34. Goffman defines the performance as the reciprocal influence of individuals on each other.

35. Goffman argues that we must perform the statuses that we hold.

36. An example of a cynical performer is a doctor prescribing a placebo pill to assuage a concerned patient.

37. We can use sign-vehicles to control what impression of ourselves we are giving off to others.

38. A secondary adjustment occurs when we change our strategy for impression management based on another’s reaction.

39. A total institution is a place where all spheres of life blend together under someone else’s control.

40. People who have the most privileges in total institutions have the farthest to fall if the workers discredit them.

41. According to Goffman, the self is realized through social arrangements and interactions.

42. Hochschild’s emotion management perspective focuses on inner efforts to produce a real feeling.

43. Emotion work is engaged in primarily for the purposes of deceit or manipulation.

44. The demands for emotion management are shaped by both class and gender relations.

45. Hochschild’s concept of emotion work falls into the collectivist and nonrational quadrant.

46. Deep acting refers to how people manage their outward appearances to present a convincing image of themselves.

47. Men are asked more often than women to appreciate jokes.

48. Emotion is evaluated differently in men and women.

49. Emotion work is always done by self upon the self.

50. Passengers usually assume that female flight attendants have more authority because the majority of flight attendants are women.

Essay

51. List and briefly discuss the three major premises of symbolic interaction. Based on the logic of the premises, how would you “solve” the “problem of order”?

52. In your own words, explain Blumer’s statement: “It is the social process in group life that creates and upholds the rules, not the rules that create and uphold group life.”

53. Explain how George Herbert Mead’s work informs Blumer’s own work on symbolic interactionism.

54. According to Blumer, what is the source of meaning? How does the answer to this question distinguish symbolic interactionism from other theories?

55. Define Goffman’s term “impression management” and explain how it is connected to the work of George Herbert Mead.

56. Explain how Goffman deviates from William I. Thomas’s conception of definition of the situation.

57. Use an example from your own life that demonstrates Goffman’s concepts of front, backstage, character, and performer.

58. Define and explain Goffman’s concept “merchant of morality.”

59. Explain Goffman’s dramaturgical approach to the study of social life. How can you apply this approach to virtual communication in the twenty-first century? Examples to explore could include text messaging, Facebook messaging, Snapchat, and more.

60. What is a total institution, and how does being in a total institution impact sense of self?

61. What is the relationship between secondary adjustments and the self?

62. Discuss and differentiate between Hochschild’s emotion work and emotional labor.

63. Explain and use an example from your own life on how gender and class relations can affect the demands for emotion management. Be sure to connect your answer to the commodification of feelings.

64. Define Hochschild’s feeling rules and how they are connected to our own private emotion work.

65. How does Hochschild draw on the organismic model and the interactional model to construct her emotion-management model? Be sure to show how her theory builds on these two models.