Social interaction of people. Social interaction and its types

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1. Introduction

3. Social contacts

4. Social Action

9. Social environment

9.2 Functions of the forming environment

10. References

1. Introduction

Social interaction is the systematically sustainable performance of some actions that are aimed at a partner in order to provoke a response on his part, which, in turn, causes a new reaction from the influencer. That is, to put it another way, social interaction is a process in which people act and experience influence on each other. Interaction leads to the emergence of new social relations.

Social interaction is one of the main objects of research in sociology. Social interaction is caused by direct contacts between people. It is a process by which individuals influence each other's actions and thoughts.

Social interaction occurs in social situations. Any contacts between individuals, no matter how personal they may be, in a broad sense are social, since the results of contacts between individuals are not indifferent to the state of society as a whole; in fact, these results are determined in to a greater extent his, society's, condition.

Interaction is a certain system of actions of one party in relation to the other and vice versa. The purpose of these actions is to somehow influence the behavior of the other party, who in turn responds in kind, otherwise it would not be an interaction. Interaction is the real content of group life, the basis of all group phenomena and processes. Interaction between individuals is one of the ways in which the functioning of society manifests itself, and the result of these interactions is society.

This work examines various interpretations and classification of social interactions, our own multifactor classification is given. They are correlated with the concept of formative environment and conformism, as the most significant mechanisms of socialization, as the process of social formation of a person’s personality. The concept of a formative environment is derived from the basic principles of modern psychology and the need for its further consideration in explaining the phenomena of education and self-education is substantiated. The main functions of the formative environment are highlighted.

Even ancient philosophers expressed the idea that it is impossible to live in society and be independent of it. To satisfy his numerous and varied needs, a person is forced to interact with other people and social communities who are carriers of certain knowledge and values, and is forced to participate in joint activities that implement various social relations (production, consumption, distribution, exchange, and others). Throughout his life, he is connected with other people directly or indirectly, influencing them and being the object of social influences.

2. Types of social interactions

S.S. Frolov identifies several types of social influences. He speaks of social contacts as “a type of fleeting short-term connections,” social actions focused on another person and correlated with his behavior, and social relationships as stable social connections, “which, based on the rational-sensory perception of them by interacting individuals, acquire a certain specific a form characterized by the appropriate behavior of interacting individuals.”

3. Social contacts

Social contacts are divided into spatial contacts, interest contacts and exchange contacts. Spatial contacts can be assumed (the terminology of N.N. Obozov) or indirect (the terminology of J. Szczepansky), when a person’s behavior changes as a result of the assumption of presence in a certain place, for example in the next room, on the street, in an educational institution, at a labor exchange etc., other people. Another type of spatial contacts is visual contacts, where the presence of another (others) is directly observed by the subject and their “silent presence” influences his behavior.

The psychological essence of contacts of interest consists in the choice or preference by the subject of any person, group, social community or object that meets the actual needs of the individual. Contact can be generated by mutual or one-sided interest and cause a wide variety of emotions from delight, admiration to complete rejection, feelings of disgust and disgust. Interest acts here as an incentive to some action (perceptual, communicative, etc.) related to the satisfaction of a need that has become actualized due to the appearance of an object of interest in the subject’s field of perception.

When carrying out exchange contacts, people exchange information, material or spiritual values, but do not seek to influence each other’s behavior.

4. Social Action

Unlike contacts, social actions are performed not just under certain conditions, but taking into account the situation of their implementation. As S.S. points out. Frolov, “the situation enters the system of social action through the orientation of the individual.” Social actions are always conscious and purposeful. By generating responses from those at whom they are directed, they turn into interactions. In this case, the subjects of interaction are guided by mutual expectations stemming from an assessment of each other’s status, role, and social position and existing group, institutional or social norms of behavior. Through a system of interpersonal interactions, people strive to change each other's attitudes or behavior.

The actions of individuals in socially typical situations are usually called roles. J. Moreno in “Who Should Survive?” describes three types of roles:

psychosomatic, associated with general cultural ways of satisfying biological needs;

psychodramatic, associated with the actualization of behavioral patterns that meet the requirements of the social environment;

social, associated with expectations of a particular individual from other people or social groups.

T. Parsons in the book “Social Systems” relies on a slightly different conceptual approach and distinguishes types of roles depending on the degree of inclusion of the subject himself in it. Thus, prescribed roles correspond to social expectations based on the individual's status in the group. Subjective roles are based on the subject of the action’s own interpretation of its content. And the roles played reflect the mutual expectations and assessments of the interacting subjects. Thus, the degree of involvement (inclusion) of the subject himself gradually increases from prescribed roles to played roles.

R. Linton noted that role acceptance refers to the internal interpretation of expectations associated with a system of positions, and the implementation of a role in a system of social interactions refers to the implementation of these expectations through the activity of the human self.

Sometimes social interactions can take the form of conflict. Conflict interaction is always characterized by confrontation between the parties in their desire to achieve the same goal (uniform for both parties) - to possess the subject of the conflict, which cannot be divided between the participants.

5. Theories of social interaction

In foreign social psychology There are several theories explaining the processes of social interaction. This is the exchange theory of J. Howmans, and the symbolic interactionism of J. Mead and G. Bloomer, and the theory of impression management by E. Goffman. The first identifies as the goal and incentive for interaction the desire to balance rewards and costs. Moreover, the more one thing and the less another, the more often a person will strive to repeat this action. However, saturation of the need will lead to a decrease in the subject’s social activity. Howmans thus builds on Skinner's ideas, applying them to the analysis of the processes of social interaction.

The authors of the theory of symbolic interactionism draw attention to the fact that each person adapts his behavior to the actions of another (other) individuals. Therefore, not only the actions, but also the intentions of the people around us can influence us. Understanding (interpretation) of intentions and actions is carried out on the basis of the use of similar symbols acquired by a person during socialization. From the point of view of G. Blumer, interaction is not an exchange of actions, but a continuous dialogue, since interaction occurs when the action has not yet been completed, but the intentions of the subject are already realized, interpreted by the person and caused the corresponding states, aspirations and responses in him. This theory complements the behavioral approach with a cognitive one, taking into account the processes that occur in the minds of interacting individuals.

Further development of these ideas with access to management practice is provided by the concept of impression management by E. Goffman. He believes that creating a favorable impression of oneself, as well as exerting the necessary influence, for example, to intimidate or calm, can be done by influencing other people's understanding of the situation. Such interaction is a kind of dramatization or, using the term of A.B. Dobrovich, “contact of masks”.

6. The influence of social interaction on a person

The above overview shows that both social contacts and social actions (information, control, evaluation, interpretation, coercion, etc.), and their continuous chain called interaction, and social relationships (dependence and power, attraction and intimacy, social hostility, etc.) have a discrete or massive social impact on a person.

Every impact has a transformative effect on a person. The degree of compliance to the transformative influences of social influences is determined by the individual’s conformity property. This property itself is derived from a number of factors. The most important of them include:

level of human intellectual development,

his competence,

self confidence,

position in the group

degree of identification with it,

age of the individual,

the impact of the situation,

the complexity of the problem being solved,

band size,

unanimity and unity of its members,

publicity-anonymity of the answer,

no prior announcements.

All these factors can be divided into personal (1-6) and situational (7-13). Thus, the extent of the influence of the social environment on an individual depends on a number of his personal characteristics and the characteristics of the situation in which this influence took place.

However, conformity is not the only possible response to social influence. Conformal changes occur along with such responses as resistance, changes in attitude towards oneself, the subject of influence or what is happening. Anticipating the form of the response, the degree of its severity and direction means the ability to manage the processes of socialization.

It is difficult, practically impossible, to implement this in practice, since social influences are not coordinated, they use different means, and their use in specific situations has different consequences, both for the subject using them and for the person to whom they are directed. Even managing the education process seems to be very, very difficult. And the process of socialization, moreover, is largely spontaneous. Therefore, in similar social circumstances, not only different forms of people’s behavior are observed, but different types of personalities are formed, and each person chooses an individually unique life path.

Social reality gives us a huge number of examples of social impacts produced by people. It is not possible to describe them all. Therefore, we will limit ourselves to their multifactorial classification.

Many types of social influences can be distinguished depending on the purpose, content, direction of social influences, the subjects implementing them, the choice of means of influence and their form, targeting, degree of effectiveness and number of influences.

7. Types of social impacts

Depending on the goal, social influences can be programming, stimulating, warning, activating and inhibiting. Programming influences set a system of motives or a sequence of actions of an individual, stimulating influences expand the motivation system, encourage a person to accept or change a system of attitudes and relationships. Preventive influences represent barriers and restrictions to the commission of certain undesirable actions, the performance of activities that are dangerous for the subject or his environment. Activating influences are aimed at increasing the efficiency of activity, increasing its speed, productivity, they push a person to perform certain actions. Inhibitors, on the contrary, introduce a system of prohibitions on some forms of behavior, the performance of any actions, including perceptual, intellectual, emotional-expressive, etc. In response to the influences provided, a person or group of people can submit to pressure, that is, act conformity or resist them, showing non-conformity and independence. Therefore, in the column “Subject’s reaction”, each type of social influence corresponds to at least two polar reactions - conformal and non-conformal or autonomous. Sometimes cognitive and emotional reactions are added to them.

