Sociological Theories of Religion: Symbolic Interactionism

The symbolic interaction perspective posits that one's self concept is created through the interpretation of the symbolic gestures, words, actions, and appearances of others that are observed during social interactions. This perspective considers immediate social interactions to be the place where society exists. In this view, humans give meaning to their behavior through reflection and interpret the meaning of behaviors, events, and things. Symbolic interactionists study society through the interpretation of objects, events, and behaviors by the members of that society. The symbolic interactionist perspective assumes that social order is constantly being negotiated and recreated through the interpretations of the people who give it meaning. This is a helpful construct to better understand differences that arise in interpretation of religious tenets or writings and other difficulties encountered in religious circles.

Keywords Conflict Perspective; Denomination; Eisegesis; Exegesis; Functionalism; Personal Identity; Religion; Social Identity; Symbolic Interactionism; Vatican II

Sociology of Religion > Sociological Theories of Religion: Symbolic Interactionism

Overview

Symbolic Interactionism

Symbolic interactionism is a theoretical framework that assumes that one's self-concept is created through the interpretation of the symbolic gestures, words, actions, and appearances of others as observed during social interactions. Along with the conflict perspective and the structural functional perspective, symbolic interactionism is one of the three major frameworks for sociological theory. As opposed to these other two perspectives, the symbolic interactionist perspective considers immediate social interactions to be the place where society exists. According to this perspective, humans give meaning to their behavior through reflection and interpret the meaning of behaviors, events, and things in this manner. Therefore, the symbolic interactionist perspective examines the subjective meanings that individuals impose on objects, events, and behaviors because this is what people believe to be true (as opposed to what is objectively true). From the symbolic interactionist perspective, therefore, society is constructed by the interpretation of objects, events, and behaviors by the members of that society. Further, this perspective posits that meaning is constantly modified through social behavior in order to better reflect "reality" as interpreted by its members. As people interpret each other's behavior, social bonds are formed (Andersen & Taylor, 2002).

The symbolic interactionist perspective assumes that social order is constantly being negotiated and recreated through the interpretations of the people who give it meaning. Since society is, therefore, in a constant state of flux, symbolic interactionists do not look for "truth," but look instead for social constructions or the meanings that are attached to various things and actions including concrete symbols and nonverbal behavior. Further, the construct "society," from a symbolic interactionist point of view, is highly subjective, existing only in the minds of its members, despite the fact that its effects are real and observable. This emphasis on subjectivity has been one of the major criticisms of the symbolic interactionist perspective (Andersen & Taylor, 2002).

Using this framework, religion is seen as a socially constructed reality in which the sacred provides security and permanence for society as long as its members do not realize that religion is socially constructed. Symbolic interactionists believe that religion is socially constructed and emerges when there is historical or social change. In this sociological view of religion, religious practices and rituals are viewed as symbolic activities that help define the identities of individuals and groups. Religious beliefs, therefore, are viewed as being subject to interpretation.

In general, the symbolic interactionist approach to understanding sociological phenomena tries to answer the question of how action and belief are socially constructed and how these help people form a collective religious identity. Because of the wealth of symbol and ritual in most religions, therefore, religion is an excellent area of study for the application of symbolic interactionism. The symbolic interaction perspective recognizes the fact that various religious beliefs and practices arise out of different social or historical contexts. As a result, symbolic interactionism takes into account these contexts in order to better understand the framework in which religious behavior occurs.

Constructing Meaning

When applied to religion, one of the emphases of the symbolic interactionist perspective is on meaning construction. This emphasis helps those applying the symbolic interactionist perspective to explain conundrums that cannot be well answered using other perspectives, such as how the same body of religious faith in a text (such as the Bible) can be differently interpreted either by different groups in different places or at different times within the same religion. For example, by definition, adherents of the Christian religion hold in common certain tenets and beliefs based on the scriptural texts (i.e., the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament). Not all Christians, however, interpret all passages within this canon in the same way. For example, archaeological evidence has revealed that the early church supported the ordination of women to both the priesthood and the bishopric. Over time, this practice changed until eventually only men were allowed to become clergy. However, with the rise of the women's liberation movement in the 1960s and 1970s, an increasing number of individuals within Christianity began to rethink the prohibition against women clergy. As a result, a number of Protestant religions and churches today do ordain women and within some denominations women are even allowed to be ordained to the bishopric.

