SYA 3010 Sociological
Theory:
George Herbert Mead
Wednesday, March
23, 2016
© 2001-2006 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
1
George Herbert Mead
References
Coser, Lewis A. 1977. Masters of Sociological Thought:
Ideas in Historical and Social Context. 2d ed. New York:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers.
Mead, George Herbert. 1934. Mind, Self, and Society.
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Perdue, William D. 1986. Sociological Theory: Explanation,
Paradigm, and Ideology. Palo Alto, CA: Mayfield
Publishing Company.
Turner, Jonathan H., Leonard Beeghley, and Charles H.
Powers. 2002. The Emergence of Sociological Theory.
5th ed. Stamford, CT: Wadsworth Thomson Learning.
Wednesday, March
23, 2016
© 2001-2006 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
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George Herbert Mead
 1863-1931
 Born in Massachusetts
during the Civil
War
 Father was a minister,
descended from a long line of
Puritan farmers and clergymen
 Father taught at Oberlin
College (Ohio)
 Mead attended Oberlin College
(Coser 1977:341)
Wednesday, March
23, 2016
© 2001-2006 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
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George Herbert Mead
Mead published relatively little…his
theoretical work primarily exists within
Mind, Self, and Society (Mead 1934)…a
posthumous publication.
(Coser 1977:333; Turner, Beeghley, and Powers 2002:455)
Wednesday, March
23, 2016
© 2001-2006 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
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George Herbert Mead
Social psychology for Mead is the discipline that:
“…studies the activity or behavior of the
individual as it lies within the social
process. The behavior of the individual can be
understood only in terms of the behavior of the
whole social group of which he is a member,
since his individual acts are involved in larger,
social acts which go beyond himself and which
implicate the other members of the group.”
(Coser 1977:334; Mead 1934:6-7)
Wednesday, March
23, 2016
© 2001-2006 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
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George Herbert Mead
While earlier social psychology had dealt
with social experience from the individual
psychological standpoint, Mead suggested
that individual experience be dealt with
“from the standpoint of society, at least
from the standpoint of communication as
essential to the social order.”
(Coser 1977:334; Mead 1934:1)
Wednesday, March
23, 2016
© 2001-2006 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
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George Herbert Mead
Mead argued that there can be no self apart from
society, no consciousness of self and no
communication.
In its turn, society must be understood as a
structure that emerges through an ongoing
process of communicative social acts, through
transactions between persons who are mutually
oriented toward each other.
(Coser 1977:334)
Wednesday, March
23, 2016
© 2001-2006 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
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George Herbert Mead
Mead saw in gesture the key mechanism
through which social acts are effected.
But he sharply separates nonsignificant
(unself-conscious) gestures, as found on
the animal level, from the significant (selfconscious) gestures that characterize
most human intercourse.
(Coser 1977:334)
Wednesday, March
23, 2016
© 2001-2006 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
8
George Herbert Mead
For Mead and later symbolic interactionists,
language is the distinguishing criterion for
being human.
Mead believed that if one's actions evoke the
same response in others, then the meaning of
symbols is not longer private but a behavioral
reality that can be studied.
(Perdue 1986:237)
Wednesday, March
23, 2016
© 2001-2006 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
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George Herbert Mead:
Mind, Self, and Society
Mead's conception of mind is that of a
"social phenomenon--arising and
developing within the social process,
within the empirical matrix of social
interactions."
(Mead 1934:133; Perdue 1986:237)
Wednesday, March
23, 2016
© 2001-2006 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
10
George Herbert Mead:
Mind, Self, and Society
Not only does the mind emerge through such exchange,
its nature is that of an internal process of
communication grounded in the utilization of
significant symbols. Hence, the mind is processually
formed through interactions with others and selfconversation. Symbols, considered significant only when
shared with others, dominate the process. For human
beings, the most vital and distinctive symbolic
communication is language bound. Or in Mead's
words, "out of language emerges the field of mind.“
(Mead 1934:133; Perdue 1986:237)
Wednesday, March
23, 2016
© 2001-2006 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
11
George Herbert Mead:
Mind, Self, and Society
 The conception of mind as process rather than
product means that consciousness is not a simple
captive of external forces. Rather, it is an active and
creative force constantly changing and growing... Nor
does its nature simply reflect an imitation of the
behavior of others or fixed responses (whether learned
or instinctual) to external bounds. The process rather is
one of sifting selectively through an ongoing barrage of
signals and forming "definitions of the situation“ (Perdue
1986:237)
 Consciousness [mind] is not given; it is emergent (Coser
1977:335).
Wednesday, March
23, 2016
© 2001-2006 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
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George Herbert Mead:
Mind, Self, and Society
In what ways, then, does language make mind possible?...For Mead,
mind involves several behavioral capacities:
The capacity to denote objects in the environment with
significant symbols
The capacity to use these symbols as a stimulus to one’s own
response
The capacity to read and interpret the gestures of others and
use these as a stimulus for one’s response
The capacity to temporarily suspend or inhibit overt behavior
responses to one’s own gestural denotations or those of others
The capacity to “imaginatively rehearse” alternative lines of
conduct, visualize their consequences, and select the response
that will facilitate adjustment to the environment
(Turner, Beeghley, and Powers 2002:459-460)
Wednesday, March
23, 2016
© 2001-2006 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
13
George Herbert Mead:
Mind, Self, and Society
The second component in Mead's trilogy is termed self.