Depending on the content, social influences are divided into socializing, educational, educational and orienting. Socializing influences carry information about the attitudes and norms of behavior accepted in a given community, emotional and other reactions to their observance and violation, common prejudices and prejudices. Educational social influences influence interests, value orientations, ideals and personal meanings of a person’s actions, by structuring, replenishing, developing or discrediting them. Educational influences contribute to the transfer of social experience accumulated in the fields of science, technology, art, culture and religion. Finally, this group includes orienting social influences. They encourage a person to internalize the system of signs, symbols and social guidelines accepted in a society or group.

According to the direction of influence, one can distinguish direct ones, exerted directly on the subject himself, and indirect ones. These include impacts on the individual’s social environment and the conditions of his activity. The latter type involves a wide range of changes in economic, socio-psychological, ergonomic conditions, as well as the degree of difficulty of the activity, its diversity, intensity, and the individual’s responsibility for the results obtained. It should be noted that a person, as a rule, reacts to indirect influences by changing his attitude or emotional state. Changes in the functional state are also possible, for example the appearance of fatigue, monotony, etc.

The subjects of influence can be individual individuals, various social communities, and society as a whole represented by mass media. Therefore, taking as a basis the classification of subjects of influence, we identified individual, group, institutional and public or network social influences emanating from the media. In response to the influence of the press, radio, television, and the world's computer systems, a person can not only accept or reject any information, but assimilate attitudes, change existing ones, and if the information received is contradictory, react with doubt and passivity, that is, a decrease in the degree of social activity.

Based on the allocation of means of influence, social influences can be classified into four types - persuasive, inspiring, coercive and educational. Persuasive influences appeal to the mind of subjects, inspiring emotions and feelings, instincts and innate motives of behavior. Those who coerce or pressure resort to the use of various manipulative techniques (blackmail, threats, promises, promises, gifts, compliments) that can cause the desired type of behavior of the individual, as well as persuasion, references to existing opinions, positions, etc. Educational influences provide the subject with certain information that may be useful to him in the future. this moment or in the future. The latter, as a response, not only have different degrees of appropriation of social experience, but also the development of abilities, the essential traits of a person.

The largest group of types of social influences is a classification based on the identification of various forms of influence. Thus, social influences can take the form of social control and evaluation, interpretation of behavior, feelings, qualities of another individual, instructions, requests, orders, threats, blackmail, etc. When social influences are included in the context of social interaction, they take the form of positive or negative reinforcement. In this case, the probability of receiving a paradoxical feedback reaction is very low, practically approaching zero, that is, in response to positive reinforcement, we receive an increase in the reaction, and in response to a negative one, its extinction. In research by neobehaviorists, this has been repeatedly confirmed in laboratory experiments on animals and field experiments on children. True, one-time reinforcement is sometimes not enough and systematic reinforcement is required to obtain the desired response.

Another basis for classification is the targeting of impacts. Depending on the recipient, influences can appeal to the mind, feelings, past experience, moral consciousness of the individual, or be directed to his subconscious.

The degree of effectiveness of influences sets a continuous scale of their changes. In the above classification, only two discrete polar types of social influence are recorded - effective and ineffective. The former, as a response, have behavior or states that correspond to the expectations of other people who are the subjects of influence, the latter, on the contrary, assume responses that do not correspond to expectations.

Finally, based on the number of impacts, three types are distinguished. These include single ones, capable of causing almost any response in the range from absolutely conformal to completely nonconformal, autonomous. The second type is multiple influences that increase the likelihood of obtaining the expected reactions; and the third - massive, capable of leading to the appearance of affective emotional states, for example, confusion, panic, stupor, etc.

The above classification does not claim to be universal. However, it is multifactorial and allows us to get a fairly complete picture of the variety of possible types of social influences, their groups and to unify responses to them. If the subject accepts the influence, then the response will be conformal, regardless of its specific content. This could be a change in behavior, a change in attitude, decision-making, internalization of social experience, etc. If the influence is not accepted or turns out to be ineffective, then the response will be inconsistent with expectations or non-conforming. It will be produced by the motives, interests, beliefs of the subject himself, his plans, attitudes, experiences. The foregoing does not mean that the subject does not respond to social influence, although this may seem to an outside observer or to the one who influences the person. In any case, there is a reaction, it just has a different direction.

8. Response to social influences

An explanation of the existing diversity of responses can be given through the introduction of the concept of a formative environment. In this case, the term “formative” is understood in the sense of determining the responses, state and actions of the individual in the system of social interaction. We consider the formative environment as one of the most important mechanisms for the social development of personality. Another such mechanism is conformism.

Conformity, as a specific response to social influences, is a multidimensional and multi-level psychological phenomenon. Analysis of literature data allows us to identify four types of conformism (Table 1). We designated these types as follows: personal, personal-interactional, situational and group types. Each of them is determined by a certain set of factors. A change in the direction or magnitude (degree of expression) of a factor also affects the severity of conformity. Factors can interact with each other, which also leads to a change in the pattern of human behavior and varying the dynamics of his conformity.

Table 1

Classification of types of conformism

As can be seen from Table 1, personal conformity or personality conformity is caused by any one of the listed or several personality qualities and represents a person’s compliance with the social influences of another person, group or public opinion. Higher rates of suggestibility and anxiety are positively correlated with conformity, while high rates of self-esteem, competence and level of intellectual development of a person are in inverse relationship with this quality of his.

The personal-interactional type of conformism arises during the interaction of subjects, when both parties are active, exchanging social influences. At the same time, the authority of the person exerting influence, his superiority in age and level of competence, increases the likelihood of conformal reactions in his partner. The nature of interpersonal interaction and interpersonal relationships can increase the degree of conformity of both one and the other interacting person. High social status and a significant role enhance social influences and increase the likelihood of conformal reactions in a partner. Positive emotional relationships between subjects also positively correlate with the likelihood of one of them joining the other, while negative ones are more likely to lead to the actualization of autonomous tendencies and a decrease in the percentage of conformal reactions. The only exception is fear, which unites people. The desire for leadership of one of the partners increases the conformity of the other. The mutual desire for leadership, and its consequence - confrontation between partners, sharply increases the likelihood of non-conforming reactions among the interacting parties.

Situational conformism will manifest itself in an individual and an entire group under the influence of factors of significance, novelty, threatening nature and the degree of confidentiality of the situation. In this case, the dependence will be direct everywhere.

Group conformity is inherent in an individual or one group of persons in relation to another, as well as in a minority in relation to the majority. The likelihood of conformal reactions will be increased by the high cohesion of the group and the possibility of its exercising social control and negative reinforcement (punishment) of its members. The size of the group, the nature of activity and communication are related to the level of conformity in a more complex relationship. But group conformism operates only within the framework of membership, that is, this type of conformism manifests itself in an individual only if he is or considers himself a member of this group, as well as in a group in relation to other groups if they are associated with joint activities or are part of a single social community. Thus, group conformism characterizes the processes of social interaction.

9. Social environment

The complexity of the social response of subjects, be they individuals or entire groups, again suggests the presence of a certain component that acts as a mediator between them, that is, subjects and the influences of the social environment. This mediator, in our opinion, is nothing more than a formative environment. It appears at the moment of interaction, regardless of whether the initiator of this interaction is a person with his current needs or the environment with its norms, requirements and regulations. The formative environment will determine the nature of the response in the system of social interaction.

The term social environment is interdisciplinary. It is widely used by representatives of such scientific disciplines as child and developmental psychology; it is used by specialists in educational and social psychology, pedagogy, as well as philosophers, sociologists, representatives of social and natural sciences, for example, social geography, ethnology and others. Due to this, this concept is enriched, it acquires a structural and systemic character. In the social environment, microsocial and macrosocial levels are distinguished. Natural components of ecosystems are also included among the components that make up the macrosocial level. Finally, we can talk about the planetary level or noosphere. The latter is nothing more than the involvement of a person in the life of the entire planet, implying the possibility of an individual exerting such influences that will have a planetary resonance.

Within the psychological disciplines, environmental influences have been most thoroughly studied by representatives of behaviorism, neobehaviorism and the concept of social learning. The educational-behavioral approach, developed and supported by B. Skinner, proclaims the determining role of the environment, both in determining the behavior of animals and social forms people's behavior. In his opinion, in animals respondent behavior predominates, carried out according to the type of response to certain stimuli, and in people it is operant. Here, foresight, anticipation, knowledge of the future result determines and controls human responses.

9.1 Relationship between environmental influences and subject behavior

The relationship between various environmental influences and the subject’s behavior is probabilistic in nature: an operant response reinforced by a positive result tends to be consolidated and repeated, while an unreinforced response will gradually fade away. It is according to this pattern that social learning occurs.