However, this is not a universal state of affairs within Christianity. The Roman Catholic Church, for example, still does not ordain women deacons or priests. The Southern Baptist Convention allowed the ordination of women as ministers during much of the latter half of the twentieth century. However, in the 1990s, they rescinded this permission. Since the Southern Baptist denomination is Congregational in nature, the selection of individuals for ordination is left up to the individual churches. As a result, many individual Southern Baptist churches even today continue to ordain women, even though the denomination as a whole has demanded that ordination of women be rescinded. The symbolic interactionist perspective would explain these phenomena by positing that religious texts do not define the entirety of "truth" but rather have meaning and implications from their interpretation by various social actors (e.g., clergy, denominational leaders, men, women).

From the symbolic interactionist perspective, religious texts are seen as only one religious meaning system. This view, for example, can explain such current debates in ecclesiastical circles as the disagreements among the worldwide Anglican Communion over the ordination of individuals who are openly homosexual. Using the same scriptural texts, a liberal group within the Episcopal Church (the American branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion) ordained an openly gay man to the bishopric due to their interpretation of Christian scripture as a living document that is best interpreted in view of contemporary society. Some conservative Episcopal churches (and the majority of other churches within the worldwide Anglican Communion), on the other hand, disagree with this approach to interpretation of scripture as well as with the interpretation itself. As a result, some of the more conservative churches have seceded from the Episcopal Church and some pundits predict that a schism between the Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion may occur. This fluid view of sacred texts, of course, is not universally hailed. Many Christians view the sacred texts as the immutable word of God that can be interpreted only after careful exegesis in order to understand the truth of the matter. From the symbolic interactionist perspective, truth itself is not immutable so that interpretation of sacred texts needs to be done in light of current thinking. This leads to accusations of eisegesis and heterodoxy from those who view society from different perspectives.

The symbolic interactionist perspective is not only applicable to the Christian religion. Within Islam, for example, some individuals and groups believe that the Islamic faith mandates the second-class position of women within society while others believe that Islam provides a more egalitarian view of the positions of men and women within society. As with the examples cited above within the Christian religion, this situation is also a matter of the interpretation of sacred texts and the tenets of the religion. Through the application of the symbolic interactionist perspective, therefore, one can understand how some Islamic feminists can support efforts to make women more equal to men within Islamic society without rejecting the Islamic faith.

Applications

Personal Identity & Symbolic Religious Dress

Michelman (1997) examined the change in dress of Roman Catholic women religious (i.e., noncloistered nuns) from a symbolic interactionist perspective in order to better understand how the change in religious habit following the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council (Vatican II) in the 1960s. Michelman's research used symbolic interactionism as a framework to examine how the social identity symbolized by a religious habit communicated an image that was incompatible with the personal identitites of the women who wore them. Her study conducted open-ended interviews with twenty women religious who were members of active orders in western Massachusetts and were engaged in nursing and social service professions. Of these individuals, all but one had adopted secular dress during the period following Vatican II.

Much of the work using the symbolic interactionist framework has focused on personal identity, which assumes that one individual can be differentiated from all other individuals. Although this aspect of the symbolic interactionist framework has been frequently researched, the similarities and differences between personal and social identities have been addressed less often. Michelman's research provides much-needed data about this under investigated area of symbolic interactionism.

The study analyzed the attitudes of Roman Catholic women religious regarding their attitudes towards their change in dress from religious habit to secular attire following Vatican II. Prior to this time, women religious were required to wear full habits that covered them from neck to ankle, had long sleeves, covered their hair, and in general gave them a rather androgynous appearance. Prior to Vatican II, it was easy to distinguish a nun from other people by her habit. Because of their clothing, nuns were immediately recognized and afforded a certain perception associated with one who had devoted her life to the church. However, from an individual point of view, this association was not necessarily positive.

In Michelman's interviews, some of the women religious complained that wearing habits gave little privacy when working in the world (e.g., because people thought that the nuns were always ready to listen and did not need time for themselves) and brought with it negative connotations in the minds of many people that made it difficult for them to do their job. Further, many felt that the habits gave them a group social identity that inhibited the expression of their personal identity, and made them feel less than fully human. The fact that these women dressed in religious habit from the time they got dressed in the morning until they retired in the evening made personal and social identities completely congruous. In other words, by adopting the habit, women religious embraced a social identity that distanced them from communicating personal identities. All this changed following Vatican II, when ecclesiastical laws were changed and women religious were given the choice to wear secular clothing, a full habit, or a modified habit. Today, most women religious have adopted secular clothing, and full habits are typically worn only by cloistered nuns (Michelman, 1997).

