Social action

From Geography

Social action refers to an act orientated to an individual, agent, and, according to Max Weber, becomes social when the acting individual takes into account the action and reaction his behavior causes.

The concept of social action was primarily developed by Weber. It is an attempt to observe how human behavior relates to cause and effect in the social realm, in other words he wants to understand (verstehen) why and how humans react in certain situations. By doing this he distinghuished himself from sociologists such as Emile Durkheim, who focused more on social structures than on individual acts.

Types of social action.

Weber formulated a theory of man in which he distinguishes four types of human/social action goalrational (zweckrational), value-rational (wertrational), emotional action and traditionalist. According to Weber these four types of action are ways in which individuals give meaning to their actions.

- Goalrational: actions which are planned and taken after evaluating the goal in relation to other goals, and after thorough consideration of various means (and consequences) to achieve it.

- Value-rational: actions which are planned and taken after evaluating the goal in relation to other goals, and after thorough consideration of various means (and consequences) to achieve it.

- Emotional action: actions which are taken due to one's emotions, to express personal feelings.

- Traditionalist: actions which are carried out due to tradition, because they are always carried out in a particular manner for certain situations.

During the 19th and early 20th century, Weber saw a increase in the goalrational action against the other three types.

Sources Seven Theories of Human Society, Tom Campbell 1981. Key Ideas in Sociology, Peter Kivisto 2004.

This page is in progress by Thijs Koolhof and Tobias Geerdink.