In the regulation of human behavior, according to the same B. Skinner, a special role is played by secondary or conditioned reinforcing stimuli: social approval, the attention of others, the symbol of power and authority - money. During socialization their importance increases.

In addition to positive reinforcement, “aversive stimuli”, these are various forms of punishment and negative reinforcement, can regulate the behavior of subjects. In a number experimental work it has been shown that negative forms of behavior (children's whims, delinquency and others) arise precisely as a result of their influence.

Thus, in situations of social interaction, people use primary and secondary or conditioned stimuli as means of social influence on each other to positively reinforce desired forms of behavior and negative reinforcement to eliminate undesirable ones. They also resort to using aversive stimuli, although in this case the result may be quite far from the desired one. The social environment and social influences, acting as direct determinants, however, cannot guarantee the obligatory appearance of the desired behavior or its change in the desired direction. In the interaction of the subject and the social environment, a certain factor intervenes that determines its result. It can be conditionally called the subject’s predisposition to change his behavior in a direction that is desirable for another person.

This factor cannot be a purely personal formation, since an individual does not always act according to internal motivation; his behavior is largely determined by the social influences of the environment, although he can always foresee and know what others want and expect from him. It arises only in the course of subject-subject interaction and, to a certain extent, is its reflection. We call it the formative environment. With this term we denote the process and result of mutual influence of personal dispositions, mutual expectations, activity attitudes of participants in communication or joint group activities, leading to changes in the personality structures of one, a certain number or all participants (for example, changes in qualities, motives, attitudes, value orientations, goals and meanings of activity) and their development. These structural changes within a given situation are expressed in changes in behavior that persist even after the cessation of interaction or exchange of social influences. In other words, the formative environment is a psychological phenomenon of mutual influence of activity attitudes, mutual expectations and personal dispositions of interacting subjects in the context of solving problems of joint activity or interpersonal interaction.

Due to the presence of attitudinal and dispositional components in the structure of the formative environment, it regulates the actual behavior of a person in society, the processes of his communication and interaction with other people, determines his development, socialization, education and self-education. This happens spontaneously, unintentionally, largely outside the scope of the individual’s consciousness.

The process of actualizing a person’s various needs forces him to make contact with other people or the social environment. At the same time, one or another task of activity or interaction is solved, during which people mutually or unilaterally influence each other. The exchange of social influences when solving individual, group, activity or other tasks takes place in specific social conditions, which can facilitate or hinder their implementation, promote or hinder people’s satisfaction of their needs. The subjects with whom a person comes into contact, tasks and conditions are united by the term interaction situation. The latter term is increasingly used in psychological literature instead of the term social environment. Therefore, they talk about a person’s interaction with the situation, and not with the environment, albeit social.

Situations, like the formative environment, do not exist on their own, before interaction begins. They appear and develop only in the course of it, and, in this sense, are capable of acting as determinants of behavior and social development person.

When describing the interaction of the subject and the situation, a number of fundamental points should be pointed out.

The subject's actual behavior is determined by his diverse interaction with the situation. It involves the exchange of social influences, mutual stimulation and mutual reflection at the feedback level.

In the process of this interaction, the subject pursues his goals. But, since other individuals are also included in the situation of social interaction, they, having the property of activity, pursue their own goals, sometimes diverging and even contradicting the goals of the first.

Personal determinants of human behavior are motives, dispositions, attitudes, cognitive structures learned or assigned to them during socialization and upbringing.

The situational determinants of behavior are those psychological meanings(meanings) that the situation has for the subject in accordance with his current needs and social position in the group (society).

The connecting point of interaction between the subject and the situation is the formative environment, which simultaneously belongs to the individual and the social environment, and includes their mutual attitudes regarding the activity that unfolds in the real situation.

Intra-individual differences in human behavior in similar, identical situations are explained by the development of the individual, which leads not only to a change in personal dispositions, but also to a change in his attitude towards the situation as a whole, that is, a change in its personal meaning.

Interindividual differences (differences between individuals), including different degrees of conformity of interaction participants, are explained by differences in their social positions and attitudes, degrees of awareness (competence), assessments and personal dispositions.

The discrepancy and inconsistency of the components of the formative environment, for example, attitudes, mutual expectations, personal dispositions and meanings, leads to an interaction conflict or situational maladaptation of the participants.

Conflict is a more active and adequate form of response to emerging contradictions, and situational maladjustment is a relatively more passive form, since in it only one side is subject to change, whereas in the first case both.

Expectations, as components of the formative environment, give rise to an instrumental (operant) type of behavior of people, leading to their social learning, which is an integral part of the socialization process.

In the course of social interaction, not only people’s behavior changes; components of the formative environment are subject to transformation. They become determinants of subsequent interaction.

However, not every change in the components of the formative environment leads to the development of the personality of participants in social interaction. These can only be conformal changes in their behavior, disappearing after the pressure of the group on the individual ceases.

In order to stimulate the processes of development, education, self-development and self-education, the transformation of the formative environment must be intentional in nature. (The criteria for intentional transformation of the formative environment will be described below).

The formative environment is a situational formation, that is, it functions only within specific situations of social interaction. Upon completion of the interaction, its components again become part of the personalities of the participants and remain in a potential state until the individual’s next contact with other people.

Intra-individual differences between subjects, conditioned by the continuity of their development processes, give rise to temporary (procedural) variability of the formative environment. At the same time, its structure, content of components, and the degree of their consistency change.

9.2 Functions of the forming environment

In the processes of social interaction, the formative environment performs a number of functions.

The first function is regulatory. The formative environment selects and structures social interactions. Due to this, some of them achieve their goal, others do not, and others are distorted. The formative environment is a kind of membrane that separates the subject and the situation, and at the same time unites them into a single whole, through the regulation of mutual influences.

The second function is determining (forming). We understand it as the possibility of introducing (determination) by the components of the formative environment, including the characteristics of the situation, such changes in the personality of participants in social interaction that will entail the emergence of personal new formations, that is, they will causally determine the development of individuals. Moreover, development can be either spontaneous or controlled by the individual himself or his social environment. In the latter case, we will talk about the educational influence of the formative environment.

The third function is corrective. The formative environment allows subjects to make a conformal adjustment to the situation and at the same time provides the possibility of such changes in the situation that meet the requirements, requests, and attitudes of interacting individuals.

The fourth function is organizing. The formative environment includes the parameters of the situation, reflected by the individual’s consciousness, into the process of a person’s regulation of his behavior and at the same time makes him a participant in this situation, including him in the process of social interaction with the environment. Therefore, we can talk about the organizing influence of the formative environment, both on the subject and on the situation, which leads to a mutual reflection of each other’s parameters.

The introduction of the concept of formative environment makes it possible to successfully explain a number of socio-psychological phenomena, for example, the phenomena of social maladjustment, the phenomena of leadership-followership and others. Psychological diagnostics and taking into account its components helps to increase the efficiency of managing the processes of social interaction of individuals and groups of people, in particular participants in the educational process. At the same time, the phenomenon of the formative environment is, according to the apt definition of H. Heckhausen, another “hypothetical construct” invented to explain psychological reality.

The introduction of this concept satisfies a number of fundamental explanatory principles of modern psychology, namely, the principles of determinism, historicism, systematicity and activity mediation. The concept of a formative environment corresponds to the principle of determinism, since it determines the cause-and-effect relationships of the process of interaction of an individual with the environment. It does not contradict the principle of historicism or development, which requires the study of any phenomenon from the point of view of its origin and consideration of its direction from the past to the future through the current current state. The concept of a formative environment in its removed form captures the results of previous socialization, success-failure, effectiveness-ineffectiveness of previous forms and types of social interaction. Analysis of its structure allows us to build a reasonable forecast of the further behavior of the subject and his partners in social interaction and joint activities. The principle of systematicity requires an explanation of any phenomenon by the relationships into which it enters, interacting with other phenomena that are considered as elements (components) of an integral system. The introduction of the concept of formative environment allows us to analyze the relationship between the individual and the situation through the relationship of similarity-opposite, unity-contradiction of their qualities and components and their inclusion in the broader context of the social life of the group, society as a whole.

Finally, the principle of activity mediation states that human consciousness not only manifests itself, but is also formed in activity. It was already noted above that the formative environment arises only in conditions of social contact, interaction, joint activity and communication. Thus, another individual, individuals or groups can influence the development of a person’s consciousness and the degree of his socialization. On the other hand, expectations, value orientations, personal meanings and dispositions belong to the personality and consciousness of the individual, or more precisely, of each of the interacting persons. They manifest themselves in their behavior to the extent that the interaction situation allows it.

10. References

1. Korneeva E.N. A look at socialization from the point of view of developmental psychology. // Yaroslavl Pedagogical Bulletin. 1996. No. 2. P.17-23.

2. Korneeva E.N. The concept of the formative environment. // Personal development and individuality formation. - Yaroslavl: YAGPU Publishing House, 1996.

