George Herbert Mead & Symbolic Interactionism

George Herbert Mead & Symbolic Interactionism

Concepts and assumptions

• SI a theory of the relationships between the world of social relations and the world of psychological processes

• Rejects methodological individualism – prioritizes social relationships and processes

• Especially symbolically mediated interactions • Establishes social psychology - a new

interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary discipline (domain of knowledge)

Ontological assumption

“For social psychology, the whole (society) is prior to the part (the individual), not the part to the whole; and the part is explained in terms of the whole, not the whole in terms of the part or parts” (Mead, 1934/1962:7; italics added) • Society-individual relationships understood as

systems

Language and SI

Language use considered as symbolic interaction (i.e., communicative action) is generative of • Socially shared meanings • The self and mind • The capacity for thinking and learning “Mead defines thinking as “simply an internalized or implicit conversation of the individual with himself by means of such gestures” (1934/1962:47).

Mind

“The mind, which is defined by Mead as a process and not a thing, as an inner conversation with one’s self, is not found within the individual; it is not intracranial but is a social phenomenon” (Franks, 2007) • The mind enables persons to anticipate and elicit

the organized responses of other persons and communities to “significant symbolic gestures”

• Problem-solving is the primary function of the mind

Self

• The self is an ability of a person to understand oneself as both subject and object

• “the self presupposes a social process: communication among humans” (Ritzer, p. 362)

• It is developmental – humans are not born with selves – they are developed through symbolically mediated social interaction

Self

• Self and mind are dialectically interrelated • Mind and self are psychological (internalized)

manifestations of pre-existing social systems• That is, they are the result of socialization

processes • Language mediated symbolic interaction (i.e.,

communicative action) is the primary means by which socialization occurs

Self

• Self and mind as resulst of social processes (language mediated symbolic interaction) is Mead’s effort to explain the origin and nature of consciousness in sociological terms

• According to Ritzer (p. ) “The general mechanism for the development of the self is reflexivity, or the ability to put ourselves unconsciously [sic] into others’ places and to act as they act” – he should have said “consciously”, not “unconsciously”

Self

• In order to have selves individuals must have the capacity to get outside themselves

• To see ourselves as “objects” the way other people see us

• This capacity enables us to take ourselves into account in the same way we take others into account in social situations – actual or virtual

• In turn this ability enables us to act in meaningful ways, that is, ways understood by others

Self

• We cannot view ouselves directly• We can only do this by taking on the

perspectives of others – either individuals or collectivities/communities

• Mead refers to the ability to view ourselves from the perspective of our communities as taking the role of the generalized other

The Self and the Generalized Other

“Taking the role of the generalized other, rather than that of discrete others, allows for the possibility of abstract thinking and objectivity” (Mead, 1959:190)

The Self and the Generalized Other

“So the self reaches its full development by organizing these individual attitudes of others into the organized social or group attitudes, and by thus becoming an individual reflection of the general systematic pattern of social or group behavior in which it and others are involved—a pattern which enters as a whole into the individual’s experience in terms of these organized group attitudes which, through the mechanism of the central nervous system, he takes toward himself, just as he takes the individual attitudes of others” (Mead, 1934/1962:158)

The Self and the Social System

“Not only is taking the role of the generalized other essential to the self, it also is crucial for the development of organized group activities” (Ritzer, p.365) and their planning and coordinationThis is because we can predict the probability of a person [others[ acting as expected

The Self and the I and the Me

• This perspective helps explain social order and individual conformity

• Mead was also interested in explaining creativity and change

• To do this he proposed a concept of the Self beig composed of two elements (processes) = the I and the Me

The I and the Me

“Mead lays great stress on the “I” for four reasons:1. it is a key source of novelty in the social process2. Mead believes that it is in the “I” that our most

important values are located3. the “I” constitutes something that we all seek—

the realization of the self. It is the “I” that permits us to develop a “definite personality.”

