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George Herbert Mead(1863-1931)

“The individual experiences himself as such not directly, but only from the particular standpoints of other individual members of the same

social group, or from the generalized standpoint of the social group as a whole to which he belongs…and he becomes an object to himself only

by taking the attitudes of other individuals toward himself.” (1934/1962: 138)

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GHM’s key questions

What’s the link between thinking & behavior?

When you are thinking, what are you doing?

What role does an individual’s thinking play in the evolution of society?

◦society: “generalized social attitudes” that continually emerge through coordinated interaction between individuals and groups”

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George Herbert Mead (1863-1931)

Most important ‘Chicago’ sociologist◦ even more influential in field of social psychology

Mind, Self & Society, his only book, a compilation of his lectures, was published by his former students after his death

Mead laid foundations for what came to be known as Symbolic Interactionism, the leading school of micro-sociology

 

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Intellectual influences

Mead’s thought arises out of synthesis of:

◦Pragmatism

◦Evolutionism

◦Behaviorism

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Pragmatism

American philosophical tradition developed by Charles Pierce, William James, and John Dewey

Unlike other, European philosophical traditions, pragmatism not oriented toward uncovering general “Truths”

American Pragmatism emphasizes “practical instrumental relationship of the human actor to the environment”

Mead sought to describe historical development of the individual and the social world grounded in everyday life

Goal: to understand emergence of the individual social world out of the interaction b/w individual and environment◦ not an abstract ideal movement occurring through history

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Pragmatism (cont’d)

Meaning and substance of social development comes out of the confrontation with problems we face in the real world ◦Meaning evolves out of immediate context

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Evolutionism

Human mind, self, morals and society evolve in a gradual process, from lowest forms of animal to most complex forms of human society

◦animals and humans engage in processes of adjustment and adaptation to their environments

◦language emerges gradually out of simpler forms of communication that involve gestures

Morals and Mind emerge out of concrete human action and experience

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Social behaviorism

Mead refines behaviorist psychology of the time by overcoming behavioristic refusal to study mind ◦ Behaviorists considered mind a “black box,” impenetrable

Psychological behaviorism employs reflex arc idea e.g., if a hot stove is a stimulus, we pull away reflexively before our brain

becomes involved

American Pragmatism, esp GHM, emphasizes observation of what people do in concrete settings and focuses on immediate character of mind and cognitive processes in developing and responding◦ GHM makes a place for Mind in this reflex arc

Mind becomes a central category of analysis

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Social behaviorism (cont’d)

Whereas behaviorism conceives of mechanistic stimulus-responses, GHM’s social behaviorism interposes the interpretation of meaning by focusing on gesture

gesture: part of an action that elicits a response◦difference b/w gesture and stimulus is the meaning

attributed to it by the person gesturing and the person responding

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“Mind,” Mind, Self, and Society (1934)

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Key themes

Mind

Symbols and Language

Meaning

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Mind

Mind is a process or behavior that allows for the conscious control of one’s actions◦Mind involves an internal conversation of

gestures that makes possible the imagined testing of alternative lines of conduct

◦The crux of intelligent behavior lies between stimulus and response: controlling one’s present action with reference to ideas about possible future consequences

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Symbols and Language

Gesture: a part of an action that elicits response

To have significance, gesture must call out in a 2nd organism a response functionally identical to the response that the 1st organism anticipates◦ for a gesture to be significant it must “mean” the same

thing to both organisms “meaning” entails the capacity to consciously anticipate how

other organisms will respond to symbols or gestures

When responses of others become internalized and part of an accessible repertoire, we have Language

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Significant symbol

Significant symbol: a gesture which has the same meaning for the individual making it and for the individual responding to it◦assumes that anticipatory experiences are

fundamental to the development of language◦We can place ourselves in the positions of

others—to anticipate their responses—with regard to our linguistic gestures

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Symbols and Language

communication with a common language is an evolutionary step only humans have attained

conversation of gestures conversation w/ significant symbols

“Thinking becomes preparatory to action, the very process of thinking is of course simply an inner conversation of gestures which in its completion implies expression of that which one thinks to an audience”

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Meaning

Meaning is a threefold relationship b/w:1. an individual’s gesture2. another’s response to the gesture3. completion of the social act

“Mind emerges as we point out to others and to ourselves the meaning of things”

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Language, reflexivity, and mind

Vocal gestures turn “experience” back on itself through the loop of speaking and hearing at relatively the same instant

Being part of a complex network of language users develops reflexivity of mind

Reflexivity of mind develops not only through use of vocal gestures, but in the taking of roles

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“Self,” Mind, Self, and Society (1934)

The Self and the Organism

The self exists as self-consciousness, i.e., the capacity to be both subject and object, an ‘I’ & ‘Me’ ◦The self is a reflexive entity

The individual is aware of self as object “not directly, but indirectly, from the particular standpoints of others”

The self is essentially a social structure, and it arises in social experience

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The “I” and the “Me”

“Me” is the self that arises in relationship to a specific generalized

“Me” is a cognitive object, which is only known retrospectively

When we act in habitual ways we are not typically self-conscious◦We act at a non-reflective level

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Play and Games

Play and games are like stages in child’s development In Play, child takes role of Significant Others (Mom & Dad)

◦ children do not organize their combined relations to form any coherent sense of self

Games involve several children in an organized way according to common rules◦ child is required to coordinate her conduct w others and needs to know

how their conduct is coordinated in order to be a reliable participant ◦ in process of learning how to play games, child begins to relate to

Generalized Other

By relating to players in roles, as abstract participants (not “Mom”), players become interchangeable

Child comes to form Coherent Self

The Generalized Other

As we grow older, we realize the rules are created socially, interactively, by the Generalized Other

The GO is the repository of social standards: rules, norms, values–but also language, signs & symbols

The GO is also Society, but it’s not external to us because we are a component part of it

Thus we both internalize social standards, and we can also influence social standards

The self is not completely determined from outside, but it also has element of freedom and initiative

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The Generalized Other (II)

The organized community or social group which gives the individual unity of self may be called the Generalized Other

The attitude of the generalized other is the attitude of the whole community, e.g.,◦in a social group such as a ball team, the team is the

generalized other in so far as it enters—as an organized process or social activity—into the experience of any one of the individual members of it (MSS, 154)

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Generalized Others

These communities can take different forms, they should be thought of as systems, e.g., ◦ a family can be thought of systemically and can therefore give

rise to a corresponding Generalized Other and Self

Generalized Others can also be found in◦ “concrete social classes or subgroups, such as political parties,

clubs, corporations, which are all actually functional social units, in terms of which their individual members are directly related to one another. The others are abstract social classes or subgroups, such as the class of debtors and the class of creditors, in terms of which their individual members are related to one another only more or less indirectly” (MSS, 157).

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Multiple selves?

In Principles of Psychology, William James discusses various types of empirical selves, namely, the material, the social, and the spiritual

In addressing the social self, James notes how it is possible to have multiple selves◦ “Properly speaking, a man has as many social selves as there are

individuals who recognize him and carry an image of him in their mind. To wound any one of these his images is to wound him. But as the individuals who carry the images fall naturally into classes, we may practically say that he has as many different social selves as there are distinct groups of persons about whose opinion he cares. He generally shows a different side of himself to each of these different groups” (James 1890, 294).