Symbolic Interactionism has its roots in the teachings of Charles Cooley and George Herbert Mead. American sociologist Charles Cooley was influenced by the philosophical ideas of the transcendentalism of Henry Thoreau and Ralph Emerson, the pragmatism of William James and John Dewey, as well as the sociology of Herbert Spencer. Cooley believed that the explanation of society must be based on individual psychology and social psychology. In the book Human Nature and the Social Order (1902), Cooley starts from the concept of the self, introduced by William James, and examines the development of the self through symbolically mediated interaction. There are three progressive stages in self-development.

In the first phase, biologically implanted spontaneity and activity come to the fore; in the second phase, the "social self" develops, when the views of others are absorbed; the third phase is the development of the "looking glass self", which is created by imagining and interpreting the world around us. Looking glass self has three elements: our idea of ​​how we look to another person; imagining what judgment that other person has of our appearance; and our emotional reaction to that person’s attitude toward us (pride, shame). Cooley rejects the dualism of the individual and society because both contain collective and individual aspects of the same phenomenon. Similarly, he believes that people always exhibit tendencies of individuality and sociality, that’s why it is impossible to separate them. Both tendencies are complementary and arise simultaneously during the development of the self. What mediates between the self and society is "communication" and "understanding". Cooley believes that the self does not have complete autonomy, as the utilitarians believed, nor is it completely determined by social values ​​and norms.

American philosopher, psychologist, and sociologist. George Herbert Mead was influenced by W. James' philosophy of pragmatism, Wilhelm Wundt's psychology, Dilthey's philosophy and sociology, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, and long-term intellectual collaboration with John Dewey. In Mead's theory, the most important theoretical concept is the "self". The self is partly based on human biology, but it really develops only through participation in "social acts".

Social acts are those in which at least two people participate, and all social acts consist of five basic components: 1) roles, 2) attitudes, 3) significant speech, 4) attitudinal assumption, and 5) social objects. In order to perform social acts, actors must take on certain social roles, and that is why those roles form the basis of individual acts. Attitudes represent readiness, that is, the competence to perform roles. This means that each specific role is inextricably linked to the specific attitudes that enable the performance of that role. Mead uses the term "significant speech" as a synonym for language. Attitudinal assumptions are assumptions about the roles and attitudes of other people, which a person makes to be able to adjust his or her behavior within a social act in which all actors participate. Social objects represent the usual attitudes that participants take to perform a social act. All these components of the social act must be realized in order to achieve a "congruent plan of action " to successfully complete the social act.

The self and the mind exist only in relation to the social group to which they belong, both are created through conscious participation in everyday social life, so both are, thus, social creations of everyday life. The self is partly based on an innate biological basis, but it is really formed only in social life, through participation in social acts, and then the self begins to identify itself as a subject. There are two elements of the self that are in a dialectical relationship - "I" and "me". The "I" is created by preparation for the performation of social acts, or by adapting attitudes and expressing them within social roles. "Me" represents the views and attitudes of other participants in a social act that we take on while playing a social role. „I“ is the body's response to the views of others; „me“ is organized through the attitudes of others that someone takes over. "Me" influences the manifestation of "I" in social acts. However, each participant can accept, reject or adjust the views of other people in the process of expressing their "I" within the social act.

In addition, how we express ourselves, through social acts, also depends on the assumptions we make about other people's attitudes, and those assumptions affect our own attitudes. Precisely because the self must take into account all these attitudes, Mead believed that the main feature of the self is its „reflexivness“. Reflexivness represents the adoption of the experience of the individual upon himself or herself, in order to be able to take the attitude of the other toward him or her. “(Reflexiveness) is the essential condition, within the social process, for the development of mind.” (1934). Reflexivness or selfinteraction is partly an internal, psychological phenomenon, but mostly is a social process through which self arises.

                              Mead on Social Institutions

The wider society is structured through social institutions that represent a special form of social action. Social institutions serve to satisfy constant socio-psychological impulses by regulating their manifestation. Social institutions and „institutional social acts“ are formed through constant repetition because that is how they gain their stability. However, through individual creativity, these institutions can take on a new look and form. In such cases, the "I" bypasses the imperatives set by the "me" and that is how new social objects are formed. Social institutions are necessary for the formation of society because, without them, society would be just a collection of disorganized masses of people. Institutions differ in the size of "social participation" in them. Some social institutions have large participation, that is, a large number of members of society, or all members, participate in them. On the other hand, in some institutions, only a small number of members of society participate. Institutions with the highest social participation emerged in the earliest periods of social evolution, while institutions with the lowest participation emerged at the latest. There are six basic social institutions that emerged in the following evolutionary order: 1) language, 2) family, 3) economy, 4) religion, 5) polity, and 6) science.

