Chapter 5
Self and Identity
I. Potential lead off discussion - time permitting
Lead off discussion with this question.
?????? Do animals have a sense of self????????
-- since we can't prove that they have language, I would suggest that they do not
have selves either
II
The Social Construction of Self – Symbolic Interactionist Perspective
Notes from:
The Self as Sentiment and Reflection -- C.H. Cooley
Abstract:
-- for Cooley, the human self also rests on individuals' emotional responsiveness to one
another
-- the individual not only appropriates people and material objects by claiming them as
"mine," but he or she also appropriates images of himself or herself reflected in others'
treatment of him or her.
-- this is commonly known as "looking glass self"
-- Cooley suggests that the individual can only reflect upon and form images of
himself or herself through the imaginary adoption of someone else's perspective
-- for us, others' responses are the looking glass in which we see reflected images
of ourselves
-- it is from these socially reflected images that we construct a self and our
feelings about it
Text:
-- social self - def. - any idea, or system of ideas, drawn from the communicative life,
that the mind cherishes as its own
-- what we call "me," "mine," or "myself" is, then not something separate from
the general life, but the most interesting part of it, a part whose interest arises
from the very fact that it is both general and individual.
-- there is no sense of "I" as in pride or shame, without its correlative sense of
you, or he, or they.
-- even the miser gloating over his hidden gold can feel the "mine" only as
he is aware of the world of men over whom he has secret power; and
the case is very similar with all kinds of hidden treasure.
-- a social self of this sort might be called the reflected or looking-glass self:
"Each to each a looking-glass
Reflects the other that doth pass."
-- self-idea seems to have 3 principal elements:
1- the imagination of our appearance to the other person
2- the imagination of his judgment of that appearance;
3- some sort of self-feeling, such as pride or mortification
-- Development of the self (or self-feeling)
--> first, by studying the movements of others as closely as they do, children
soon make the connection btw their own acts and changes in those movements;
that is they perceive their own influence or power over persons
-- children then begin to "manipulate" the others like their playthings
--> soon the children learn to be different things to different people, showing
that he begins to apprehend personality and to foresee its operation.
--> children also begin to claim others as "mine" along with some of their
other possessions (e.g. my mamma)
--> a little child thinks of and tries to elicit certain visible or audible phenomena,
and does not go beyond them; but what a grown-up person desires to produce
in others is an internal, invisible condition which his own richer experience
enables him to imagine, and of which expression is only the sign.
--> How does Cooley come up with these ideas?
-- Observation
-- any empirical evidence?
--> Reed Bain's study (1936) - children learn about other first then
about self -- he identified this in children's use of language.
Notes from: The Self as Social Structure - George Herbert Mead
--> expands Cooley's work
--> the self is separate from the body; it arises in social experience; but is it more than a
mere product of socially reflected self-images
--> in speaking, we are both the subject and an object of our own action
--> Mead observes that once children start to acquire language, they literally begin to
take on the roles of others to play
-->games involve the rule-governed coordination of a variety of distinct roles.
--> the structure of the self will reflect the structure of the various groups of which the
individual is a member
--> the self is both subject and object
--> the subject or "I" responds to the object or "me"
--> the self is not thing but a process -- continuous conversation between "I" and "me"
Text:
--> the self has the characteristic that it is an object to itself
--> self is reflexive - it is an object to itself
-- the self is a social structure, and it arises in social experience
--> the individual experiences himself as such, not directly, but only
indirectly, from the particular standpoint 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
--> the individual becomes an object to him/herself, just as other
individuals are objects to her/him; and s/he becomes and object to
him/herself only by taking the attitudes of other individuals toward
him/herself within a social environment
--> the "I" (which is aware of the social "me")
--> the "I" is the response of the individual to the attitude of the community as
this appears in his own experience
--> the "I" appears in our experience in memory
-- it is only after we have acted that we know what we have done; it is
only after we have spoken that we know what we have said
--> the "me" (object)
--> is constantly there
--> the part of the self that gets adjusted after the "I" is considered
--> Emergence of the Self
1- Preparatory Stage -- imitation
2- Play Stage
-- playing the role of another to one's self
-- playing police officer, playing mom, etc.
