OUGD401 - Interactionism Theory - Consumerism research

Interactionism in sociology is a theoretical perspective in which society is thought to be a product of the everyday social interactions among millions of people. Instead of looking at social systems at a larger-scale, such as the entire population of a country or third world countries, interactionism focuses on smaller-scale social interactions, such as the interactions between individuals or small social groups. George Herbert Mead, Max Weber, and Herbert Blumer have all made several contributions to the interactionism theory.

Interactionism in sociology focuses on the way that we act, or make conscious choices regarding our behaviour that proceed from how we interpret situations. In other words, humans are not simply reacting to social stimuli: we are 'social actors' and must adjust our behaviour based on the actions of other social actors.

Interactionism in sociology examines how different social actors make sense of or interpret the behaviour of those around us. This information can be used to understand the social construction of the world, which is focused on not only the meanings that we give to behaviour, but also how we interpret the meanings of behaviour.

For example, suppose that we were driving along a road when a truck speeds by us going 20 miles per hour over the speed limit. We would interpret that behaviour as wrong and illegal since the car was breaking the speed limit. Now let's say that we heard a siren and saw that the truck was actually a red fire truck going to put out a fire. Then we would interpret this behaviour as acceptable given that the fire truck has a good reason for breaking the speed limit.

Interactionism is also concerned with the social context in which our interactions take place. The social context not only plays an important role in the way in which we interpret others' behaviour, but also how we choose to behave ourselves at any given moment.

So this can be applied to consumerism as we often act as a group or label ourselves with a trend when buying certain product. So it compels people to buy something based on who owns it rather than the consumers needs. For example if a celebrity had a certain brand of clothes, his/her fans would want to have the same brand of clothes, even though they probably don't need them.