4. Mead sees an evolutionary process in history in which people in primitive societies are dominated more by the “me” while in modern societies there is a greater component of the “I”

The I and the Me

• Regarding the last point it is important to note the relationship between the I and the Me and traditional vs. modern societies, or in Tonnies terms Gemeinschaft vs. Gesellschaft societies

• It is also important to note that Mead’s notion of the I is at least partly an attempt to address the issue of charisma introduced by Weber

The I and the Me

• Every Self is a unique mix of the I and the Me• This results in each person having a distinct

personality • The I am the Me are in a dialectical relationship

motivating creativity & change om one hand and conformity & order on the other

• It might be argued that the I is similar to Freud’s concept of the Ego, and the Me is like the Superego

The Me and Social Control

“Social control, as operating in terms of self-criticism, exerts itself so intimately and extensively over individual behavior or conduct, serving to integrate the individual and his actions with reference to the organized social process of experience and behavior in which he is implicated. . .” (Mead,1934/1962:255)

The Me and Social Control

“... Social control over individual behavior or conduct operates by virtue of the social origin and basis of such [self-] criticism. That is to say, self-criticism is essentially social criticism, and behavior controlled socially. Hence social control, so far from tending to crush out the human individual or to obliterate his self-conscious individuality, is, on the contrary, actually constitutive of and inextricably associated with that individuality (Mead, 1934/1962:255)

The Self, Emotions, Discipline and Social Control

• The preceding quotations draw attention to the intimate intensity of self-criticism as social control

• This suggests a sociology of emotions and the relationship of emotions to conformity and self- and social control as well as to change and transformation

• On the negative side, it points to guilt and shame as key emotions at the base of social and self-control

• On the positive side, it points to pride and social affirmation as bases of conformity and self-discipline

The Self, guilt, shame & social control

• Guilt: I did something wrong and caused hurt or harm to others

• Shame: I am flawed and wrong

See Slaughter, Kathy. Seven Differences between Guilt and Shame. http://www.gydoindy.com/7-differences-between-shame-and-guilt/ Accessed June 15, 2017.

Society

“…society to Mead represents the organized set of responses that are taken over by the individual in the form of the “me.” “Thus, in this sense individuals carry society around with them, giving them the ability, through self-criticism, to control themselves” (Ritzer, p. 367).

Society

Mead defines an institution as the “common response [attitudes] in the community” or “the life habits of the community” (1934/1962:261, 264; see also Mead, 1936:376). Ritzer states that education is the way that these common habits and attitudes are internalizedIt probably is more accurate to say that internalization takes place through learning

Internalization of societal attitudes and habits

• This is an essential process because, in Mead’s view, people neither have selves nor are genuine members of the community until they can respond to themselves as the larger community does (Ritzer, p. 367)

• To do this, people must have internalized the common attitudes of the community as embedded in social institutions (Ritzer, p. 367)

Internalization of societal attitudes and habits

• Mead had a dialectical understanding of institutions and the development of the Self, and the I and the Me

• That is, they were bot enabling/empowering and constraining/dominating

Social, mental and cultural sub-systems of action

• Mead applies the idea of emergence to consciousness rather than to society

• Tha is, mind, self and consciousness emerge through the social process of language mediated symbolic interactions – i.e., communication

• In other words socialization is a communication based learning process that results in mind, self and consciousness

• It also suggests that mind, self and consciousness are linked to Parsons’ cultural sub-system of action

Self, culture & social system change

For symbolic interactionists langiuage mediated social interaction (socialization) results in individuals whose personalities prepare them more less well 1. to be willing and able to take on available

social roles and role sets, and or 2. to engage in creative transformation of the

social system and its constituent roles and roles sets and attendant relationships

Interaction

• Interaction is the process in which the ability to think is both developed and expressed

• All types of interaction, not just interaction during socialization, refine our ability to think

• Beyond that, thinking shapes the interaction process

• In most interaction, actors must take account of others and decide if and how to fit their activities to others (Ritzer p. 370) The Current June 16, 2017

