The idea behind a symbolic interactionist theory of social deviance is that social deviance is the result of some kind of symbolic interaction, which is the result of the way that we interact with each other and with the world.
Symbolic interactionists argue that social deviance is the result of an interaction involving self-serving symbols. An example would be a drug dealer who gives a person drugs so they can make money off of them, but also self-serving. This kind of thing is called a “symbolic exchange.
This theory of social deviance is quite different from a lot of other theories in that it holds that social deviance is the result of non-self-serving symbols.
The theory of symbolic interactionists holds that behavior is the result of self-serving symbols. What symbols are involved is up to debate, but this theory claims that the primary symbols are often very abstract, and often have little or no relationship to the real world. By this definition, drugs are symbolic exchange tools, and that’s why they are used quite often. The theory also holds that the majority of social deviants are drug dealers, which is also why they use drugs so often.
Symbols are just as important as substance in making real-world behavior possible. They are used on the part of the person who is trying to be a symbol, and they are used by the person trying to be a symbol to achieve the real goal of the symbol.
Symbolic interactionists argue that the symbolic is a universal language we use to make real-world behavior possible. They believe that we use symbols to make real-world behavior possible because we have a desire to manipulate this universal language. That desire is a form of psychological deviance, because people who are trying to manipulate symbols to achieve their real goals (such as being a drug dealer) are using their desire for control over external symbolic behavior to manipulate their own inner desires.
You can’t really get much deeper than the symbolic relationship. A lot of people, including many of us, have never been through a symbolic interactionist theory of social deviance before. I want to help you get a better understanding of this.
It’s nice to have a clearer understanding of the meaning of symbolic interactionist theory of social deviance, because it allows us to communicate more effectively with the behavior of others and it’s not as easy as you might think. The way you interact with others in the context of a symbolic interactionist theory of social deviance is so much more complicated than the way we interact with ourselves in the world around us.
I think there are two things to understand about this theory: first, that it’s very much about the social and interpersonal context within which one’s behavior is observed. It’s the context in which one’s behavior is seen by others. The second thing to understand is that it deals with behavior that is seen as abnormal or deviant. By abnormal I mean that it is deemed socially undesirable, in a certain circumstance, because it is not socially appropriate.
An example of this idea might help illustrate the point. When one of the characters is looking at his screen, the screen is filled with a red dot, and the person staring at it is told to look away or move her gaze. This is something we do interact with ourselves in the world around us, and the person looking at it gets very attracted to it. A person’s behavior can be seen as deviant.