3. Matveev A.V., Korneeva E.N., Bolottsev D.K. Psychological laws and patterns. - Yaroslavl: YAGPU Publishing House, 1998.

4. Smelser N. Sociology. - M.: Phoenix, 1994.

5. Frolov S.S. Sociology. - M.: Logos, 1997.

6. Kharcheva V.G. Fundamentals of Sociology. - M.: Logos, 1997.

7. Kjell L., Ziegler D. Theories of personality. - St. Petersburg: Peter Press, 1997.

8. Parsons T. The social systems. Glencoe, IU, Free Press, 1951.

9. website http://www.yspu.yar.ru

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Introduction

1. Genesis of social interaction

1.1 Signs of social action

1.2 Transition to social interaction

1.3 Forms of social interaction

2. Structure of social interaction

2.1 Typology and areas of social interaction

2.2 Goal setting and goal implementation

2.3 Concepts of social interaction

Conclusion

Bibliography

INTRODUCTION

The relevance of the work is the reason that in modern society important attached to the assessment of certain actions of individuals. Each of us performs many actions every day, while giving an internal assessment of our actions. At the same time, any of us, volens-nolens, compares our actions with a scale moral values civilized society. If the criteria for classifying actions as moral/immoral are studied by ethics, then the mutual assessment of the actions and deeds of people is the subject of sociology. What is action and what is social action, we will try to consider in this test.

The object of work is social action and social interaction.

The subject of the work is the structure of social interactions.

The purpose of the work is to become familiar with the theoretical foundations of social interaction, study its structure, and trace the relationship between theory and practice of this aspect of social reality.

1. Describe the genesis of social interaction, highlighting the signs of social action and the transition to social interaction.

2. Structure social interaction, showing the typology and spheres, goal setting and goal implementation of social interaction.

3. Briefly outline the basic concepts of social interaction.

Methods: study of sociological literature, description and observation, analysis and synthesis.

1. GENESIS OF SOCIAL INTERACTION

1.1 Signs of social action

The problem of social action was introduced by Max Weber. He gave the following definition: “Social is an action that, in accordance with its subjective meaning, includes in the actor attitudes about how others will act and is oriented in their direction.”

The most important feature of social action is subjective meaning - personal understanding of possible behavior options. Secondly, the subject’s conscious orientation towards the response of others and the expectation of this reaction is important. For T. Parsons, the problems of social action are associated with the identification of the following features:

Normativity (depends on generally accepted values ​​and norms);

Voluntarism (i.e. connection with the will of the subject, providing some independence from the environment);

The presence of sign regulation mechanisms.

In Parsons's concept, action is considered both as a single act and as a system of action. The analysis of an action as a single act is associated with the identification of an actor (subject of an active action) and an environment consisting of physical objects, cultural images and other individuals. When analyzing action as a system, action is viewed as an open system (i.e., supporting exchange with external environment), the existence of which is associated with the formation of appropriate subsystems that ensure the performance of a number of functions.

Your action is possible only within the framework of a society with a certain level of development of culture and social structure. On the other hand, its description, the description of a single action, is possible because there is a fairly long tradition of research into social action in sociology and philosophy.

In other words, both the action itself and its description become possible only as a result of your involvement in the life of society.

1.2 Transition to social interaction

The fact that an individual action is possible only within the framework of society, that a social subject is always in the physical or mental environment of other subjects and behaves in accordance with this situation, reflects the concept social interaction. Social interaction can be defined as the systematic actions of subjects directed towards each other and aimed at causing a response expected behavior, which involves the resumption of action. The interaction of individual subjects is both the result of the development of society and the condition for its further development.

Sociology, describing, explaining and trying to predict the behavior of people, whether in the educational process, in economic activity or political struggle, before turning to empirical studies of particular problems, turns to the creation theoretical model of this behavior. The creation of such a model begins with developing the concept of social action, clarifying its structure, function and dynamics .

Required components structures actions are subject And an object actions. Subject- is the bearer of purposeful activity, the one who acts with consciousness and will. An object- what the action is aimed at. IN functional aspect stand out action steps: firstly, associated with goal setting, development of goals and, secondly, with their operational implementation. At these stages, organizational connections are established between the subject and the object of action.

Target - perfect image process and result of action. The ability to set goals, i.e. to ideal modeling of upcoming actions is the most important property person as a subject of action. Realization of goals involves choosing appropriate funds and organizing efforts to achieve result .

The circumstances of everyday life bring a person into contact with many other people every day. In accordance with his needs and interests, a person selects from this set those with whom he enters into various interactions.

The following types of interactions are distinguished:

- contacts– short-term connections (purchase and sale, exchange of glances on the street, conversation between fellow travelers on the bus);

- social actions- the actions of a person who enters into conscious And rational connections and focuses on the actions of other people, trying to achieve their own goals. This is a more complex form of communication between people than contacts. Any social action is preceded by social contact. Before committing a social action, a stable urge to activity must arise in a person’s mind ( motivation). It is obvious that, when performing social actions, each person experiences the actions of others (conversation, any joint action).

In the broadest sense means is a subject considered in terms of its ability to serve a purpose, be it a thing, a skill, an attitude, or information. Reached result acts as a new state of elements formed during the action - a synthesis of the goal, properties of the object and the efforts of the subject. In this case, the condition for effectiveness is the correspondence of the goal to the needs of the subject, the means to the goal and the nature of the object. IN dynamic aspect, action appears as a moment of self-renewing activity of the subject based on increasing needs.

The mechanism for implementing action helps to describe the so-called “general functional formula of action”: needs -> their reflection in (collective) consciousness, development ideal programs actions -> their operational implementation in the course of activity coordinated by certain means, creating a product capable of satisfying the needs of subjects and stimulating new needs.

Like any theoretical model, this idea of ​​social action helps to see the general nature of infinitely diverse actions and thus already acts as a theoretical tool for sociological research. However, in order to turn to the analysis of particular problems, further division of the elements of this model is necessary. And, first of all, the subject of action needs more detailed characteristics.

Subject actions can be considered as individual or collective. Collective The subjects are various communities (for example, parties). Individual the subject exists within communities, he can identify himself with them or enter into conflict with them.

The contact of the subject with the environment of his existence gives rise to needs- a special state of the subject, generated by the need for a means of subsistence, objects necessary for his life and development, and thus acting as a source of activity of the subject.

There are different classifications of needs. General features All classifications are an affirmation of the diversity and increase of needs and the gradual nature of their satisfaction. So, like any living creature, a person needs food and shelter - this refers to physiological needs. But he also needs recognition and self-affirmation - this is already a social need.

TO important characteristics The subject of action also includes the total life resource, level of aspirations and value orientations. Total life resource includes resources of energy, time, natural and social benefits.

People have different life resources depending on their social status. All types of resources are manifested and measured differently for individual or collective actors, for example, individual health or group cohesion.

Social status, along with the individual qualities of the subject, determines it level of aspiration, i.e. the complexity of the task and the result that he orients himself towards in his actions. These orientations of the subject regarding any sphere of life activity are also value orientations. Value orientations are a way of distinguishing social phenomena according to the degree of their significance for the subject. They are associated with the individual reflection in the human mind of the values ​​of society. Established value orientations ensure the integrity of the subject’s consciousness and behavior.

To describe sources social object the concept is also used interest. In a narrow sense, interest implies a selective, emotionally charged attitude to reality (interest in something, being interested in something or someone). The broad meaning of this concept connects the state of the environment, the needs of the subject, as well as the conditions for their satisfaction. Those. interest can be characterized as the subject’s attitude to the necessary means and conditions for satisfying his inherent needs. This relationship is objective and must be realized by the subject. Greater or less clarity of awareness affects the effectiveness of the action. It is also possible to act contrary to one’s interests, i.e. contrary to his real situation. The concept of interest is used in the literature in relation to individual and collective subjects.

Needs, interests and value orientations are factors motivation actions, i.e. the formation of his motives as direct incentives to action. Motive- a conscious urge to action that arises when needs are realized. How does internal motivation differ from external motivation? incentives . Incentives- additional links between need and motive, these are material and moral incentives for certain actions.

The conscious nature of the action does not exclude the role of emotional and volitional factors. The relationship between rational calculation and emotional impulses allows us to talk about different types of motivation. Motivation Research are widely represented in sociology in connection with the study of labor and educational activities. At the same time, they highlight motivation levels depending on the level of needs.

The first group of motives is associated with socio-economic status of the individual. This includes, first of all, motives for providing life benefits. If these motives dominate a person’s actions, then his orientation, first of all, to material reward can be traced. Accordingly, the possibilities of material incentives increase. This group includes motives for vocation. They record a person’s desire for a certain type of occupation. For a person in this case, the content of his professional activity is important. Accordingly, incentives will be associated with material rewards in themselves. Finally, this group includes motives of prestige. They express a person’s desire to occupy a worthy, in his opinion, position in society.

The second group of motives is related to implementation of social norms prescribed and internalized by the individual. This group also corresponds to a wide range of motivations for action, from civic, patriotic to group solidarity or "uniform honor."