Social vs. Personal Identity

According to symbolic interactionist theory, one's self is established, maintained, and altered through communication. Personal identity in this framework can be defined as self designations and attributions that occur during the course of an interaction. Some symbolic interactionists extend its perspective to include appearance as a nonverbal method of communication of individual identity. In this regard, the religious habit is most certainly a method of communication. Further, the religious habit can be seen as a type of uniform and, as such, is useful to communicate both personal and social identities. However, symbolic interactionist theory does not well address the tension between the personal and social identity of an individual. To expand the usefulness of the symbolic interactionist framework, Michelman's research focused on the management of the tensions between social and personal identities. Some symbolic interactionists theorize that identity is established by two processes: apposition (bringing together) and opposition (setting apart). Specifically, an individual as a social object is brought together with other social objects in a way that associates an individual with some of the objects and distances the individual from other objects. In other words, to have a social identity means that one is joined or associated with some while distanced or disassociated from others (what often refers to as role embracement and distancing).

According to symbolic interactionist theory, habits identify the individual as a member of a group and help ensure that the goals of that group will be met. For example, one woman interviewed in the study talked about making the announcement to 700 of her fellow religious that she was going to take the position of Director of Education for the order. Although it was after Vatican II and she had already adopted secular clothing, she made the conscious decision to wear a full habit to make the announcement at a meeting so that people would pay attention to her and not her clothing. In addition, wearing the habit gave her a level of perceived authority that she did not feel she would have if she had worn secular garb. Even she, however, saw this as a symbolic act. She went on to relate in her interview that as soon as the announcement was over, she went back to wearing secular clothing. This is often done in other professions. A police officer or member of the military will often wear his/her uniform in a work related context but wear "civvies" (i.e., non-uniform clothing) when not in that context. Similarly, Muslim women who wear a hijab or burqa in public remove it in private in front of family members. Before Vatican II, however, nuns were not allowed to do this. This, combined with their inherent isolation from much of the outside world, and resocialization into a total institution helped reinforce their social identities and diminish their individual identities.

Michelman's interviews revealed that the women religious in her sample had a great deal of ambivalence toward the relaxed dress code as a result of Vatican II. Although they felt that the change was positive from a personal perspective and that it gave them greater opportunities for personal development and growth, they concomitantly saw the change as negative because it created disorder and dissension regarding the group's social identity. In addition, one of the things a religious habit symbolized was the nun's vows of poverty and celibacy. The habit was an obvious symbol to the world of these vows. With the transition to secular clothing, however, this obvious symbol disappeared. A modified habit was designed to help ease the transition from a full habit to secular clothing. From a symbolic interactionist perspective, this allowed the women to embrace or distance themselves from the order in ways best suited to their individual needs. For example, those women desiring to continue to wear a full habit as a way to better identify themselves with their order were allowed to do so. Those who wanted to distance themselves partially were allowed to adopt a modified habit.

Issues

Symbolic Action & Identity

Changes in attire were not the only results of Vatican II. Other significant changes also occurred including a decentralization of authority within religious orders and the development of a new system that allowed personal financial responsibility. During the period of transition between full habit and secular attire, many of the women experienced profound conflicts over their attire and its meaning. In addition, during this period, the order deleted masculine references from their names (e.g., "Sister Mary Thomas"), a symbolic action that also distanced them from the patriarchy of the Church while simultaneously embracing their femininity and individuality.

Based on her interviews with the women religious, Michelman concluded that the change in attire from full habit to secular clothing precipitated by Vatican II also meant that many women religious distanced themselves from a traditional Roman Catholic social identity. As a result, they were able to embrace a new social identity that enabled them greater latitude in constructing their individual personal identities. However, this new freedom came at a price, and many women left religious orders during this time of transition.

Conclusion

The symbolic interaction perspective posits that one's self concept is created through the interpretation of symbolic gestures, words, actions, and appearances that are observed during social interactions. As opposed to the other two major perspectives that are often applied in attempts to understand religion, the symbolic interactionist perspective considers immediate social interactions to be the place where society exists. In this view, humans give meaning to their behavior through reflection and interpret the meaning of behaviors, events, and things. In this framework, society is studied through the interpretation of objects, events, and behaviors by the members of that society. This approach to understanding religion posits that meaning is constantly modified through social behavior in order to better reflect "reality" as interpreted by its members. The symbolic interactionist perspective assumes that social order is constantly being negotiated and recreated through the interpretations of the people who give it meaning. This is a helpful construct to better understand differences that arise in interpretation of religious tenets or writings and other difficulties encountered in religious circles that are not well explained by other theoretical frameworks.

