GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
George Herbert Mead: Social Interaction and the Creation of Identity
Much of George Herbert Mead’s concept of the “generalized other,” in which an individual develops expectations about actions within a given set of social parameters, is reflected in the writings of philosophers and behavioral theorists such as Adam Smith and John Dewey. Smith postulated that people interact with society based on an idea of how others view them. Dewey, a pioneer in the theory of pragmatism, held that people regard objects and actions within the context of their usefulness, or their practical applicability (Appelrouth and Edles, p. 312). These two schools of thought offer objective explanations concerning the nature of the self and the inter-subjectivity of individuals within society (Aboulafia, 2012). Mead also developed an influential construct of temporality, in which the past and the future are regarded within the framework of the present (2012).
The context within which Mead, his colleagues and those that influenced their philosophy worked can be traced to the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. In fact, it was Auguste Comte who coined the term “sociology” in 1839, an innovative concept that encompassed the psychological, social and philosophical aspects of thought that explain the increasing complexity of human interrelationships that accompanies the advance of civilization. Sociology, or “social physics,” sums up what Comte and other social philosophers saw as an “organic conceptualization” of society (Appelrouth and Edles, p. 6). It was characteristic of the Enlightenment period and its greatest thinkers to equate the concept of sociology with the natural sciences, in so doing applying common methods of scientific inquiry and explanation to matters which, like all areas of scientific inquiry, are capable of being tested (Appelrouth and
GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
Edles, p. 6).
Two of the greatest Enlightenment philosophers, Charles Montesquieu and Jean Jacques Rousseau, themselves owe a debt to 17th-century philosophers like John Locke and Rene Descartes, who sought to render overarching, abstract themes into rational, testable hypotheses. But it was the writings of Henri Saint Simon that had an especially profound effect on the development of sociology as a natural science. Saint Simon postulated that the gradual transformation of society, guided by reason, would result in a new, more enlightened social order. His theories helped bring about a movement known as Christian Socialism, which aimed at organizing society based on Christian principles (Appelrouth and Edles, p. 89). However, it was Emile Durkheim who developed the idea that conditions and circumstances external to the individual determine one’s course of action (p. 6). It was the core theories developed by these 17th and 18th century social and philosophical innovators that gave George Herbert Mead and other 19th-century theorists important contextual grounding upon which to meld the intellectual disciplines of psychology and sociology.
Comte and his contemporaries developed what are today known as classical social theories, such as positivism, which posits that sensory input and intellectual interpretation are the basis for knowledge, and social evolutionism, a forerunner of Darwinian evolutionism. Most classical theorists postulated that human development follows a linear progression of development. Newer concepts of human development, such as those put forth by George Herbert Mead and his colleagues, hold that more complex explanations are needed in order to gain a thorough understanding of social evolution. This is a predominantly late-19th and 20th
GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
century phenomenon.
It is the aim of sociologists to explain social phenomena according to theoretical frameworks. Mead, for instance, posited that language is central to the development of the individual, and that individuals use language to anticipate through vocal expression the responses of others. This construct falls under Mead’s theory of “generalized social attitudes,” in which the “coordinated interaction between individuals and groups” defines the ways in which human beings respond and react to each other (Appelrouth and Edles, p. 311). For Mead, gestures (such as vocal gestures) are part of the behavioral process that explains the functioning of the human mind and the relationships between human beings within society (p. 311). Society then, is the broad “social” phenomenon that Mead’s theories seek to explain.
Mead’s explanation for the way society functions is as a network of shared attitudes that “consciously shape individuals’ behaviors” (Appelrouth and Edles, p. 317). This is a function of human beings acting in ways that reflect the attitudes of others in recurring social situations; Mead extended this theory to explain social institutions as behavioral patterns that are reenacted and reinforced by individuals over and over again (p. 317). In this way, Mead developed a theoretical approach to the very broadest concept of social phenomena: society itself. It is within the greater social framework that the self is created and identity is formed. The self and society are intertwined, but the “self” is the production of the imagination. Mead explains this by stating that the self is essentially a social construct (p. 317). Because the most important elements of social interaction play out in one’s imagination, Mead emphasized the role of the “generalized other” in social life.
GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
The perception, and misperception, of words and gestures lie at the root of much of Mead’s theory of social interaction. People respond to their environment based on their own interpretations of the external expectations of others within society. New methods of communication, communication that is driven by technology, create additional dynamics of interpretation and misinterpretation. Today, e-mail is one of the most common forms of communication, utilized in both commercial and personal exchanges. It is timely, and is facilitative of nuanced meaning and expression . It even features its own “language,” which relies on otherwise innocuous symbols on the keyboard to express a wide range of expression. It may add new levels of meaning, but such means of communication also change the way humans interpret meaning. The Internet and the mass media have fundamentally altered the notion of communication and the development of the self.
Television and the increasing sophistication of video games affect people on a visceral, emotional level. This is vastly different from the reading of words on a page, which is a highly cognitive process, or the face-to-face interpretation of gestures and verbal exchange of information between people. The highly interactive nature of the mass media adds new layers to the ways in which people regard themselves, and their own self-image. This phenomenon is heavily influenced by the medium through which information is gathered. When people are optimistic, they interpret input differently then when they are angry, or sad. Thus, the power of the media to make people angry, happy, sad, etc., wields a powerful influence not only over the way they view and interpret the world around them, but it also directly influences the ways in which individuals view themselves.
GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
Today, people regularly quote lines from popular television shows and movies in conversation with other people. The infiltration of this pseudo-speech into everyday communication reflects the ubiquity of media in our daily lives. It also reflects the values and interests of the individual who has absorbed the information from television, the Internet, video games, etc., and internalized it sufficiently to make it part of his or her own identity. In such a social dynamic, it becomes important for the individual to reflect his or her socialization in this manner in order to effectively relate to others, in order to “fit in.” As such, the media creates a new level of communication, a new way in which human beings together make sense of their environment. It also represents an entirely new way of expressing one’s values, an important aspect of the self.
Mead’s consideration of the role an individual’s thinking plays in society has new significance in the modern, high-speed era of instant communication and multi-media entertainment. Mead’s generalized social attitudes continue to evolve as the technological landscape alters ways in which individuals and groups interact. People continue to relate to each other by anticipating the ways in which other individuals are likely to respond verbally and non-verbally. But the mass media changes the meaning that human beings give to social phenomena and, thus, changes the social interaction through which such meaning is communicated between people. The paradigm that emerges is one in which identity and self-meaning are reinforced and augmented through social interaction, and in which the mediation of an engineered reality, produced by the mass media, creates an artificial (or “virtual”) space in which the self develops and responds to others who share in this altered reality.
GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
References
Aboulafia, M. (2012). “George Herbert Mead.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Palo
Alto, CA. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu.
Appelrouth, S. and Edles, L.D. (2008). Classical and Contemporary Sociological Theory: Text
and Readings. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.
