Personal history
Blumer was born March 7, 1900, inProfessional football career
During much of the period that Blumer was at the University of Chicago from, 1925 through 1933, including all of the years that he was completing his doctorate, Blumer played football professionally for theIntellectual contributions
Symbolic interactionism
Although Blumer devised the term ''symbolic interaction'' in 1937, the early development of this theoretical approach to social analysis is largely credited to the work of George Herbert Mead during his time at theBlumer's 3 types of objects
The importance of thinking to symbolic interactionists is shown through their views on objects. Blumer defined objects as the things "out there" in the world. The significance of objects is how they are defined by the actor. In other words, different objects have different meanings depending on the individual. *Physical (a chair, a tree) *Social (student, mother, friend) *Abstract (ideas or moral principals)Summary principles of symbolic interactionism
*Human beings are capable of thought. *This capacity for thought is shaped by social interaction. *We learn the meanings and the symbols through social interaction, exercising the human capacity for thought. *These meanings and symbols provide the basis for distinctive human action and interaction. *Modification of meanings and symbols occur through the interpretation of situations. *Humans' capability of modification is due to their ability to interact with themselves. *The intertwining of interaction and action make up groups and societies.Methodological contributions to sociology
According to Herbert Blumer, the most valid and desirable social research is conducted through qualitative, ethnographic methodology. He persistently critiqued the idea that the only form of valid knowledge is derived through a totally objective perspective. Blumer believed that theoretical and methodological approaches to studying human behavior must acknowledge human beings as thinking, acting, and interacting individuals and also must employ that they represent the humanly known, socially created, and experienced world. As this directly challenges the thought process of traditional, positivism-based approach to the sociological method, much controversy surrounds Blumer's sociological approach to empirical research. Blumer believed that when positivistic methods were applied to social research, they created results that were ignorant to the empirical realities of the social world. Because people act towards the world based on the subjective meanings they attribute to different objects (symbolic interactionism), individuals construct worlds that are inherently subjective. Therefore, "objective" analysis is intrinsically subjugated to the researcher's own social reality, only documents the researchers own personal assumptions about social interaction, and ultimately yields biased findings. For a researcher to truly understand sociological phenomena, Blumer asserted, they must understand their subject's subjective interpretations of reality. Following this logic, Blumer discounted social research that blindly applies methods that have been traditionally used in the natural sciences. Such quantitative, objective analysis, he argued, does not acknowledge the difference between humans and animals – specifically the difference in cognitive ability to consciously entertain opinions and to apply meanings to objects, both of which enabled humans to take an active role in shaping their world. Because society is composed of interactions between individuals or "joint actions/transactions", the only empirical reality is that which stems from human interaction. Therefore, contextual understanding of human action is intrinsic to valid social research. Thus Blumer advocated for sociological research that sympathetically and subjectively incorporates the viewpoints of the subject, therefore pushing for a micro-sociological approach. Concluding that there is little validity in research that attempted to understand the social world objectively, Blumer felt that objective interpretations of society are intrinsically bias to the researchers social location and thus have little empirical value. To truthfully uncover the social realities of individuals different from one's self, an observer must be mindful of their framework and be open to different understandings of social reality.Macrostructures and microstructures
