The sociology of social recognition: competition in social recognition games

Evidence shows that social recognition works as a motive for many of people’s behavior. Within sociology, a longstanding tradition has shown that this recognition motive produces social and symbolic boundaries, encompassing consumption patterns and different lifestyles, and that the need for social recognition can, for example, explain violent behavior. In this paper, I provide a conceptual framework of how social interactions are affected by the need for social recognition. A natural starting point to theorize about social interactions is Goffmanian Game Theory. However, Goffman excludes underlying motivations in his analyses. Therefore, I supplement the analysis with elements from rational choice theory; a theory that, in itself, scarcely bears attention to the internal structure of social interactions. This study results in an analytical scheme of the actors and factors that affect social recognition games. Also, it reveals the competition that is likely to occur within particular social recognition games. As a result, this framework allows a better understanding of how social recognition affects social interactions, and offers a heuristic tool for the analysis of the impact of social recognition on a variety of behavioral domains.