After completing the symbol activity in class please address the following questions:
1) Were you surprised at the similarity or differences of responses to the symbols?
2) What does a persons' reaction to a symbol say about their Sociological Imagination?
1) Were you surprised at the similarity or differences of responses to the symbols?
2) What does a persons' reaction to a symbol say about their Sociological Imagination?
11 comments:
I was very surprised at the similarity that me and most of my partners had. Most of my partners along with me connected the symbol to what the actual name of the company or what it represents in society. I found it interesting that the first thing that came to mind while looking at the pictures was not what it was literally. For example not just rings intertwinded but the olympics. Since most of us had similar answers this shows that we learned what these symbols meant from society and that we didnt come up with our own interpretations.
One of my partners had completely different answers than the rest of us because she connected the symbols with feelings like the american flag with pride, or with peoples names that they reminded her of. This shows that she had a bigger sociological imagination in this case.
I was not surprised with the similarities that my partners had with me. Most of my parnters and I said the literal meaning of the symbol. For example, for the male sign we all said male or boy, and for the big S everyone said Superman. I think that this shows that our sociological imaginations are not very strong. If they were stronger our first reaction to these symbols would not just be literal, we might have other words that connect to them.
Like what melissa said, as i was doing the activity with my partners in class, it seemed like we would have ether the same, or very similar answers for what each symbol ment to us. To be honest i was not too suprised that the activity came out that way seeing that we have grown up for the most part in the same environment for most of our lives. Through out the years we have all gone to school together and have expereanced most of the same things through out our life which makes up for part of the reason as to why our sociologials imaginations are about the same.
I feel the more simple someone is when responding to a symbol shows that their sociological imagination isnt not too develpoed and the more meaning someone puts in their answers shows that they can see beyond the picture and get a deeper meaning to each symbol. That shows they their sociological imagination is more develpoed that others.
In this class lesson I found that my classmates and myself had very similar answers to the symbols. I was not shocked by this at all because many of us look at things very literally and do not try to look beyond certain meanings. For example, the Big S for superman was one of the symbols and everyone that I worked with said, "Superman". If we had a better social imagination we would look beyond that symbol and maybe see strength or courage instead of the literal sign. I do believe that we as a whole class need work on our social imagination and see things from a differnt view. If we prefect this concept society would be a better place to live and work in.
I was not surprised about the similarities within our activity. Although we all have many different backgrounds and culture, many of the American conventional ideas are submerged within our subconscious. Out of impulse,when we see a stop sign, we think stop. How about Hollywood? We connect it to fame and fortune. All these reactions to these different symbols really does show that we might all need to look at things with a different perspective. I think by responding with the typical and obvious answer it shows us that some people, one which would be including me, might not have a well developed social imagination.
I was surprised at how about 14 out of 20 symbols my classmates and i had the similar answers, but very few differences. The reaction of a person to seeing a symbol says about their sociological imagination is that they either think clearly within their own perimeter also shows how that person can be more descriptive because when i see the flag of USA i think liberty some think freedom then you name off why and you understand it better.
I was not really that surprised at what all my partners had. We all had very close ideas on most of the symbols. Most of the symbols are very common symbols that we use alot in everyday life. But there were a few symbols that my partners and I did not know. My partners reaction and mine were mainly the same. I guess my partners and I have a very similiar sociological inagination. But i feel that everyone interprets the symbols in there own way.
I agree with Danielle that I wasn't very surprised with the connections everyone made with the symbols. We're brought up in a world that uses symbols to represent companies, slogans, people, etc so that's what we think of everytime we see it. It shows to me that we're still not very developed in our sociological imginations because even before this class most people would have thought of the different companies that the symbols stand for. if we have more meaning behind the picture rather than the material objects ehind them, then we would be more developed but since we're exposed to it everyday and we only have this class for 45min, I believe it's a difficult thing to quickly shake our minds off the obvious portrayals of each symbol.
I wasn't surprised about the symbolic interaction activity we did in class because we were all looking at the same pictures and all said the same stuff about the different pictures but sometimes had the different meaning. For example there was a picture of the BMW symbol and some poeple said nice car, expensive car, and plainly BMW. However meant the samething but just worded differently.
I was surprised to see the similarity's in the responses for the symbols. I would have to say that at least 60% of the answers between me and my partners were the same. I thought that since everyone was brought up in a different way most peoples answers would be at least slightly different. The only exception for my results were the huge company's that everyone around the world knows about, for example, McDonalds, it seemed everyone's answers were either the same or very similar, depending on their sociological imagination.
A persons reaction to a symbol can say a lot about their social imagination. If they are looking at the symbol for Mcdonalds and say "mcdonalds", or "food" then their imagination is probably close minded. But if that person was to say "heart attack" or "cheap" then they would be open minded and have a better sociological imagination. I think having a good Sociological Imagination means to be able to look at something at "all angles" and with "open ears".
i was not surprised by the symbols we had because most of them were very easy like for example there was a symbol for bmw and cadillac and im pretty sure everyone knows what those are and the same thing comes to everyones mind a nice luxury car, or a sports car and there were symbols of like gender which everyone could tell but if there were harder symbols everyones sociiological imagination would be different, we all will have the same imagination of the things we see in our daily lives but what we dont see, then we have different imagination. I knew we would all have the same imagination for the easy ones but for the harder ones everyone would have different and this would tell us that we all dont have strong social imagination for things we dont see in daily life.
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