3- Game Stage
-- child is able to take the attitude of everyone involved simultaneously
-- child recognizes that these different roles have
to one another
a definite relationship
-- what the person does is controlled by his/her being everyone else on
that team, at least in so far as those attitudes affect his own particular
response. We get then an "other" which is an organization of the
attitudes of those involved in the same process.
--> we can have different selves -- which means we might have two sets of "I" and "me"
-- different selves is dependent upon the set of social reactions that is involved as to
which self we are going to be.
--> the unity and structure of the complete self reflects the unity and structure of the
social process as a whole
--> the various elementary selves which constitute, or are organized into, a
complete self are the various aspects of the structure of that complete self
answering to the various aspects of the structure of the social process as a whole
--> the structure of the complete self is thus a reflection of the complete social
process.
--> the organized community or social group which gives to the individual his unity of
self may be called "the generalized other"
-- the attitude of the generalized other is the attitude of the whole community
--> we cannot be ourselves unless we ar also members in whom there is a community of
attitudes which control the attitudes of all
-- e.g. we can not have rights unless we have common attitudes
-- that which we have acquired as self-conscious persons makes us such
members of society and gives us selves
--> the individual possesses a self only in relation to the selves of the other members of
his/her social group
Dramaturgy – Goffman
Role Play Exercise
Goffman maintained that social interaction has its own logic and structure, regardless
of the participants’ personality characteristics or the social organizational and institutional
context in which it occurs. He was interested in the social definition and construction of the
public self during social interaction.
In the following scenarios:
∙
What is the logic and structure of the social interaction that took place in these role play
scenes?
∙
How did these actors present their “public” selves?
∙
How did the
∙
What might jeopardize the definition of the situation?
actors contribute to the definition of the situation?
Discussion:
Male doctor examining woman for her yearly gyn exam.
Role Play that I manipulate:
2 players: Employee and employer
Don’t tell either of the two actors the other’s part (other than their social position)
Tell the employee that his/her employer has invited them to lunch. As far as they know, their
job is not in jeopardy but they don’t know why their boss would invite them to lunch.
Tell the employer that he/she is inviting the employee to lunch because the employer thinks
(but is not sure) that the employee has a romantic interest in the employer. The goal of the
lunch is to figure out if the employee is having feelings for the employer.
Definition of the situation is unclear to both players.....let’s watch how they define the
situation.
Role Play:
2 players: Doctor and patient
Role play a scene between a doctor and a patient.
Role Play:
at least 3 players: customers and waiter/waitress
Act out a scene in a restaurant. Prefer someone who really is a waiter/waitress to play that
part. Others simply do what you normally do in a restaurant.
Role Play:
at least 2 players: customer and retail salesperson
Act out a shopping scene in a department store. Prefer someone who really works in retail to
play the role of salesperson and the customer just do what you would normally do when
shopping with the help of a salesperson.
Role Play:
at least 4 players: family members and visitor(s)
The family is at home going about their business when an unexpected visitor (or visitors) drops
by.
The Presentation of Self -- Goffman, Erving
Abstract:
--> he maintained that social interaction has its own logic and structure, regardless of
the participants’ personality characteristics or the social organizational and institutional
context in which it occurs.
--> dramaturgucial approach -- views the self, social interaction, and life as dramatic or
theatrical productions.
--> every time individuals interact with one another, they enact a self, influencing
others’ definition of them and of the situation.
-- they usually arrive at a working consensus concerning the definition of each
other’s self and of the situation that consequently guides their interaction that
consequently guides their interaction.
--> humans cannot peer into one another’s hearts and minds, nor can we ever know one
another’s “real” or “true” self. Our knowledge of one another is limited to what we
can observe.
--> the self is not a material thing that the individual carries around with him or her and
can show others. It must be dramatically realized on each and every occasion of social
interaction.
Text:
--> when an individual appears before others, his actions will influence the definition of
the situation which they come to have.
--> sometimes others may sense that the individual is manipulating the presumably
spontaneous aspects of his behavior, and seek in this very act of manipulation some
sharing of conduct that the individual has not managed to control.
