This approach toward defining and understanding deviance takes a more interactionist viewpoint, focusing on the interaction between individuals and groups, deviants and non-deviants. In general, interactionist perspectives tend to concentrate on relatively small-scale levels of social interaction (between individuals, small social groups and so forth) and, for this reason, they are sometimes referred-to as a "micro level of sociological analysis" (However, as we will find later, there are exceptions).
The assumptions here are: .
1) that people and groups use symbols and place meanings on these symbols when communicating, .
2) that deviant labels are best understood as symbols that differentiate those who are labelled as deviant, and .
3) that people act on the basis of such symbolic definitions and labels of individuals (Rubington & Weinberg, 1987). .
But before we go into any more detail of the interactionist theories, we will take a closer look at what we mean by the notion of "the self".
"I talk to myself, and I remember what I said and perhaps the emotion content that went with it. The "I" of this moment is present in the "me" of the next moment. I cannot turn around quick enough to catch myself". .
(Mead, "Mind, Self and Society", 1934).
Mead argued that while we are each conscious, thinking, individuals, the way in which we choose to behave is conditioned by the social context of that behaviour. In particular, Mead argued that our behaviour as individuals is conditioned by two aspects of our self-awareness (that is, the ability to "see ourselves" as others see us);.
The "I" aspect which largely consists of spontaneous actions and the "Me" aspect which consists of an awareness of how other people expect us to behave at any given moment and in any given situation. .
The "I" and the "Me" are parallel parts of what Mead called "The Self" and it is the ability of human beings to develop a "self-concept" that, Mead argued, makes us different to the vast majority of animals (Mead, 1934).