Action
On entering a scene an individual defines the situation by assigning identities to each participant, frequently in accord with an encompassing social institution. While defining the situation, the individual tries to maintain the affective meaning of self through adoption of an identity whose sentiment serves as a surrogate for the individual's self-sentiment. The identities assembled in the definition of the situation determine the sentiments that the individual tries to maintain behaviorally.
Confirming sentiments associated with institutional identities – like doctor–patient, lawyer–client, or professor–student – creates institutionally relevant role behavior.
Confirming sentiments associated with negatively evaluated identities – like bully, glutton, loafer, or scatterbrain – generates deviant behavior Affect control theory's sentiment databases and mathematical model are combined in a computer simulation program for analyzing social interaction in various cultures.
Read more about this topic: Affect Control Theory
Famous quotes containing the word action:
“An action is the perfection and publication of thought. A right action seems to fill the eye, and to be related to all nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Rash actions are seldom committed in isolation. With the first rash action we always do too much. So we usually go on to commit a second one—and then we do too little.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)