Symbolic interactionism

According to Herbert Blummer, symbolic interactionism is a distinctive approach to group behavior and human conduct from other more traditional approaches in sociology and psychology. It rests on three premises:

1. human beings act towards things on the basis of the meanings that the things have for them. So our actions are not merely driven by some psychological factors such as attitudes, conscious or unconscious motives, or incentives or external social factors such social roles, statuses, social demands, social norms, cultural prescriptions, etc.

2. means arise out of social interactions that one has with one's fellows. So it is not that meaning is inherent in the things and just emanate from them as held by the realism philosophy; it is not meaning just as an expression of human subjects' psychological elements such as sensations, feelings, ideals, memories, motives, etc.

3. the meanings are handled in, and modified through an interpretive process used by the person in dealing with the things he encounters, so the use of the meaning is not simply arousing and applications of already established meanings..