Symbolic interactionism is a way to look at things from a particular perspective. A perspective that sees everything as a symbol. Money is a symbol. Having money is a symbol. Treating someone to a meal is a symbol. Being a virgin is a symbol. Curse words are symbols. A “Hello, there” (greeting) is a symbol. Everything is a symbol.

What does a thing (a symbol) mean then? Well, it depends on the person interpreting it. When a man goes on a date with a woman and he wants to pay the meal, the woman can interpret it in many ways. She may think the man is awesome. She may think the man is a sucker. She may think the man is trying to court her with money. She may be a bit offended because she views herself as an independent woman. She may think nothing of it.

How a person interprets a symbol is based on many factors, including but not limited to:

  • interaction with self (thinking)
    • how he views himself (his identity and its relation to the symbol)
    • how he thinks about other symbols related to it
  • interaction with others (social encounters)
    • what society think of that thing/symbol
    • what his people think of that thing
    • past experiences

Different ways of interpreting a symbol will lead to different ways of interacting with it. For example, the previous woman might react differently to the man based on her interpretation of getting her meal paid by him.

Some ways of interacting with a symbol can be better in a certain context than others. For example, once you have enough money to save, thinking about money (the symbol) as if it is just a thing to trade with things you need and want (the interpretation) is probably not a wise thing to do. It’s better to think of money in terms of “workers” that can bring you profit (interests or dividends). However, if you’re a finance minister of a country, you’ll need to interpret and interact with money in a different way.

Shaping your own interpretation of a symbol or even other’s interpretation of a symbol is another thing that can be done through this symbolic interactionism perspective. Defending yourself from such attempts (either from yourself or from others) can also be done through this perspective.

Knowing that people interact with a symbol (interpret a symbol) differently is a key to empathy which is useful for descriptive purposes. And once you can predict someone’s interpretation, you can alter your actions to suit that interpretation so that you can do what you need to do effectively.

All interpretations of all symbols a person has encounter is derived and is indistinguishable from his mental model. If you know all the interpretations, you can map his whole mental model.

You can also think of an aggregation of people, like a country, as an entity that interprets symbols.

As you can tell, this symbolic interaction perspective/paradigm is scary useful but also very abstract. Not to mention that an entity interpretation is changing all the time. However, if you’re willing to play with it, you can use it for many descriptive and prescriptive purposes.