                       Mead on Language and Socialization

Mead considered language to be the most important social institution. Language enabled the development of „human sociality“ and was the basis for the emergence of all other institutions. Verbal communication enabled the acceleration of social evolution in a period in which cooperation was becoming increasingly important for the survival and progress of society. Language enables people to develop „reflexive selves“, to talk to themselves, to put themselves in the position of other people and thus interpret their actions, as well as to take over the views of other people. Symbolic communication, which takes place through language or non-verbal communication, enables the construction of a social world (attitudes, roles, and institutions), but it also plays a key role in shaping the individual mind. In this sense, the two key elements of the self are its reflexive nature and its ability to develop symbolic forms of communication. Language and other forms of symbolic communication enable communication that is mediated by "significant actions", self-conscious acts by which we distinguish human from inhuman behavior.

There are two phases in the process of socialization of a child, through which his self is formed. In the earliest period of development, the child is in the "play" phase. During the "play", the child internalizes and imitates certain roles that are related to various social acts. In this phase, it takes on various social roles by taking on, during the play, the role of doctor, warrior, mother, father, or any other role. In the second phase, which Mead called a "game", the child internalizes the roles of all other people who participate in the game. In this way, the child develops a highly organized set of rules that shape different roles. When this process is completed, the child becomes able to see himself from the perspective of other actors. By assimilating the roles of others, the child takes on collective roles. The group that represents the source of socialization, i.e. the source for learning these collective roles, Mead calls "generalized others". An organized and united self is created by successfully taking over the views of the group to which it belongs, that is, generalized others. Both social acts and the self have elements of stability, but they also show great reflexivity and creativity.

                      Herbert Blumer and Symbolic Interaction

American social psychologist and sociologist Herbert Blumer began as a student of George H. Mead and became one of his most important followers and successors. In 1937, Blumer coined the term symbolic interaction, which later gave the whole theoretical direction named "symbolic interactionism". Symbolic interaction refers to the fact that human interaction is always mediated by symbols.

Blumer adopts Mead's concept of "self," that is, man's ability to act in relation to himself. The ability to act in relation to oneself allows one to know the outside world. People face the outside world through the mechanism of self-indication, and that mechanism enables the interpretation of other people's actions. It follows that symbolic interaction is a psychological process through which individuals interpret the meaning of other people's actions. People try to "negotiate" different social situations that they encounter in everyday life and that produce new meanings and interpretations. These new meanings and interpretations enable man to react back to the surrounding phenomena, rejecting, accepting, or transforming existing patterns. Language is a mechanism for producing and symbolizing objects. Meaning is not inherent in the objects themselves but arises through symbolic interaction. The meaning is not fixed but is fluid and is constantly being rebuilt in relation to the world of objects. Group action is, in essence, the mutual alignment of individual directions of action.

Blumer creates a recursive theory of social structure and social action, a sociological theory that studies the dialectical relationships between social structures and human interpretive processes. Human behavior, mediated by symbolic interaction, creates social structures. The basic factors of human society are "units of action", and these can be individuals or collectives whose members work together to achieve a common goal. Blumer believes that social classes in modern society do not have empirically observable activities, and therefore do not form units of action. The experience of previous interaction and mutual understanding leads to the fact that all people define most situations in the same way. Culture, social structure, and social roles shape the situations in which human action takes place, and create sets of fixed symbols by which people interpret the situation, but people always act only in relation to the situation.

             Other representatives of Symbolic Interactionism

Gary Alan Fine's scientific work takes place within the paradigm of symbolic interactionism. In his research work, he dealt with many topics: gossip, social games inspired by epic fiction, adolescents and their culture, games, social psychology, the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms, symbols, art, and chess. His greatest theoretical contribution is the introduction of the term "idioculture" in sociology. According to Fine, idioculture is a system of knowledge, beliefs, behaviors, and customs shared by members of a small interactive group and forms the core of the production of the cultural content of a group. The scientific use of this concept enables focusing on interactions that can be empirically observed. Fine studies group dynamics, as well as the processes by which a cultural pattern becomes part of idioculture. To become a part of idioculture, a pattern must be: known to all members of the group, usable, functional, appropriate, and challenging.