The third group consists of motives associated with life cycle optimization. Here, aspirations for accelerated social mobility and overcoming role conflict can replace each other.

Each occupation, even each action, corresponds to not one, but many motives. Even in the particular example we cited above, it can be assumed that the motivation to read could not be reduced only to the desire to get a grade, or only to the desire to avoid trouble, or only to curiosity. It is the plurality of motives that ensures a positive attitude towards action.

Motives of action are organized hierarchically, one of them is dominant. At the same time, researchers have recorded for the learning process, for example, an inverse relationship between the strength of utilitarian motives and academic performance and a direct relationship between scientific-cognitive and professional motives. The motivation system is dynamic. It changes not only when changing occupations, but also within one type. For example, learning motives vary depending on the year of study.

In the study of motivation, various methods are used: surveys, experiments, analysis of statistical data... Thus, the results of laboratory experiments show changes in reaction time in actions that differ in their motives. Each of us probably has analogues of such experiments, although without strict methods, in our life experience. The clearer and stronger the need to do something ( coursework To deadline), the higher the ability to concentrate attention, personal abilities and organizational talents on this matter. If we return to laboratory experiments, it should be noted that a change in reaction speed is a psychological characteristic.

Thus, the most important characteristics of motivation action is plurality and hierarchy motives, as well as their specific strength and stability.

1.3 Forms of social interaction

It is also common to distinguish between three main forms of interaction - cooperation, competition and conflict.

Cooperation- cooperation of several individuals (groups) to solve a common problem. The simplest example is carrying a heavy log. Cooperation arises where and when the advantage of joint efforts over individual efforts becomes obvious. Cooperation implies a division of labor.

Competition- individual or group struggle for the possession of scarce values ​​(benefits). They can be money, property, popularity, prestige, power. They are scarce because, being limited, they cannot be divided equally among everyone. Competition is considered individual form struggle not because only individuals participate in it, but because competing parties (groups, parties) strive to get as much as possible for themselves to the detriment of others. Competition intensifies when individuals realize that they can achieve more alone. It is a social interaction because people negotiate the rules of the game

Conflict- hidden or open clash between competing parties. It can arise in both cooperation and competition. Competition develops into a clash when competitors try to prevent or eliminate each other from the struggle for the possession of scarce goods. When equal rivals, such as industrialized countries, compete peacefully for power, prestige, markets, and resources, this is called competition. And when this does not happen peacefully, an armed conflict arises - war .

Distinctive feature interaction, which distinguishes it from mere action, is exchange. Any interaction is an exchange. You can exchange anything, signs of attention, words, meanings, gestures, symbols, material objects.

The exchange structure is quite simple:

Exchange agents - two or more people;

The exchange process is actions performed according to certain rules;

Exchange rules - instructions, assumptions and prohibitions established orally or in writing,

The subject of exchange is goods, gifts, tokens of attention, etc.;

An exchange place is a pre-agreed or spontaneously arisen meeting place.

According to George Homans's exchange theory, a person's current behavior is determined by whether and how his actions in the past were rewarded.

He derived the following principles of exchange:

1) the more often a given type of action is rewarded, the more likely it is to be repeated. If it regularly leads to success, then the motivation to repeat it increases. Conversely, it decreases in case of failure;

2) if the reward (success) for a certain type of action depends on certain conditions, then there is a high probability that a person will strive for them. It doesn’t matter what you make a profit from - whether you act legally or circumvent the law and hide from the tax inspectorate - but profit, like any other reward, will push you to repeat successful behavior;

3) if the reward is great, a person is ready to overcome any difficulties in order to receive it. A profit of 5% is unlikely to stimulate a businessman to heroic deeds, but for the sake of 300%, K. Marx noted at one time, he is ready to commit any crime;

4) when a person’s needs are close to saturation, he makes less and less effort to satisfy them. This means that if an employer pays high wages for several months in a row, then the employee’s motivation to increase productivity decreases.

Homans' principles apply to the actions of one person and to the interaction of several people, because each of them is guided in their relations with another by the same considerations

IN general view social interaction is a complex system of exchanges determined by ways of balancing rewards and costs. If perceived costs are higher than expected rewards, people are less likely to interact unless forced to do so. Homans' exchange theory explains social interaction based on free choice.

In social exchange - as we can call the social interaction between rewards and costs - there is no directly proportional relationship. In other words, if the reward is increased by 3 times, then in response the individual will not necessarily increase his efforts by 3 times. It often happened that workers' wages were doubled in the hope that they would increase productivity by the same amount. But there was no real return; they just pretended to try. By nature, a person is inclined to economize his efforts and resort to this in any situation, sometimes resorting to deception.

Thus, under social interaction is understood as a system of interdependent social actions connected by a cyclical causal dependence, in which the actions of one subject are simultaneously the cause and consequence of the response actions of other subjects.

2. STRUCTURE OF SOCIAL INTERACTION

2.1 Typology and areas of social interaction

Interaction differs from action by feedback. An action emanating from an individual may or may not be directed at another individual. Only an action directed at another person (and not at a physical object) that causes a backlash should qualify as social interaction.

Action can be divided into four types

A physical action, such as slapping a person, passing a book, writing on paper;

Verbal, or verbal, action, for example, an insult, an expression of greeting;

Gestures as a type of action: smile, raised finger, handshake;

Mental action is expressed only in inner speech.

Examples to support each type of action correspond to social action criteria Weber's M: they are meaningful, motivated, and other-oriented.

Social interaction includes the first three and does not include the fourth type of action.

As a result, we get the first typology of social interaction (by type):

Physical;

Verbal;

Gesture.

Social interaction is based on social statuses And cast. This is the basis for the second typology of social interaction in spheres of life:

- economic sphere- where individuals act as owners and employees, entrepreneurs, rentiers, capitalists, businessmen, the unemployed, housewives;

- professional field- where individuals participate as drivers, bankers, professors, miners, cooks;

- family and kinship sphere- where people act as fathers, mothers, sons, cousins, grandmothers, uncles, aunts, godfathers, brothers-in-arms, bachelors, widows, newlyweds;

- demographic sphere- contacts between representatives of different genders, ages, nationalities and races (nationality is also included in the concept of interethnic interaction);

- political sphere- where people confront or cooperate as representatives political parties, popular fronts, social movements, as well as judges, police officers, jurors, diplomats, etc., as subjects of state power;

- religious sphere- contacts between representatives of different religions, the same religion, as well as believers and non-believers, if the content of their actions relates to the area of ​​religion;

- territorial-settlement sphere- clashes, cooperation, competition between locals and newcomers, urban and rural, temporary and permanent residents, emigrants, immigrants and migrants.

So, interaction - a bidirectional process of exchange of actions between two or more individuals. That is, action just one-way interaction.

The first typology of social interaction is based on types of action, and the second on status systems.

The whole variety of types of social interaction and the social relations that develop on their basis are usually divided into two spheres - primary and secondary.

Primary sphere - the area of ​​personal relationships and interactions that exist in small groups among friends, in peer groups, in the family circle.

Secondary- this is the area of ​​​​business, or formal relations and interaction in a school, store, theater, church, bank, at a doctor's or lawyer's appointment. Accordingly, the relationships of people in these areas are not similar.

Secondary relationships- the sphere of social-status relations. They are also called formal, impersonal, anonymous. If a local doctor indifferently looks through you, listens without hearing, automatically writes out a prescription and calls out to the next one, then he is formally performing his official duty, that is, he is limited to the framework of a social role.

On the contrary, your personal doctor, who has long established a trusting relationship with you, will even discover what you did not say, will hear what you did not say. He is attentive and interested. Between you - primary, i.e. personal relationships.

So, we can conclude: all types of social interactions and social relationships are divided into two spheres - primary and secondary. The first describes confidential-personal, and the second - formal-business connections of people.

2.2 Goal setting and goal implementation

Now let's take a closer look goal setting and goal implementation. Target- this is a motivated, conscious anticipation of the result of an action expressed in words. Deciding on the outcome of an action rational, if, within the framework of available information, the subject is capable of calculating goals, means and results of action and strives to maximize them efficiency .

The connection between objective conditions, motivation and goals is established in such a way that from two specific states of elements, usually conditions and motives, the subject draws a conclusion about the state of the third, goal.

It is assumed that it is distinct and achievable, as well as the presence of a hierarchy of goals for the subject, arranged in order of preference. Rational choice object, it is a choice in terms of its availability and suitability for achieving the goal. Means of action are selected based on an assessment of their effectiveness in achieving the goal. They are instrumentally subordinate to it, but are more connected with the situation.

Actions of this type purposeful actions, most easily predicted and managed. The effectiveness of such actions, however, has its downside. First of all, goal-orientedness deprives many periods of a person’s life of meaning. Everything that is considered as a means loses its independent meaning and exists only as an addition to the main thing, the goal. It turns out that the more purposeful a person is, the narrower the area of ​​​​meaning in his life. In addition, the huge role of means in achieving the goal and the technical attitude towards them, evaluating them only by efficiency and not by content, makes it possible to replace goals with means, the loss of the original goals, and then the values ​​of life in general.

