The definition of the situation is a fundamental concept in symbolic interactionism advanced by the American sociologist W. I. Thomas. It is a kind of collective agreement between people on the characteristics of a situation, and from there, how to appropriately react and fit into it.
Establishing a definition of the situation requires that the participants agree on both the frame of the interaction (its social context and expectations), and on their identities (the person they will treat each other as being for a given situation).
References
DeLamater, John D., and Daniel J. Myers, Social Psychology, 6th ed., 2007 (Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth), pp. 227-228. ISBN 978-0495093367
Thomas, William. "The Definition of the Situation," in Self, Symbols, and Society: Classic Readings in Social Psychology, Nathan Rousseau (ed), 2002 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield), pp. 103-115. ISBN 978-0742516311
See also
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