Edwin Lemert is best known for his study of deviant behavior from the standpoint of symbolic interactionism. He singles out three key processes relevant to deviant behavior. The first is “differentiation”, the removal of an individual's behavior from the norm of the environment in which he finds himself. The second process is the “social reaction” to such behavior of the individual. The social reaction includes expressing emotional reactions to deviant behavior, but also specific activities of others caused by the deviant behavior of the individual. The third process is “individuation”, the manifestation of the cause of deviance. Individuation consists of primary deviance, which is originally deviant behavior normalized by individuals; and secondary deviance, which is a response to environmental reactions to primary deviant behavior. Lemert's “labeling theory”, which he calls the theory of social reaction, derives from the theory of deviant behavior. Central to his labeling theory is that society's reaction to a person's primary deviance most often leads to the intensification and consolidation of that person's deviant behavior. Lemert studied many forms of deviant behavior: alcoholism, speech impediments, mental illness, and financial fraud.

Kenneth Plummer is best known for his study of homosexuality from the perspective of symbolic interactionism. Plummer further developed the labeling theory of deviant behavior given by Howard Becker. Plummer distinguishes social deviance, as behavior that the majority in society considers deviant, and, on the other hand, situational deviance where the same behavior can be considered deviant or not, in relation to the situation and the person who exhibits such behavior. Plummer believes that the critiques of interactionism, which claim that this approach does not study the causes of deviant behavior and that this approach is deterministic, are unfounded. He points out that the interactionist perspective studies the choices that people make, and the struggle that people, who are labeled as deviants, have, so they can avoid such a status.

Plummer sees sexual preferences as a social construction. Sexual practices are less a matter of biology and are more defined by a complex network of social interactions and definitions. He states that ‘‘Sexuality has no meaning other than that given to it in social situations. Thus the forms and the contents of sexual meanings are another cultural variable, and why certain meanings are learnt and not others is problematic’’ (1981).  In this context, he also develops the idea of ​​“sexual citizenship” or "intimate citizenship" to emphasize the social and political aspects of sexuality in the conditions of heteronormativity that permeates all social institutions. In the study Sexual Stigma (1975), he singled out the four most common types of homosexual behavior in Western culture: incidental homosexuality, situational activities (in isolated situations, such as prisons), personalized homosexuality (homosexuality practiced in private life but hidden from public) and homosexuality as a way of life. Plummer proposes that the process of building different kinds of individual sexual identity goes through four stages: sensitization, signification, subculturalization, and stabilization.

American sociologist and social psychologist Anselm Strauss was a supporter of symbolic interactionism and applied this approach to the development of middle-range theories. Strauss, in collaboration with sociologist Barney Glaser, used symbolic interactionism as a basis for their methodological-theoretical approach known as "grounded theory". Strauss contributed to the development of several areas of sociology: medical sociology, sociology of work, urban sociology, sociology of organizations, sociology of education, as well as social psychology. For Strauss's symbolic interactionism, it is crucial to understand the meaning that actors attach to themselves and their actions.

In his essay Mirrors and Masks: The Search for Identity (1959), Strauss views identity as a way in which individuals organize ideas and theoretical insights into social processes and their symbolic meaning. Language has a dominant role in building a person's individual and social identities and in shaping their behavior. Language enables individuals to understand and evaluate their own selves, other people, objects, and events, and to position themselves in society, all of which allow them to direct their own behavior. Strauss applied symbolic interactionism to the meso-levels of society, primarily to organizations and institutions.

In his book Negotiations: Varieties, Contexts, and Social Order (1978), Strauss introduces the concept of “negotiated order” (which Strauss later renamed „processual order“) to explain how social order emerges within organizations. Individuals within organizations negotiate order during individual or collective interactions. The social order is not permanent within organizations but is constantly being re-created. Specific power relations, established and implied norms, and routines, are constantly questioned and fragmented, and symbolic interaction enables negotiation and agreement on a new social order. Situations that most often lead to negotiations within organizations are: when there is ambiguity about the application of procedures, when different actors (individual or group) define organizational routines and procedures differently, when there are differences in defining problems, and when it is necessary to introduce exceptions for previously established procedures. Once new procedures are introduced, they become the organizational background for later negotiations.