However, this type of goal setting is neither universal nor the only one. There are goal-setting mechanisms that are not associated with the calculation of efficiency, that do not imply a hierarchy of goals and the division of goals, means and results. Let's look at some of them.

As a result of the work of self-knowledge, the constant dominance of certain motives in which the emotional component predominates, as well as due to a clear internal position regarding the way of life, target may arise as some idea, project, life plan- holistic, folded and potential.

In appropriate situations, it provides instant decision making. This mechanism of purposefulness ensures the formation and production of a holistic, unique personality.

Target can act as a must as a law of actions, derived by a person from his ideas about what should be and associated with his highest values. Following duty acts as an end in itself. It is regardless of the consequences and regardless of the situation. This mechanism of purposefulness presupposes volitional self-regulation of actions. It can guide a person in situations of maximum uncertainty, create strategies of behavior that go far beyond the current, rationally comprehended situation.

Focus can be determined system of norms as external guidelines that set the boundaries of what is permitted. This mechanism optimizes behavior using stereotypical decisions. This allows you to save intellectual and other resources. However, in all cases, goal setting is associated with a strategic choice for the subject and always retains the significance of a system-forming element of action.

The goal connects the subject with the objects of the external world and acts as a program for their mutual change. Through a system of needs and interests, situational conditions, the external world takes possession of the subject, and this is reflected in the content of goals. But through a system of values ​​and motives, in a selective attitude towards the world, in the means of achieving goals, the subject strives to establish himself in the world and change it, i.e. "take over the world."

Time can also become a tool for such mastery, if a person skillfully manages this limited resource. A person always correlates his actions with time. At critical moments, the entire situation is divided into hours, minutes, seconds. But time can be used. This presupposes an active attitude towards it, a refusal to perceive time as an independent force that forcibly resolves problems. A person uses the main property of time - to be a sequence of events - by arranging his actions in some arbitrarily unbreakable order, dividing “first - then” in his actions and experiences.

2.3 Concepts of social interaction

There are many microsociological concepts. In general, the concepts of social interaction are a manifestation of the diversity of sociological knowledge. In turn, this is a special case of the system principle of multiplicity of descriptions of complex systems.

Social exchange concept . The main ideas of the concept of social exchange: a rational principle predominates in human behavior, which encourages him to strive for certain conclusions; social interaction is the constant exchange between people of various benefits, and exchange transactions are elementary acts public life(stimulus-response diagram)

The concept of symbolic interactionism . From the interactionist point of view, human society consists of individuals who have a “personal self,” i.e. they form meanings themselves; individual action is a construction, and not just a commission. It is carried out by the individual through assessment and interpretation of the situation. Personal self means that a person can serve as an object for his actions. Meaning formation is a set of actions in which an individual notices an object, relates it to his values, assigns meaning to it, and decides to act on that meaning. At the same time, interpreting the actions of another is determining for oneself the meanings of certain actions of others. From the point of view of interactionists, an object is not an external stimulus, but something that a person distinguishes from the surrounding world, giving it certain meanings.

Impression management concept . From the point of view of E. Hoffman, a person appears as an artist, a creator of images. His life is about making impressions. The ability to manage and control impressions means being able to manage other people. Such control is carried out using verbal and non-verbal means of communication. A typical example is image creation, advertising, PR.

CONCLUSION

Thus, social interaction can be characterized as a process in which people act and experience interactions on each other. The mechanism of social interaction includes individuals performing certain actions, changes in the social community or society as a whole caused by these actions, the impact of these changes on other individuals making up the social community, and, finally, the reverse reaction of individuals. Interaction leads to the formation of new social relationships.

In sociology, a special term has been adopted to denote social interaction - interaction. However, not everything we do in connection with other people is social interaction. If a car hits a passerby, then this is a normal traffic accident. But it becomes a social interaction when the driver and pedestrian, analyzing the incident, each defend their interests as representatives of two large social groups. The driver insists that the roads are built for cars, and the pedestrian has no right to cross wherever he pleases. The pedestrian, on the contrary, is convinced that the main person in the city is he, not the driver, and cities are created for people, but not cars.

In this case, the driver and pedestrian represent social statuses. Each of them has their own range of rights and responsibilities. Playing the role of driver and pedestrian, two men do not sort out personal relationships based on sympathy or antipathy, but enter into social relations, behave as holders of social statuses that are defined by society. When communicating with each other, they do not talk about family matters, the weather or the prospects for the harvest. Contents their conversations stand out social symbols and meanings: the purpose of such a territorial settlement as a city, standards for crossing the roadway, priorities of people and cars, etc. Concepts in italics constitute attributes of social interaction. It, like social action, is found everywhere. But this does not mean that it replaces all other types of human interaction.

So, social interaction consists of individual acts, called social actions, and includes statuses (range of rights and responsibilities), roles, social relationships, symbols and meanings.

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Russian sociologist S.S. Frolov identifies several types of social influences. Social contacts- a type of short-term, easily interrupted social interaction caused by the contact of people in physical and social space.

Social Actions, focused on another person and correlated with his behavior.

Social relations - stable social connections, a sequence of social interactions related in meaning to each other and characterized by stable patterns of behavior.

Any social interaction has four characteristics:

• it substantively, that is, always has a purpose or cause that is external to the interacting groups or people;
• it outwardly expressed, and therefore accessible to observation; This feature is due to the fact that interaction always involves character exchange, signs that decrypted by the opposite side;
• it situationally,T. e. usually tied to some specific situations, to the conditions of the course (for example, meeting friends or taking an exam);
• it expresses subjective intentions of participants.

I would like to emphasize that interaction is always communication. However, you should not equate interaction with ordinary communication, i.e., messaging. This is a much broader concept because it involves not only direct exchange of information, but also an indirect exchange of meanings. Indeed, two people may not say a word and may not seek to communicate anything to each other by other means, but the very fact that one can observe the actions of the other, and the other knows about it, makes any activity of theirs a social interaction. If people perform some actions in front of each other that can (and will certainly be) somehow interpreted by the opposite side, then they are already exchanging meanings. A person who is alone will behave slightly differently than a person who is around other people.

Hence, social interaction characterized by such a feature as Feedback. Feedback assumes presence of reaction. However, this reaction may not follow, but it is always expected, accepted as probable, possible.

American sociologist of Russian origin P. Sorokin identified two mandatory conditions social interaction:

• have a psyche And sense organs, i.e., means that allow you to find out what another person feels through his actions, facial expressions, gestures, voice intonations, etc.;
• participants in the interaction must express your feelings and thoughts in the same way, i.e. use the same symbols of self-expression.

Interaction can be seen as at the micro level, and on macro level. Interaction at the micro level is interaction in everyday life, for example, within a family, a small work group, a student group, a group of friends, etc.

Interaction at the macro level takes place within social structures, institutions, and even society as a whole.

Depending on how contact is made between interacting people or groups, there are four main types of social interaction:

• physical;
• verbal, or verbal;
• non-verbal (facial expressions, gestures);
• mental, which is expressed only in inner speech.

The first three refer to external actions, fourth - to internal actions. All of them have the following properties: meaningfulness, motivated, focused on other people.

Social interaction is possible in any sphere of social life. Therefore, we can give the following typology of social interaction by area:

• economic(individuals act as owners and employees);
• political(individuals confront or cooperate as representatives of political parties, social movements, and also as subjects of government);
• professional(individuals participate as representatives of different professions);
• demographic(including contacts between representatives of different genders, ages, nationalities and races);
• family-related;
• territorial-settlement(there is a clash, cooperation, competition between locals and newcomers, permanent and temporary residents, etc.);
• religious(implies contacts between representatives of different religions, as well as believers and atheists).

Three main forms of interaction can be distinguished:

• cooperation - cooperation of individuals to solve a common problem;
• competition - individual or group struggle for the possession of scarce values ​​(benefits);
• conflict - a hidden or open clash between competing parties.

P. Sorokin considered interaction as an exchange, and on this basis he identified three types of social interaction:

• exchange of ideas (any ideas, information, beliefs, opinions, etc.);
• exchange of volitional impulses, in which people coordinate their actions to achieve common goals;
• exchange of feelings when people unite or divide based on their emotional attitude to something (love, hatred, contempt, condemnation, etc.).

Activity, activity and actions, like atoms, are combined into complex molecules, which in the language of psychology and sociology are called social interaction.

In everyday life, we now and then perform many elementary acts of social interaction without even knowing it. When we meet, we shake hands and say hello; when we get on the bus, we let women, children and older people go ahead. All of these are acts of social interaction or social behavior.

However, not everything we do in connection with other people is social interaction. If a car hits a passerby, then this is a normal traffic accident. But it becomes a social interaction when the driver and pedestrian, analyzing the incident, each defend their interests as representatives of two large social groups.

