Chapt.+4-+Social+Interaction+in+Life

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 * **Ascribed Status**- a social position a person receives at birth or takes on involuntarily later in life.
 * A clear example of this is Raj. He was born Indian, which was a position he received at birth, and his job as an astrophysicist.
 * **Achieved Status**- a social position a person a person takes on voluntarily that reflects personal ability and effort.
 * All the characters have an achieved status that they worked for voluntarily of course. Some things such as their jobs, their relationship status, and where they live would be considered an achieved status.
 * **Master Status-** a status that has special importance for a social identity, often shaping a person's entire life.
 * Both Leonard and Sheldon are physicists, which is their job, and has special importance to them because it was achieved so they had to work for it. They are identified by this due to the way they speak to each other.
 * **Nonverbal Communication**- communication using body movements, gestures, and facial expressions rather than speech.
 * One of the most recent episodes has to do with Raj finally finding a girlfriend, but she is deaf. In this situation Raj has to use his friend Howard for sign language, a type of nonverbal communication.

>> and acts more awkward.
 * ** Status Set- All the statuses a person holds at a given time. **
 * All the characters in the show hold different statuses. Raj, for example, is an Indian, a friend, an employee, a son, and a brother.
 * ** Social Interaction- The process by which people act and react in relation to others. **
 * Every time Leonard is in Penny’s presence, he gets nervous
 * ** Thomas Theorem- W.I. Thomas's claim that situations defined as real are real in their consequences. **
 * When Lenard takes Penny out on a ‘date’ he lies to her and explains how everyone had bailed even though he technically never invited them.
 * ** Presentation of Self- Erving Goffman's term for a person's efforts to create specific impressions in the minds of others. **
 * Lenard wants Penny to see him as attractive and ‘cool’, not as her geeky neighbor.