Week 7 Symbolic Interactionism PDF

Foundations of sociological thought Symbolic interactionism (1) George Herbert Mead (1863 – 1931)  The self as role-taking The individual experiences himself as such, not directly, but only indirectly, from the particular standpoints of other individual membe...

Foundations of sociological thought Symbolic interactionism (1) George Herbert Mead (1863 – 1931)  The self as role-taking The individual experiences himself as such, not directly, but only indirectly, 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. (Mead 1934/1962:138) George H. Mead, Wikipedia, accessed Feb 18th 2020  Key ideas  The “I”  The “Me”  Generalized other  “Looking glass self”  Socialization as play and game stages  Significant symbols and significant others  Three perspectives on the nature of society The nature of society Society as a system of interrelated parts  structural functionalism (E. Durkheim, R. K. Merton) Society as a result of class relations and class conflict (Marx)  social conflict approach Society as an arena of interactions between individuals (Simmel, also Weber)  laid the ground for symbolic interactionism; Simmel  antipositivism  Symbolic interactionism George H. Mead (1863-1931) and Charles Horton Cooley (1864-1929) Social reality is created by people based on what the reality around them means for them and on what they deem useful/significant (pragmatism). It is a continuous and dynamic process People interact with one another, constantly interpreting what other people say and do (interactionism)  people “take the attitudes of others to themselves” (dating/online personality management)  Symbolic interactionism Symbol Interpretation Interaction Reality  William James  Pragmatism is a uniquely American philosophical doctrine developed primarily through the work of Charles S. Peirce (1839–1914), William James (1842–1910), and John Dewey (1859–1952)  Pragmatism (1907)  Truths are good insofar as they are useful; Principles of psychology (1890)  William James  A “stream of thought”  we are “steeped” in the waters of our individual consciousness ; we experience the world directly  We only register that which is of interest to us, our conscious acts like a filter  Our identity (self) has different “constituents”: empirical (material) self (or me), social self, spiritual self, pure ego (myself as Thinker, separate from other people) (James 1890, X)  The self as subject/object  1. Its constituents;  2. The feelings and emotions they arouse  Self-feelings;  3. The actions to which they prompt  Self-seeking and Self-preservation (James 1890, X)  We not only perceive but “we perceive that we perceive” (John Locke  We experience ourselves as “subjects” and “objects” (Kant)  Psychological behaviorism  Psychological behaviorism is an empirical branch of psychology that focuses solely on observable actions. Indeed, its proponents argue that only overt behaviors are open to scientific investigation  Behavior  conditioning through stimuli  conditioned response  Edward Thorndike (1905) “law of effect”  John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner and the “little Albert” experiment (1920)  Positive reinforcement  I. Pavlov’s conditioning (1902); B. F. Skinner (1938)  Social behaviorism of G. H. Mead  Mead rejected this view of individuals as passive, non- reflexive, and determined  For Mead, the mind is not inaccessible to investigation and people are not reducible to how they respond to reward/punishment  Instead, Mead viewed the mind as a behavioral process that entails self-reflection and a “conversation of significant gestures” (ADE 2021)  Mead and meaning  For Mead, our self emerges from everyday interactions with significant others – people crucial to our socialization  The “I” – the subjective phase – our gesture (preceded by thinking about possible consequences or lines of action)  the creative and spontaneous part of our self  The “me” – the anticipated (and/or actual) “adjustive” response of another to that gesture  “me” as a tool of social control. We control our behavior based on anticipated judgment of another (Mead 1934/1962) (Example: IM/Texting)  The “completion” of the social interaction – achieved result (ADE 2021)  The emergence of self In a sort of “internal conversation”, an individual takes the attitude of the other, imagining in their own mind the same responses to their potential action that are imagined in the other person’s mind The “me” is the “organized set of attitudes of others which one himself assumes” (Mead 1934/1962:175, emphasis added). Thus, the individual self is in large measure a social product that is rooted in our perceptions of how others might interpret our behaviors (ADE 2021)  Discussion Can television, and mass media more generally, affect the development of the self? If so, how? Discuss using the concepts/theory of G. H. Mead. What important aspects of our existence or social reality does Mead’s theory neglect to discuss?  “Looking glass self”  We have seen how taking the role of ‘the other’ helps our ‘self’ emerge.  The objective me is a component of our self which deals with how others see us while the subjective I determines how we act on this image. Another symbolic interactionist, Charles Horton Cooley, called it a “looking glass self”.  “Looking glass self”  The looking-glass self has three principal elements (Cooley, 1902/1964):  We consider how others will see us  We analyze how others react to our behaviours  Based on the previous two elements, we develop a self- concept around the judgments of others  Mead’s me as a tool of social control  The “objective” me as role-taking  Stage 1 - Imitation of significant others (Brym, Lie, Stroschein 2016) – without meaning  Stage 2 - Engaging in play (playing ‘house’ ‘mommy and daddy’,) – one role in one situation  Stage 3 - Engaging in games (sports) – multiple roles in multiple situations at the same time, with abstract “rules”  The generalized other The generalized other represents the organized set of attitudes that are common in the group to which an individual belongs (like “collective conscience” in Durkheim)  Responding to ourselves from the point of view of the whole community makes possible the coordination of diverse activities in large groups or institutions  institutions as “social habits”  Moreover, by assuming the attitude of the generalized other, we are able to orient our behavior toward the realization of abstract ideals such as freedom, individual rights, and fairness (ADE 2021)  Discussion Can you think of some examples of the “generalized other? Discuss the theoretical merits of Mead’s conceptualization of institutions as “social habits” or a “common response on the part of all members of the community to a particular situation” (Mead 1934/1962:261). Use concrete examples to both support and critique this conceptualization. How does Mead’s conceptualization of institutions compare with Weber’s image of contemporary society as an “iron cage” (see ADE 2021: 341)  Conclusion  For Mead, we are products of social situations and contexts  Meaning is constructed by people involving in purposeful interactions in a variety of contexts  we have multiple selves  The self consists of two connected and dynamic phases – the “me” and the “I”, which is a purposeful reaction to the objective “me”  We shape social situations by anticipating the responses of other people to our actions (self-reflective “internal conversations”