Terms & Concepts

Conflict Perspective: An approach to analyzing social behavior that is based on the assumption that social behavior is best explained and understood in terms of conflict or tension between competing groups.

Denomination: A large group of congregations united under a common statement of faith and organized under a single legal and administrative hierarchy. Many individual congregations include the name of their denomination in the title of their church (e.g., First Baptist Church, St. Luke's Lutheran Church).

Eisegesis: An approach to the interpretation of scripture in which the interpreter tries to shapes the interpretation of a passage to fit his/her existing belief rather than adjusting the belief to match the exegesis of the passage. (The term eisegesis comes from the Greek, meaning to "lead in.")

Exegesis: The critical interpretation of a text in which the interpreter tries to understand the meaning of the text, typically in greater context. (The term exegesis comes from the Greek, meaning to "lead out.")

Functionalism: A theoretical framework used in sociology that attempts to explain the nature of social order and the relationship between the various parts (structures) in society and their contribution to the stability of the society by examining the functionality of each to determine how it contributes to the stability of society as a whole.

Protestant: A member of a western Christian church that follows the traditions of the Reformation (most notably, Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli) as opposed to those of the Roman Catholic Church. The original Protestants believed in the Bible as the sole source of God's revelation, justification by faith alone for salvation, and the universal priesthood of all believers.

Religion: A personal or institutional system grounded in the belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers considered to have created and to govern the universe.

Schism: In general, a schism is a formal and intentional separation or division into factions. In Christianity, it is a formal breach of union within a Church or denomination. The Great Schism refers to the break between the Western (i.e., Roman) and Eastern (i.e., Orthodox) Churches, traditionally dated to 1054 AD.

Symbolic Interactionism: A theory that assumes that one's self-concept is created through the interpretation of the symbolic gestures, words, actions, and appearances of others as observed during social interactions. Using this framework, religion is seen as a socially constructed reality in which the sacred provides security and permanence for society as long as its members do not realize that religion is socially constructed.

Bibliography

Andersen, M. L. & Taylor, H. F. (2002). Sociology: Understanding a diverse society. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning.

Interaction and symbolic interactionism. (2011). Symbolic Interaction, 34, 315-318. Retrieved October 31, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=65923544

Michelman, S. O. (1997). Changing old habits: Dress of women religious and its relationship to personal and social identity. Sociological Inquiry, 67 , 350-363. Retrieved 27 May 2008 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=9711054768&site=ehost-live

Prus, R. (2012). On the necessity of re-engaging the classical Greek and Latin literatures: Lessons from Emile Durkheim's The Evolution of Educational Thought. American Sociologist, 43, 172-202. Retrieved October 31, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=76459536

Prus, R. (2011). On the processes and problematics of representing divinity: Dio Chrysostom (ca. 40-120) and the pragmatist motif. Religion & The Social Order, 20, 205-221. Retrieved October 31, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=63484032

Suggested Reading

Buehler, C. J., Weigert, A. J., & Thomas, D. (1977). Antecedents of adolescent self evaluation: A cross-national application of a model. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 8 , 29-45. Retrieved 27 May 2008 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=10976989&site=ehost-live

Chang, G. C. & Mehan, H. B. (2005). Symbolic interaction in public political discourse: Initial construction of the war on Terror symbolic world. Conference Papers — American Sociological Association, 2005 Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, 1-34. Retrieved 27 May 2008 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=18616038&site=ehost-live

Corso, J. J. (2012). In defense of symbolic interactionism: A theoretical response to Bourdieu. Max Weber Studies, 12, 225-239. Retrieved October 31, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=83742457

Hallett, T. & Ventresca, M. (2006). Inhabited institutions: Social interactions and organizational forms in Gouldner's patterns of industrial bureaucracy. Theory and Society, 35 , 213-236. . Retrieved 27 May 2008 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=21806050&site=ehost-live

Interaction ritual theory and structural symbolic interactionism. (2011). Symbolic Interaction, 34, 319-329. Retrieved October 31, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=65923546