Blumer believed that society is not made up of macrostructures, but rather that the essence of society is found in microstructures, specifically in actors and their actions. These microstructures are not isolated, but consist of the collective action of combination, giving rise to the concept of joint action. Joint action is not just the sum of individual actions, but takes on a character of its own. Blumer did not reject the idea of macrostructures, but instead focused on the concept of emergence, a concept that focuses on our larger social structures emerging from the smaller. Blumer admitted that macrostructures are important, but that they have an extremely limited role in symbolic interactionism. Therefore, he argued that macrostructures are a little more than "frameworks" within which the really important aspects of social life (action and interaction) take place. Moreover, according to Blumer, macrostructures are important because they shape the situations in which individuals act and supply to actors a certain set of symbols that allow them to act. Also, he did not deny systems such as culture and social order. In sum, Blumer said that large scale structures are the frameworks for what is crucial in society, action, and interaction. He is not denying that social structures influence our actions, just that they do not determine our actions.Techniques Blumer advocated
Through Blumer's works and his focus on symbolic interactionism and methods of social research, he advocated modern techniques to aid people in further understanding society as well as the ability to navigate it. Blumer advocated direct observation of social life, interviewing and listening to people's conversations, listening to the radio and watching television, reading newspapers, reading diaries, letters, and other written life histories, reading public records, and finding well-informed participants. These techniques advocated by Blumer were seen as vital to help in people's understanding of society.Sociological analysis and the "variable"
In 1952, Herbert Blumer became President of the American Sociological Association and his Presidential Address was his paper "Sociological Analysis and the 'Variable'". In this paper, Blumer addresses the shortcomings with variable analysis that he sees in social research. Herbert Blumer says, "there is a conspicuous absence of rules, guides, limitations, and prohibitions to govern the choice of variables." Overall, he felt that variable analysis needed to be looked at more carefully and precisely to see if the variables are correct and connected to the social research at hand. Generic variables Blumer does not find generic: * The frequent variable that stands for a class of object that is tied down to a given historical and cultural situation. * Abstract sociological categories. Example- "social integration" * Special set of class terms. Examples- "Age, time, authority" Blumer believed these shortcomings are serious but not crucial, and that with increased experience they can be overcome. This address was meant to question how well variable analysis is suited to the study of human group life in its fuller dimensions.Blumer's criticisms of Thomas and Znaniecki
In 1939, Blumer published ''Critiques of Research in the Social Sciences: An Appraisal of Thomas and Znaniecki's "The Polish Peasant in Europe and America"'', criticizing what, at the time, was a popular social theory. Blumer claimed that Thomas and Znaniecki failed to properly distinguish between attitude as subjective and value as a societal collective element. He said they used the terms interchangeably, therefore making the theory unreliable. It is difficult to disentangle subjective factors and objective correlates because the objective world is dealt with only to the extent that it enters subjective experiences. Blumer said, In conclusion, Blumer recognized that in society there was no clear distinction between attitude and value, and that even social theorists have difficulty distinguishing between the two.Collective behavior
Based on the work ofRelationship with George Herbert Mead
Blumer is well known for his connection with George Herbert Mead. Blumer was a follower of Mead's social-psychological work on the relationship between self and society, and Mead heavily influenced Blumer's development of Symbolic Interactionism. Mead transferred the subject field of social psychology to Blumer's sociology. One important aspect Blumer learned from Mead was that in order for us to understand the meaning of social actions, we must put ourselves in others' shoes to truly understand what social symbols they feel to be important. However, Blumer also deviated from Mead's work. Blumer was a proponent of a more micro-focused approach to sociology and focused on the subjective consciousness and symbolic meanings of individuals.Influence of Charles Ellwood
Blumer’s initial interest in social interactionism came from his thesis advisor at Missouri, Charles Ellwood. Ellwood’s thesis, “Theory of Social Revolutions” (1922), ignited a passion for social psychological dynamics that persisted throughout Blumer’s life. Ellwood introduced Blumer to others such as John Dewey and George Herbert Mead. Similar to George Mead, sociologist Charles Ellwood also influenced the development of Herbert Blumer and symbolic interactionism. There are four prominent areas where Ellwood's ideas can be found in both Blumer's work and symbolic interactionism: interactionism, methodology, emotions, and group behavior. The concepts of "interstimulation and response," "intercommunication," and "coadaptation" function in Ellwood's social psychology in the same way that "self-indications" and "interpretations" are found in Blumer's symbolic interactionism. There are six areas where Ellwood and Blumer are similar when addressing methodology: studying human behavior in context, a disdain for the physical science method, understanding the people being studied, using sociology to assist humanity, using inductive reasoning, and avoiding hypotheses. Looking at their ideas on emotion, both Ellwood's and Blumer's ideas deal with the relationship between emotion and interaction, with Ellwood stating, "all our social life and social behavior are not only embedded in feeling, but largely guided and controlled by feeling." Similar to that, Blumer states that, "feeling is intrinsic to every social attitude." Both Ellwood and Blumer were social nominalists and positioned that reality is reduced to properties of individuals and their interrelations.Scholarly critiques of Blumer
Many have argued that Blumer's theory is a simplified and distorted version of Mead's. Many contemporary positions see "Blumerian interactionism" as "old hat," because it is gender blind (as argued by feminists) and is too conservative. In Blumers study “Movies and Conduct” (1933), Blumer made a contribution to sociology by developing an observational methodology that relied on a cinematic sense of vision and was known as symbolic interactionism. By eliminating all references to the visual erotic that made up early cinema, as well as the psychoanalytic interpretation of the subject, this paradigm claimed a scientific objectivity for social observation. Due to this, a study through feminist film study claims Blumer’s methodology presents itself as “sexless.” It is also contested that symbolic interaction needs to adopt an agenda that takes race, class and gender into consideration more. Moreover, it is argued that the social constructionist perspective of Blumerian interactionism provides an "over-socialized" account of human life, and downplays and ignores our unconscious.Theory of symbolic interaction
Blumer's theory of symbolic interaction, although fascinating, received criticism on its subjectivity and emphasis on different aspects of society. His theory was said to be too subjective and that it had too much emphasis on day-to-day life and the social formation of the individual while ignoring social structure. Further criticism based on its disregard of social structure, said symbolic interactionism deflects attention away from the impact social structures have on individual behavior. These social structures being things such as the state, culture, and the economy. Symbolic interaction was also said to tend to ignore class relations and the restraints brought about by differing social classes. Blumer himself was at fault, in some part, for criticism because he refused advice to include substantive papers in his book. He wanted to restrict the volume to more general topics which caused a large amount of criticism.Perspective of empirical research
* Methodological contributions are hard to implement in practice * Since Blumer rejected the behaviorist approach to the study of meaning, societal research within a symbolic interactionist framework poses empirical challengesApplications of Blumer's theories
Blumer & the DBO Model
Reza Azarian uses Herbert Blumer's concept of the definition of the situation to improve the already-existing framework of the Desire-Belief-Opportunity model of Analytic Sociology. This work seeks to create a more empirical base for the DBO model to operate upon. Since Analytic Sociology stresses the individual, just as Blumer stresses the acting unit, Azarian writes that Blumer's framework can aid in determining the actor's perception and set of actions in response to a situation. The DBO model is mainly criticized for lacking analytical specification and empirical validation.Blumer & Collective Emotion
Ashley Reichelmann connects Blumer's GPT (Group Position Theory) and views on perceived, prejudiced threat to the current studies on racial threat. Reichelmann demonstrates how experimental research design and quantitative measure can be used to capture threats as Blumer outlines them. She illustrates that collective threat is distinct from other collective emotions, using factor analyses and regression, and operates according to Blumer’s theoretical predictions. Reichelmann writes that there is a gap between Blumer's framework and the methodologies of current sociologists and hopes that the use of Blumer's ideas will bridge the gap by identifying current tensions as a type of collective emotion.Selected works
*''Movies, Delinquency, and Crime'' (1933) *''Movies and Conduct''. New York, Macmillan and Company (1933)References
Further reading
* * * * * * * * * Hammersley, Martyn (1989). ''The Dilemma of Qualitative Method: Herbert Blumer and the Chicago Tradition.'' London: Routledge. * Hammersley, Martyn (1989) "The Problem of the Concept: Herbert Blumer on the relationship between concepts and data". ''Journal of Contemporary Ethnography'' 18 (2): 133–159. * * * *External links