The concept of negotiated order enables historical analysis of organizations because it emphasizes the importance of previous development of the organization and how that development influenced the negotiation of order in it, in order to understand the current state of the organization. In addition, this concept allows merging micro and macro perspectives, because the analysis starts, on the one hand, with interpersonal relationships, while, on the other hand, the concept can be applied to relationships between different organizations, professions, sectors of the economy and even on relations between different nations. Strauss also introduces the concept of "social worlds" as a unit for theoretical analysis of negotiations at the macro level. Social worlds represent social structures, which consist of organizations and interest groups within a field (religion, economy, science, media, etc.), and which negotiate the social order within that field (social world).

In her book The Managed Heart (1983), Arlie Hochschild observes how social structure, symbolic interaction, and ideology shape human emotions and their expression. She believes that there is an essential gender difference (strategy) between the expression of emotions in women and men. Public ideologies of emotions shape private emotional experiences. Class position and ethnicity also influence the shaping and expression of emotions. Emotions have a signal communicative function because they define the position of an individual within a situation, as well as social expectations related to a situation. Hochschild views the expression of emotions as a human activity (emotion-management) that is culturally determined, in order to express the anticipated emotions in each situation, but also the right amount of emotions.

She divides emotional activity into „emotional work“, which manifests itself in a private context, and „emotional labor“, which manifests itself in a public social context. Emotional labor is most pronounced in the formal workplace, where it represents an extension of the capitalist desire to regulate interpersonal relationships in the workplace, which is especially evident in service activities. She also studies how the market influences the transformation of private emotional life in love and kinship relationships and concludes that human relationships are being commercialized. Social movements that act anti-systemically refuse to express emotions in accordance with the dominant social code, so emotions themselves become part of the social struggle.

American sociologist Norman Denzin began his sociological opus under the auspices of symbolic interactionism, only to later develop his own approach, which he called "interpretive interactionism." Denzin was mostly engaged in qualitative research of social phenomena, so interpretive interactionism focuses on, above all, his epistemological approach to qualitative research. Denzin combines the influences of symbolic interactionism, hermeneutics, feminism, and postmodernism, in order to develop an approach to qualitative research that emphasizes subjective and biographical elements. Interpretive interactionism views the very act of interpretation as a communicative act with oneself. He believes that there is no way to reach a completely objective knowledge of one's inner life because linguistic communication itself is unstable and fluid. Both interviews and biographies (two methods that Denzin carefully studied) represent only an interpretation of people's real experiences - respondents re-create their own experiences by talking about themselves, and then the researcher recreates that experience based on his previous experience.

Other notable representatives of symbolic interactionism are Carl Couch, Fred Davis, Eliot Friedson, Barney G, Glaser, Leslie Irvine, Manford Kuhn, Helena Lopata, Barry Schwartz, Michael Schwalbe, Tamotsu Shibutani, Sheldon Stryker, and Turner Ralph.

Books:

Blumer, Herbert George. Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method (1969);

Cooley, Charles. Human Nature and the Social Order (1902);

Denzin, Norman. On Understanding Emotion (1984);

     -     Interpretive Biography (1989);

     -     The Alcoholic Self (1993);

Hochschild, Arlie Russell. The Managed Heart (1983);

Lemert, Edwin. Social Pathology: A Systematic Approach to the Theory of Sociopathic Behavior (1951);

     -     Human Deviance, Social Problems, and Social Control (1967);

Fine, Gary Alan. Symbols, Selves and Social Life: A Symbolic Interactionist Approach to Sociology and Social Psychology (2013);

Mead. Mind, Self, and Society: From the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist (1934);

     -     The Philosophy of the Act (1938);

     -     George Herbert Mead: On Social Psychology (1956);

     -     The Philosophy of the Present (1959);

Plummer, Kenneth. Sexual Stigma (1975);

Strauss, Anselm. Mirrors and Masks: The Search for Identity (1959);

     -     Negotiations: Varieties, Contexts, and Social Order (1978);