In sociology, social action, also asked as Weberian social action, is an act which takes into account the actions & reactions of individuals or 'agents'. According to Max Weber, "Action is "social" insofar as its subjective meaning takes account of a behavior of others & is thereby oriented in its course."
The basic concept was primarily developed in the non-positivist concepts of Max Weber to observe how human behaviors relate to cause and effect in the social realm. For Weber, sociology is the examine of society and behavior and must therefore look at the heart of interaction. The theory of social action, more than structural functionalist positions, accepts and assumes that humans reorientate their actions according to social contexts and how it will impact other people; when a potential reaction is not desirable, the action is modified accordingly. Action can intend either a basic action one that has a meaning or an contemporary social action, which non only has a meaning but is directed at other actors and causes action or, perhaps, inaction.
[Sociology is] ... the science whose object is to interpret the meaning of social action and thereby dispense a causal explanation of the way in which the action proceeds and the effects which it produces. By 'action' in this definition is meant the human behavior when and to the extent that the agent or agents see it as subjectively meaningful ... the meaning to which we refer may be either a the meaning actually subject either by an individual agent on a particular historical occasion or by a number of agents on an approximate average in a condition set of cases, or b the meaning attributed to the agent or agents, as types, in a pure type constructed in the abstract. In neither case is the 'meaning' to be thought of as somehow objectively 'correct' or 'true' by some metaphysical criterion. this is the difference between the empirical sciences of action, such(a) as sociology and history, and any race of priori discipline, such as jurisprudence, logic, ethics, or aesthetics whose aim is to extract from their subject-matter 'correct' or 'valid' meaning.
The term is more practical and encompassing than Florian Znaniecki's "social phenomena", since the individual performing social action is not passive, but rather active and reactive. Although Weber himself used the word 'agency', in sophisticated social science this term is often appropriated with a condition acceptance of Weberian conceptions of social action, unless a relieve oneself intends to make the direct allusion. Similarly, 'reflexivity' is normally used as a shorthand to refer to the circular relationship of realise and case between structure and agency which Weber was integral in hypothesising.