The driver insists that the roads are built for cars and the pedestrian does not have the right to cross wherever he pleases. The pedestrian, on the contrary, is convinced that the main person in the city is he, and not the driver, and cities are created for people, but not cars. In this case, the driver and pedestrian indicate social statuses. Each of them has their own range of rights and responsibilities. Playing the role of a driver and a pedestrian, two men do not establish personal relationships based on sympathy or antipathy, but enter into social relationships and behave as holders of social statuses that are defined by society. The arbiter in their interaction is often a policeman.

When communicating with each other, they do not talk about family matters, the weather or the prospects for the harvest. The content of their conversation is social symbols and meanings: the purpose of such a territorial settlement as a city, the norms for crossing the roadway, the priorities of a person and a car, etc. Concepts in italics constitute attributes of social interaction. It, like social action, is found everywhere. But this does not mean that it replaces all other types of human interaction.

So, social interaction consists of individual acts, called social actions, and includes statuses (range of rights and responsibilities), roles, social relationships, symbols and meanings.

Behavior is a set of movements, acts and actions of a person that can be observed by other people, namely those in whose presence they are performed. It can be individual and collective (mass). It follows that the main elements of social behavior are: needs, motivation, expectations.

When comparing activities and behavior, it is not difficult to notice the difference. Activities include conscious goals and planned actions. It is performed for the sake of some kind of reward that serves as an external incentive, for example, earnings, a fee, a promotion. Behavior does not contain a goal as the main, defining element. Most often it does not serve any purpose. But in behavior there are intentions and expectations, there is a need and motives. Unlike incentives, motives refer not to external, but to internal incentives.

The unit of behavior is an action. Although it is considered conscious, it has no purpose or intention. The action of an honest person is natural and therefore arbitrary. He simply could not do otherwise. At the same time, the person does not set a goal to demonstrate to others the qualities of an honest person. In this sense, the action has no purpose. An action, as a rule, is focused on two goals at once - compliance with one’s moral principles and the positive reaction of other people who evaluate our action from the outside. To save a drowning man, risking his life, is an act oriented towards both goals. Going against the general opinion, defending your own point of view, is an act focused only on the first goal. I think you yourself can give examples of actions focused only on the second goal.

If sociological theories are developed cumulatively, they should not use ordinary language. This means that the subject of sociology cannot be the social world described in everyday language, as everyone is accustomed to believe. Theoretical constructs in sociology are not abstract counterparts of everyday phenomena. They describe a possible state of affairs.
Theoretical Methods in Sociology / Ed. by L. Freese. Pittsburgh.
1980. P. 331

In a team or in small group, which consists of people you know and constantly interact with you, behavior is significantly different from what can be observed in a crowd consisting of strangers, random people. The difference is based on following the rule: behave with others (in scientific parlance, “significant others”) the way you would like them to behave with you. You can be rude to a passerby and you won’t see him again, but what about a fellow worker? Among their acquaintances, people try to look the way they would like to look, or the way they would like others to see them. Most people want to be seen as generous and intelligent. They want to be helpful, courteous, and expect the same from others. They understand that if they themselves are not like this, then they will not be able to demand the same from others.

Actions, deeds, movements and acts are the building blocks of behavior and activity. Activity and behavior are two sides of one phenomenon, namely human activity.

Action is possible only if there is freedom of action. If your parents oblige you to tell them the whole truth, even if it is unpleasant for you, then this is not yet an act. An action is only those actions that you perform voluntarily.

Freedom of choice is necessary for a person at every step. Even going to the store or drinking a cup of tea requires freedom of action. It is even more necessary in the higher spheres of human activity, especially in creativity. A scientist, an artist, an actor cannot create anything if they are forced, pointed out, or interfered with. When we consider world history as the advancement of humanity from pre-industrial to industrial and post-industrial society, we are talking about the increased importance in modern era scientific knowledge, information, intellectual work, as well as leisure and creativity. When scientists call a post-industrial society a leisure society, they emphasize an important detail: the degree of freedom of action today should be immeasurably greater than before.

If you carefully analyze the statistics, this is what you will discover: in modern society, the volume of intellectual workload and the life expectancy of people have increased. Is the connection between the two phenomena coincidental?

When we talk about an action, we unwittingly mean an action focused on other people. An action emanating from an individual may or may not be directed at another individual. Only an action that is directed at another person (rather than at a physical object) and produces a response should be classified as social interaction. Interaction is a bidirectional process of exchange of actions between two or more individuals.

In science, it is customary to distinguish between three main forms of interaction - cooperation, competition and conflict. In this case, interaction refers to the ways in which partners agree on their goals and means of achieving them, distributing scarce (rare) resources.

Social interaction consists of many individual social actions. They are called mass. Mass actions can be poorly organized (panic, pogroms), or sufficiently prepared and organized (demonstrations, revolutions, wars). Much depends on whether the situation is realized or not, whether organizers and leaders have been found capable of leading the rest or not.

Sociologists have long been looking for those simplest social elements with the help of which they could describe and study social life as a set of infinitely diverse events, actions, facts, phenomena and relationships. It was necessary to find the phenomena of social life in their simplest form, indicate an elementary case of their manifestation, construct and recreate their simplified model, studying which, the sociologist would be able to consider increasingly complex facts as a combination of these simplest cases or as an example of this model complicated to infinity. A sociologist must find, in the words of P.A. Sorokin, the “social cell,” by studying it, he would gain knowledge of the basic properties of social phenomena. Such the simplest “social cell” is the concept of “interaction”, or “interaction”, which refers to the basic concepts of sociology as a science about the development of society. The interaction, which will ultimately be the social behavior of individuals in society, became the subject of analysis in the works of such outstanding sociologists of the 20th century as P.A. Sorokin, G. Simmel, E. Durkheim, T. Parsons, R. Merton, D. Homans and others.

Social interactions of people in society

Social contacts

The problems of forming relationships in society from simple to the most complex, the mechanism of social action, the specifics of social interaction, the very concept of “social system” are developed in detail and studied at two main levels of sociological research - the micro level and the macro level.

At the micro level, social interaction (interaction) is any behavior of an individual, group, society as a whole, both at the moment and in the future. Note that each action is caused by the previous action and at the same time acts as the cause of the subsequent action. Social interaction is a system of interdependent social actions connected by a cyclical causal dependence, in which the actions of one subject will simultaneously be the cause and consequence of the response actions of other subjects. Interpersonal interaction can be called interaction at the level of two or more units interpersonal communication(for example, a father praising his son for doing well in school) Based on experiments and observations, sociologists analyze and try to explain certain types of behavior that characterize interactions between individuals.

At the macro level, the study of interaction is carried out using the example of such large structures as classes, layers, army, economy, etc. But elements of both levels of interaction are intertwined. Thus, everyday communication between soldiers of one company is carried out at the micro level. But the army will be social institution, which is studied at the macro level. For example, if a sociologist studies the reasons for the existence of hazing in a company, then he cannot adequately study the issue without addressing the state of affairs in the army and in the country as a whole.

A simple, elementary level of interaction would be spatial contacts. We constantly encounter people and shape our behavior in transport, in stores, at work, taking into account their interests and behavior. So, when we see an elderly person, we usually give way to him at the entrance to the store, we give him a place in public transport. In sociology ϶ᴛᴏ is called “ visual spatial contact"(the individual's behavior changes under the influence of the passive presence of other people)

Concept "suggested spatial contact" used to denote a situation in which a person does not visually encounter other people, but assumes that they are present in some other place. So, if the apartment becomes cold in winter, we call the housing office and ask them to check the hot water supply; entering the elevator, we know for sure that if we need the help of the attendant, we need to press a button on the control panel and our voice will be heard, although we do not see the attendant.

As civilization develops, society shows more and more attention to a person, so that in any situation he feels the presence of other people ready to help. Ambulance, fire brigade, police, traffic police, sanitary and epidemiological stations, helplines, rescue services, service departments of mobile operators, computer network technical support departments and other organizations are created in order to ensure and maintain social order in society, to instill in a person confidence in safety and a sense of social comfort . From the perspective of sociology, everything is a form of manifestation of supposed spatial contacts.

Contacts related to interests people will have a more complex level of interaction. These contacts are determined by the clearly “targeted” needs of individuals. If you, while visiting, meet an outstanding football player, then you may experience a feeling of simple curiosity as to famous person. But if there is a business representative in the company, and you are looking for a job with a diploma in economics, then the need for contact where there is interest immediately arises in your mind. Here the updated motive and interest is caused by the presence of a need - to make acquaintances and, perhaps, find a good job with their help. This contact may continue, but it may also suddenly end if you have lost interest in it.

If motive -϶ᴛᴏ direct motivation to activity associated with the need to satisfy a need, then interest -϶ᴛᴏ a conscious form of manifestation of need, which ensures that the individual is focused on a specific activity. Before you went on a visit, you asked a friend to help you find a job: introduce you to a businessman, give a good reference, vouch for your reputation, etc. It is possible that in the future this friend will in turn ask you to help him with something.