The self also "arises in social experience," can be
thought of as "an object to itself," and possesses a
"social structure" (Mead 1934:140). This suggests that
individuals can conceive of their own being and convert
that identity into a form of consciousness. So conceived,
the self can be the recipient of both definition and
emotion. Symbolic communication is of course crucial to
the development of answers to the question Who am I?
In consistent fashion, Mead argued that the self is best
thought of as a process, and he traced its genesis
developmentally.
(Perdue 1986:237-238)
Wednesday, March
23, 2016
© 2001-2006 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
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George Herbert Mead:
Mind, Self, and Society
The development of the self is dependent on learning to
take the role of the other. In turn, role taking requires
that we imagine how our behavior will be defined from
the standpoint of others. For Mead, role taking occurs
throughout the developmental process by which the self
is constructed and refined. And this process consists of
three distinctive phases. From a period of imitation
without meaning for infants, through the play-acting
world of children, and finally to the phase of the
generalized other, the self expands, changes,
becomes.
(Perdue 1986:238)
Wednesday, March
23, 2016
© 2001-2006 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
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George Herbert Mead:
Mind, Self, and Society
For the very young, role playing is simply a matter
of doing what others do. In time, however, the
child begins to play "pretend" roles such as
parent, sibling, even the imaginary friend, In
this course of switching identities and imaginary
conversations, the self through play becomes
both separate and defined. The child is learning
to see a unique self from the various
perspectives of other role players.
(Perdue 1986:238)
Wednesday, March
23, 2016
© 2001-2006 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
16
George Herbert Mead:
Mind, Self, and Society
When at a later point, egocentric play gives way to the
rules and "teamwork" of games, the individual learns
that the behaviors of other players are somewhat fixed,
impersonal, and predictable. In playing the multiple and
interlocking roles of the game, and other organized
endeavors, self-control emerges. Through such play,
one develops and internalizes a group of perspective on
the self that Mead termed the "generalized other." To
the extent that this collective frame of reference
matures, the player becomes a social being who will
demonstrate some consistency in future behavior (Mead
1934:150-163). Thus, the "inner voice" of the
generalize other continues to whisper the complex
requirements of being "human."
(Perdue 1986:238)
Wednesday, March
23, 2016
© 2001-2006 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
17
George Herbert Mead:
Mind, Self, and Society
The essence of the self, according to Mead,
is its reflexivity. The individual self is
individual only because of its relation to
others.
(Coser 1977:337)
Wednesday, March
23, 2016
© 2001-2006 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
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George Herbert Mead:
Mind, Self, and Society
In the lifelong context of interdependent action, two
dimensions of the self emerge, are formed and
reformed. In one, the individual develops an identify in
response to the attitudes of others. Such a response
emanates from the solitary individual's definition of the
situation. In the other, one assumes the "organized set
of attitudes of others" (Mead 1934:175). This
component of the self provides the rules for the actual
response. For these dimensions, Mead employed the
concepts "I" and "Me," respectively. It is the latter that
comes with the internalization of the generalized other.
(Perdue 1986:238)
Wednesday, March
23, 2016
© 2001-2006 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
19
George Herbert Mead:
Mind, Self, and Society
Both “I” and “me” necessarily relate to social experience.
But the “I” is the response of the organism to the
attitudes of the others; the “me” is the organized set of
attitudes of others which one assumes.
“We are,” Mead writes, “individuals born into a certain
nationality, located at a certain spot geographically, with
such and such family relations, and such and such
political relations. All of these represent a certain
situation which constitutes the ‘me’; but this necessarily
involves a continued action of the organism toward the
‘me.’”
(Coser 1977:338; Mead 1934:182)
Wednesday, March
23, 2016
© 2001-2006 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
20
George Herbert Mead:
Mind, Self, and Society
Society [the third component] in Mead's
system is little more than an extension of
his "organized self." More precisely, the
self through interaction takes on
"generalized social attitudes" toward a
wider environment. Such references are
beyond the immediate spheres of
personal relationships, intimate groups, or
communities.
(Perdue 1986:238)
Wednesday, March
23, 2016
© 2001-2006 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
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George Herbert Mead:
Mind, Self, and Society
For Mead, the institution of society consist
of "common responses" rooted in such
attitudes by which "the modern civilized
human individual is and feels himself to
be a member not only of a certain local
community or state or nation, but also of
an entire given race or even civilization as
a "whole."
(Mead 1934:273; Perdue 1986:238)
Wednesday, March
23, 2016
© 2001-2006 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
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George Herbert Mead:
Mind, Self, and Society
Society is thus maintained by virtue of
humans’ ability to role-take and to assume
the perspective of generalized others.
(Turner, Beeghley, and Powers 2002:472)
Wednesday, March
23, 2016
© 2001-2006 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
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