George Herbert Mead (1863-1931)

1. 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)

2. 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” GHM’s key questions

3. 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 George Herbert Mead (1863-1931)

4. Mead’s thought arises out of synthesis of: • Pragmatism • Evolutionism • Behaviorism Intellectual influences

5. 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 Pragmatism

6. 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 Pragmatism (cont’d)

7. Human mind, self, morals and society evolve in a gradual process, from lowest forms of animal to most complex forms of human society • animals andhumans 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 Evolutionism

8. 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 Mindin this reflex arc • Mindbecomes a central category of analysis Socialbehaviorism

9. 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 andthe person responding Social behaviorism (cont’d)

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

11. Mind • Symbols and Language • Meaning Key themes

12. 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 Mind

13. Gesture: a part of an action that elicits response • To have significance, gesture must call out in a 2ndorganism a response functionally identical to the response that the 1storganism 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 Symbols and Language

14. 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 Significant symbol

15. 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” Symbols and Language

16. Meaning is a threefold relationship b/w: • an individual’s gesture • another’s response to the gesture • completion of the social act • “Mind emerges as we point out to others and to ourselves the meaning of things” Meaning

17. 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 Language, reflexivity, and mind

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

19. 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 The Self and the Organism

20. “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 The “I” and the “Me”

21. 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 formCoherent Self Play and Games

22. 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 The Generalized Other

23. 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) The Generalized Other (II)

24. 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). Generalized Others

25. 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). Multiple selves?