Communication, Learning & Meaning

• meaning stems not from solitary mental processes but from [symbol-mediated] interaction, i.e., communication

• the central concern is not how people learn shared meanings and interpretations during symbol-mediated interaction in general and socialization in particular

• The focus is not primarily on how individuals create mentally create meanings and symbols

Symbols and language • Symbolic interactionists conceive of language as a vast

system of symbols• Words are symbols because they are used to stand for

other things • Language-based communication enables people to act in

distinctively human ways• Because of the languge, the human being “does not

respond passively to a reality that imposes itself but actively creates and re-creates the world acted in” (Charon, 1998:69) – social construction of reality

• In addition to this general utility, symbols in general and language in particular have a number of specific functions for the actor

Seven functions of language & communication

1. symbols enable us to deal with the material and social worlds by allowing us to name, categorize, and remember the objects and interactions we encounter there

2. symbols improve our ability to perceive the environment. Instead of being flooded by a mass of indistinguishable stimuli, we can be alerted to some parts of the environment rather than others


3. symbols improve our ability to think – Thinking can be conceived of as talking with one’s self

4. symbols greatly increase tour he ability to solve various problems. Lower animals must use trial-and-error, but we can think through symbolically a variety of alternative actions before actually taking one. This ability reduces the chance of making costly mistakes.


5. symbols enable us to transcend time, space, and even their own persons. Through the use of symbols, we can imagine living in the past, the future and the world from another’s point of view

6. symbols allow us to imagine a metaphysical reality, such as heaven or hell

7. Seventh, and most generally, symbols enable us to avoid being enslaved by their environment. We can be active rather than passive—that is, self-directed in what we do.


These functions are related to Durkheim’s sociology of knowledge, particularly the structures of knowledge and categories of understanding that he argued emerged from social experience:• time, space, classification, force, causality, and

totality

Action, interaction & behavior

SI attempts to link thought and social action/interaction using the concepts Covert and Overt behavior• Covert behavior is the thinking process,

involving symbols and meanings (i.e., language and communication)

• Overt behavior is the actual behavior performed by an actor (i.e., the actions and interactions)


Most human action involves both Covert andf Overt behavior – thinking and actingCovert behavior (thinking) is of greatest concern to symbolic interactionistsOvert behavior is of greatest concern to exchange theorists or to traditional behaviorists in general


• Although we often engage in thoughtless, habitual behavior, we have the capacity to engage in social action, that is, action that takes into account the effects on and reactions of ourselves and others

Action, interaction & behaviour

• in social interaction, we engage in a process of mutual influence (Ritzer, p. 372)

• The influence results in part because of shared systems of meaning and interpretive frameworks

• in social interaction we influence each other either because we agree or disagree

Action, interaction & behaviour • The idea that we influence each other through

language mediated symbolic interaction – communication - is related to Parsons’ concept of “influence” as a generalized medium of interaction in society (i.e., the social sub-system of action)

• The idea that much of our social behavior is habitual, that is, is done without thought, is related to Bourdieu’s concepts of Habitas and Field

• The concept of Field is related to the idea of structured Systems of Action (i.e., economy, polity, civil society)

• It is also related to Goffman’s concept of Frame and the Frame Analysis method

Self, Mind and Choice

• Through communication we can accept, challenge and develop new meanings and interpretive frameworks

• Who we are, what we believe, what we do, and why we do it is partly an outcome of a creative social process

• As individuals, members of societies, and as a species our fate and our dstiny is at least partly in our own hands

Self, Mind and Choice

• This insight is also closely related to Marx’s observation in the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte that men make their own history, but not under conditions of their choosing…

• See Ernest Mandell on Parametric Determinism

Choices and Change

• There is a broad based agreement on the notion that most of our action and behavior is unthinking and “determined” by existing definitions of the situation

• This raises the question: Under what conditions do we act creatively and produce personal and social transformation and change?

• See Sewell on the sociology of events.

George Herbert Mead & Symbolic Interactionism

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