IN exchange contacts social interaction becomes more complex. This is a unique type of contact, in the process of which individuals are interested not so much in people as in the objects of exchange - information, money, etc. For example, when you buy a movie ticket, you are not interested in the cashier, you are interested in the ticket. On the street you stop the first person you meet to find out how to get to the station, and least of all you pay attention to whether the person is old or young, handsome or not so handsome, the main thing is to get an answer to your question. The life of a modern person is filled with such exchange contacts: he buys goods in a store and at the market; pays for tuition, goes to a disco, having previously had her hair done at the hairdresser; the taxi takes him to the specified address. Let us note the fact that in modern society exchange contacts are becoming more and more complicated. For example, wealthy parents send their daughter to study at a prestigious educational institution in Europe, believing that in exchange for the money they pay, employees educational institution will take upon themselves all concerns related to the socialization, upbringing and education of their daughter.

Based on all of the above, we come to the conclusion that under social contact refers to the short-term initial stage of interaction between individuals or social groups. Social contact traditionally appears in the forms of spatial contact, mental contact and exchange contact. Social contacts will be the first step in the formation of social groups. The study of social contacts makes it possible to find out the place of each individual in the system of social connections and his group status. By measuring the number and direction of social contacts, a sociologist can determine the structure of social interactions and their nature.

Social Actions

Social actions are the next level of complex social relationships after contacts. The concept of “social action” is considered one of the central ones in sociology and represents the simplest unit of any type of human behavior. The concept of “social action” was introduced into sociology and scientifically substantiated by M. Weber. He considered social action to be “a human action (regardless of whether it is external or internal in nature, whether it leads to non-interference or to patient acceptance)... which is assumed by the actor or actors meaning correlates with action others people and focuses on it.”

Weber was based on the fact that social action is a conscious action and clearly oriented towards others. For example, a collision between two cars may be nothing more than an incident, but an attempt to avoid this collision, abuse that followed the incident, an increasing conflict between drivers or a peaceful resolution of the situation, the involvement of new parties (traffic inspector, emergency commissioner, insurance agent) - ϶ᴛᴏ is already a social action.

It is a well-known difficulty to draw a clear line between social actions and asocial (natural, natural) ones. According to Weber, suicide will not be a social action if its consequences do not influence the behavior of the suicide’s acquaintances or relatives.

Fishing and hunting in themselves do not seem to be social actions if they do not correspond with the behavior of other people. Such an interpretation of actions - some as non-social, and others as social - is not always justified. Thus, suicide, even if we are talking about a lonely person living without social contacts, is a social fact. If you follow the theory of social interaction P.A. Sorokin, then any phenomenon that happens in society cannot be isolated from it and characterizes, first of all, this society (in this case, suicide acts as a social indicator of the ill-being of society). It is very difficult to determine the presence or absence of awareness in a particular action of an individual. According to Weber's theory, actions cannot be considered social if the individual acted under the influence of passion - in a state of anger, irritation, fear. At the same time, as studies by psychologists show, a person never acts fully consciously; his behavior is influenced by various emotions (likes, dislikes), physical condition (fatigue or, conversely, a feeling of elation), character and mental organization (temperament, optimistic mood choleric or pessimism, phlegmatic), culture and intelligence, etc.

Unlike social contacts, social action is a complex phenomenon. The structure of social action includes the following components:

• the individual who acts
• the individual's need for a specific action
• purpose of action
• method of action
• another individual to whom the action is directed
• result of action.

The mechanism of social action was most fully developed by the American sociologist T. Parsons (“The Structure of Social Action”) Like Sorokin, Parsons considered interaction to be the basic process that makes possible the development of culture at the level of the individual. The outcome of the interaction will be social behavior. A person, joining a certain community, follows the cultural patterns accepted in that community. The mechanism of social action includes need, motivation and action itself. As a rule, the beginning of social action will be the emergence of a need, which has a certain direction.

For example, a young man wants to learn how to water a car. The urge to perform an action is called motivation. The motives for social action can be different: in this case, a young man either wants to distract a girl from a rival who drives a car well, or he likes to take their parents to the dacha, or he wants to earn additional income as a “cab driver.”

When performing social actions, an individual experiences the influence of others and, in turn, wants to influence others. This is how an exchange of actions occurs, which acts as social interaction. In this process, an important role is played by the system of mutual expectations, which makes it possible to evaluate the behavior of a given individual from the position of generally accepted norms.

Let's imagine that, while in a company, a young man met a girl and they agreed to meet. Each of them develops a system of expectations of behavior accepted in society or a given group. The girl can look young man as a potential groom, therefore it is important for him to establish strong relationships, consolidate acquaintances, find out everything about his views on life, interests and affections, his profession, material capabilities. The young man, in turn, also thinks about the upcoming meeting either seriously or as another adventure.

The meeting can take place in different ways. It is important to note that one will drive up in a foreign car and invite you to a restaurant, followed by a drive to an empty dacha. Another will suggest going to the cinema or just walking in the park. But it is possible that the first young man will soon disappear, and the timid young man will receive a diploma, enter the service, and become a respectable husband.

Forms of social interactions

Mutual expectations are often not met, and the relationships that have arisen are destroyed. If mutual expectations are justified and acquire a predictable, and most importantly, stable form, such interactions are called social relations. Sociology distinguishes the three most common types of interactions - cooperation, competition and conflict.

Cooperation- this type of interaction in which people carry out interrelated actions to achieve common goals. As a rule, cooperation will be beneficial for the interacting parties. Common interests unite people, arouse in them feelings of sympathy and gratitude. Mutual benefit encourages people to communicate in an informal setting, contributes to the emergence of an atmosphere of trust, moral comfort, the desire to give in to a dispute, to endure some inconvenience for oneself personally, if it is extremely important for the business. Collaborative relationships have a lot of advantages and benefits for joint business, fighting competitors, increasing productivity, retaining employees in the organization and preventing staff turnover.

At the same time, over time, interaction based on cooperation begins to acquire a conservative character. People, having studied each other’s capabilities and character traits, imagine what should be expected from each person in a particular situation. Elements of routine arise, the stability of relationships becomes stagnant, giving rise to the need to maintain the status quo. Group members begin to fear change and do not want it. It is worth noting that they already have a set of standard, time-tested solutions in almost any situation, have established relationships with the entire system of multilateral relations in society, and know their suppliers of raw materials, informants, designers, and representatives of government agencies. There is no way for newcomers to the group; new ideas do not penetrate into the blocked social space. The group begins to deteriorate.

Interaction based on rivalry(competition) is one of the most general types of interaction, the opposite of cooperation.
It is worth noting that the peculiarity of rivalry is that people have the same goals, but pursue different interests. For example, several companies are vying for an order to build a large bridge across the Volga. They have the same goal - to get an order, but their interests are different. Two young men love the same girl, they have the same goal - to achieve her favor, but their interests are opposite.

Rivalry or competition is the basis market relations. In this struggle for income, feelings of hostility, anger towards the opponent, hatred, fear arise, as well as the desire to get ahead of him at all costs. The victory of one often means disaster for the other, loss of prestige, good work, and prosperity. Envy of a successful rival can be so strong that a person commits a crime - hires killers to eliminate a competitor, steals the necessary documents, i.e. goes into conflict. It must be remembered that such cases are a fairly common phenomenon, they are widely represented in the literature (T. Dreiser, J. Galsworthy, V.Ya. Shishkov and other writers), they are written about in newspapers, they are discussed on television. The most effective means of limiting this kind of competition is the adoption and implementation of laws and the proper education of a person. In economics - the adoption of a series of antimonopoly laws; in politics - the principle of separation of powers and the presence of opposition, a free press; in the sphere of spiritual life - the dissemination in society of the ideals of goodness and mercy, universal moral values. At the same time, the spirit of competition will be an incentive in business and in general in any work that does not allow a person to rest on his laurels.

Conflict- open, direct confrontation, sometimes armed. In the latter case, we can talk about a revolution, an armed uprising, a riot, or mass unrest. For example, after the mass unrest that engulfed Chisinau in 2009 and Bishkek in 2010, there was a change of government in Moldova and Kyrgyzstan. Preventing violent conflicts, struggles that harm people and disrupt public order, will be the task of the state. Studying the problem of social interaction, sociologists, in particular T. Parsons, developed the doctrine of balance of the social system, which is a decisive condition for the preservation of the system and its viability. A system is stable or in relative equilibrium if the relationships between its structure and the processes occurring within it, and between it and the environment are such that properties and relationships remain unchanged.

At the same time, there is another view that contains an explanation of the conflict not only as a negative, but also as a positive element of social life.

Thus, social action will be such a human action that correlates with the actions of other people and is oriented towards them. Social action is a constitutive element, a “unit” of social reality. The material was published on http://site
Many sociologists (for example, M. Weber, T. Parsons) saw in it the starting point of the entire system public relations. Sustained and systematic performance of actions that involves feedback is called social interaction. Social interaction is traditionally expressed in the form of cooperation, competition or conflict.