Weber was a social thinker who categorized ideal types of social action into four different categories. In order to break the concept of social action down and fully understand what it means one must know the definition of action on its own. Weber says “ in our view, the term ‘action’, the sense of behaviour which can be understood in terms of its relation to a meaning, can properly be applied only to the behaviour of one or more individual persons” (Weber, 16). In other words, action is human behavior that is meaningful and involves the individual and their life. On the contrary, social action is when one does something that involves others and has some type of effect on society. While action is just intended for the individual, social action is normally is an interaction between two aspects of society. Also, in order for social action to truly occur, the action that is being performed must hold meaning for the person performing the action and for the person receiving the action. Therefore, the ultimate goal of social action is to create meaning and understanding in our societal world. The four types of actions that Weber describes are instrumental action, value-rational action, emotional action, and habitual/traditional action. I believe almost every person in society will incorporate a little bit of each of these social actions into their lives, however, what actions they perform will be based on their individual circumstances and lifestyles.
Instrumental action is when one performs an action to create a maximum satisfaction. This action occurs when someone makes a decision to do something that will benefit them as much as possible. Value-rational action is when one does an action to create the most effective and efficient way to maximize value or obtain the best results. Essentially it is when someone finds the fastest and most productive way to meet their given end. Emotional action is when someone makes a choice to perform an action based on their emotions and the meanings they attach with the actions they are performing. Habitual or traditional action is when one does designated tasks because they have become habits or something that is encoded in their daily lives.
I have recently started watching a show called ‘Chuck’ and when watching this show, I started noticing the types of social action the character Chuck incorporates into his daily life. This show is essentially about a skilled college drop-out who works a dead end job at an electronic store. He has the skills and intelligence to do something he wants to but due to some events that occurred in his life he left college and never decided to go back and essentially accepted his current life situation as permanent. However, in the show Chuck receives a top secret file from his old spy college friend that automatically installs all these government secrets into his brain, which ultimately makes him into a super spy with all these skills that he can use to save the world from criminal activity.
Every episode is about Chuck’s daily life which includes his day job at the electronic store as well as his spy job along with his personal life. At one point in the show Chuck decided to tell one of his spy co worker, Sarah, how he really feels about her. Spies are told to keep their relationship strictly professional and not get involved with each other personally. However, Chuck falls for his partner and even though he knows he is not allowed to have a relationship with her he tells how he feels because he wanted to. Therefore, he produced instrumental social action because he did something that he wanted to do regardless of what society wants him to do or what the negative consequences of his actions will be. Therefore by performing this action Chuck maximized his life satisfaction. However, throughout the show Chuck also performs value-rational social action when he puts his personal feelings aside and has to lie to his friends and family about his life as a spy, even though he does not want to, so he can continue on saving the world without potentially jeopardizing his missions or putting himself or anyone else at risk. So, although Chuck would much rather not keep secrets from the people he loves, he is forced to perform this action of secrecy so he can effectively and efficiently complete his missions successfully, without any problems, and create maximum safety and success.
Although at points Chuck sacrifices his own benefit and desires to create maximum success he also uses emotional social action a lot throughout the show as well. Also the emotional action he performs usually does not help in creating success. For example, most spies in the show use guns and often have to kill bad guys in order to complete their mission. However, Chuck does not ‘believe’ in guns and the concept of killing people so when he goes on missions he uses a tranquilizer gun instead. His action is an emotional action because the meaning he has attached to real guns and killing people stops him from using real guns even though they may help him create more success on his missions. Also, like everybody, Chuck takes park in habitual social action as well. For example, he gets ready for work every morning, makes his drive to work, conducts daily work tasks and protocols, ect. Although Chuck’s life in the show is probably not an everyday regular situation, he still performs all parts of Weber’s social action concepts in his own individual ways. Similarly, everyone incorporates these four types of social actions into their individual lives in their own unique methods.
References:
Weber, Max. 2005. Selections in Translation. Trans. Runciman. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. (Weber in Runciman)
Instrumental action is when one performs an action to create a maximum satisfaction. This action occurs when someone makes a decision to do something that will benefit them as much as possible. Value-rational action is when one does an action to create the most effective and efficient way to maximize value or obtain the best results. Essentially it is when someone finds the fastest and most productive way to meet their given end. Emotional action is when someone makes a choice to perform an action based on their emotions and the meanings they attach with the actions they are performing. Habitual or traditional action is when one does designated tasks because they have become habits or something that is encoded in their daily lives.
I have recently started watching a show called ‘Chuck’ and when watching this show, I started noticing the types of social action the character Chuck incorporates into his daily life. This show is essentially about a skilled college drop-out who works a dead end job at an electronic store. He has the skills and intelligence to do something he wants to but due to some events that occurred in his life he left college and never decided to go back and essentially accepted his current life situation as permanent. However, in the show Chuck receives a top secret file from his old spy college friend that automatically installs all these government secrets into his brain, which ultimately makes him into a super spy with all these skills that he can use to save the world from criminal activity.
Every episode is about Chuck’s daily life which includes his day job at the electronic store as well as his spy job along with his personal life. At one point in the show Chuck decided to tell one of his spy co worker, Sarah, how he really feels about her. Spies are told to keep their relationship strictly professional and not get involved with each other personally. However, Chuck falls for his partner and even though he knows he is not allowed to have a relationship with her he tells how he feels because he wanted to. Therefore, he produced instrumental social action because he did something that he wanted to do regardless of what society wants him to do or what the negative consequences of his actions will be. Therefore by performing this action Chuck maximized his life satisfaction. However, throughout the show Chuck also performs value-rational social action when he puts his personal feelings aside and has to lie to his friends and family about his life as a spy, even though he does not want to, so he can continue on saving the world without potentially jeopardizing his missions or putting himself or anyone else at risk. So, although Chuck would much rather not keep secrets from the people he loves, he is forced to perform this action of secrecy so he can effectively and efficiently complete his missions successfully, without any problems, and create maximum safety and success.
Although at points Chuck sacrifices his own benefit and desires to create maximum success he also uses emotional social action a lot throughout the show as well. Also the emotional action he performs usually does not help in creating success. For example, most spies in the show use guns and often have to kill bad guys in order to complete their mission. However, Chuck does not ‘believe’ in guns and the concept of killing people so when he goes on missions he uses a tranquilizer gun instead. His action is an emotional action because the meaning he has attached to real guns and killing people stops him from using real guns even though they may help him create more success on his missions. Also, like everybody, Chuck takes park in habitual social action as well. For example, he gets ready for work every morning, makes his drive to work, conducts daily work tasks and protocols, ect. Although Chuck’s life in the show is probably not an everyday regular situation, he still performs all parts of Weber’s social action concepts in his own individual ways. Similarly, everyone incorporates these four types of social actions into their individual lives in their own unique methods.
References:
Weber, Max. 2005. Selections in Translation. Trans. Runciman. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. (Weber in Runciman)