Introduction to Communication Theory COMM 230 - Resource Guide

Symbolic interaction theory focuses on the social production of shared experience via symbols. People interact with one another and, in so doing, continually recreate lived reality as experienced by participants.

Symbolic interactionism is a sociological framework that illustrates the divergent meanings people place on objects, interactions, and people, and the corresponding behaviors that reflect this range of interpretations. It is a culturally rooted, learned phenomenon, which is refined through the process of socialization. George Herbert Mead was an influential figure in the field of symbolic interactionism and composed a threefold series of stages that rely on the utilization of gestures: the play stage, the game stage, and the generalized other stage.

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The American psychologist Leon Festinger (1919-1989) developed the theory of cognitive dissonance, which is based on the tenet that an individual is motivated to maintain consistency, consonance, or balance (i.e., congruity theory/principle, or cognitive consistency theory) among pairs of cognitive beliefs, ideas, perceptions, or attitudes about oneself, behavior, or the environment.

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