Symbolic Interactionism
Symbolic interactionism is a social psychological theory developed from the work of Charles Horton Cooley and George Herbert Mead in the early part of the twentieth century. According to this theory, people inhabit a world that is in large part socially constructed. In particular, the meaning of objects, events, and behaviors comes from the interpretation people give them, and interpretations vary from one group to another. In his theory of a “looking glass self,” Cooley argued that the way we think about ourselves is particularly apt to reflect other people’s appraisals and that our self-concepts are built up in the intimate groups that he called “primary groups.” Mead emphasized that human beings do not react directly to events; they act based on their interpretation of the meaning of events.
George Herbert Mead
Mead is generally regarded as the founder of the symbolic interaction approach and his major work is Mind, Self and Society, published in 1934, in which he emphasizes how the social world develops various mental states in an individual.
George Herbert Mead (1863 - 1931)
Mead distinguishes humans from non-human animals because humans can delay their reactions to a stimulus. Intelligence is the ability to mutually adjust actions, which may do this through involuntary gestures. Non-human animals also have intelligence because they often can act together or adjust what they do to the actions of other animals. As a result of this greater intelligence, humans can communicate, plan, and work out responses, rather than merely reacting in an instinctive or stimulus-response manner.
1. Mind: The mind is the processes involved in responding to stimuli and contemplating action, which is almost more important than the physiological processes of the brain, the structure of knowledge, or the contents of individual knowledge. The mind is also social rather than purely a characteristic of the brain or the individual. That is, the mind develops as a result of social interaction, the mind is part of social processes, and since the latter precede the mind, society is prior to the mind and self.
Mead also looks at the mind in another pragmatic way. That is, the mind involves a thought process oriented toward problem solving. The real world is rife with problems, and it is the function of the mind to try to solve those problems and permit people to operate more effectively in the world.
2. Self: The self is the central social feature in the symbolic interaction approach. Instead of being passive and being influenced by values or structures, Mead considers the self as a process that is active and creative – taking on the role of others, addressing the self by considering these roles, and then responding. This is a reflexive process whereby an individual can take himself or herself to be both subject and object.
Development of the Self: Mead discusses the development of the child because this is how the self is created.
a. The first stage of development of the self involves imitative acts on the part of the child. This is the pre-play stage, around age two, where the child does not have the ability to take on the role of others but merely imitates the actions of others.
b. A play stage follows, where the child can act out the parts of others but cannot yet relate to the role of others. That is, the child repeats what others say and takes on several roles, one at a time. Later, the child is able to act with others and anticipate the actions of others.
c. The game stage, where the child can take on the role of all the others involved in the game or situation. In doing this, the child learns the organized attitudes of the whole community and is able to act in common with others.
d. The final stage in socialization is the internalization of the generalized other, whereby people can put themselves in the position of the other person, imagine how others will react, and from that contemplate various courses of action. Once this ability is developed, the individual has a self which is individual, yet could not have developed apart from the community.
3. Society: The third major part of Mead’s approach is society. The ongoing symbols and social processes that exist are logically and historically prior to the development of the mind and self. Institutions that give the common responses of society and the regular habits of the community are the context within which the mind and self are created. Socialization and education are the means by which individuals internalize these common habits. Mead does not see these as coercive or oppressive and feels that individual creativity can exist within this. Social institutions can be viewed as constraining individuals, but these same institutions can also be viewed as enabling people to become creative individuals.
Mead did not develop a macro view of society and social institutions as a whole, but his approach might be combined with some of the more structural approaches to provide a more integrated view of the macro and micro approaches. Even the classical sociologists have a similar conception of society to that of Mead, but they do not have a theory of the self, and they do not emphasize interaction. Mead’s view of this dynamic relationship led him to believe that society, due to its constituent elements of mind and self, is constantly in a state of flux and rife with potential change.
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