-- this again provides a check upon the individual’s behavior, this time his
presumably uncalculated behavior, thus re-establishing the asymmetry of the
communication process
-- in the information game, the witness is likely to have the advantage over the
actor
--> each actor is expected to suppress his immediate heartfelt feelings, conveying a view
of the situation which he feels the others will be able to find at least temporarily
acceptable.
--> together, the participants contribute to a single over-all definition of the situation,
which involves not so much a real agreement as tot what exists, but rather a real
agreement as to whose claims concerning what issues will be temporarily honored.
-- thus, btw two friends at lunch, a reciprocal show of affection, respect and
concern for the other is maintained. In service occupations, on the other hand,
the specialist often maintains an image of disinterested involvement in the
problem of the client; while the client responds with a show of respect for the
competence and integrity of the specialist. Regardless of such difference in
content, however, the general form of these working arrangements is the same.
--> the individual’s initial projection commits him to what he is proposing to be and
requires him to drop all pretenses of being other things.
--> others fin that the individual has informed them as to what is and as to what they
ought to see as the “is.”
--> in addition to the fact that precautions are taken to prevent disruption of projected
definitions, we may also note that an intense interest in these disruptions come to play
a significant role in the social life of the group
-- practical jokes and social gems are played, in which embarrassments which are
to be taken unseriously are purposely engineered.
--> a “performance” may be defined as all the activity of a given participant on a given
occasion which serves to influence in any way any of the other participants.
--> at one extreme, one finds that the performer can be fully taken in by his won act; he
can be sincerely convinced that the impression of reality which he stages is the real
reality.
-- we might call this person sincere
--> at the other extreme, we find that the performer may not be taken in at all by his
own routine
-- when the individual has no belief in his won act and no ultimate concern with
the beliefs of his audience, we may call him cynical
-- cynical actors may delude the audience for his/her own good or private gain
-- cynical actors may also delude the audience for their own good -- doctors who
prescribe placebos when they believe that the patient will benefit from believing
they are taking a prescription drug --- these are cynical performers whose
audiences will not allow them to be sincere....
--> while the performance offered by impostors and liars is quite flagrantly false and
differs in this respect from ordinary performances, both are similar in the care their
performers must exert in order to maintain the impression that is fostered.
-- whether an honest performer wishes to convey the truth or whether a
dishonest performer wishes to convey a falsehood, both must take care to
enliven their performances with appropriate expressions that might discredit the
impression being fostered, and take care lest the audience impute unintended
meanings
--> the individual’s image is entertained concerning the individual, so that a self is
imputed to him, this self itself does not derive from its possessor, but from the whole
scene of his action, being generated by that attribute of local events which renders
them interpretable by witnesses
-- a correctly staged and performed scene leads the audience to impute a self to
a performed character, but this imputation - this self - is a product of a scene
that comes off, and is not a cause of it.
-- crucial issue, will the presentation of self be credited or discredited?
--> the key factor in this structure is the maintenance of a single definition of the
situation, this definition having to be expressed, and this expression sustained in the
face of a multitude of potential disruptions.
The Self-Conception in Social Interaction -- Ralph Turner
Abstract:
--> we carry within ourselves a conception of who we “really are” to which the often
heard statement that “I’m not really myself today” attests.
--> Turner outlines a conceptual framework for thinking about the interplay between
the succession of fleeting self-images reflected in others’ responses to the individual and
the individual’s more enduring self-conception or sense of the “real me”
--> self-conceptions are only relatively stable
-- they also change, as a moment’s reflection on how we thought of ourselves
five or ten years ago, compared to how we view ourselves today, often
demonstrates
-- the change is subtle and gradual
-- we edit our self-conceptions in relation to the succession of self-images to
which social interaction exposes us
--> tries to understand the interrelations between the public selves of social interaction
and the private selves of inner conversation
-- neither is more “real” or “true” than the other
-- self conception brings coherence
-- self images change and add excitement to our lives
-- only together do they constitute who and what we are
Text:
--> Goffman’s highly imaginative and influential work has popularized the idea of self as
an image the individual “manages” in order to serve his purposes
--> the aim of this paper is to sketch in preliminary form the relationship between the
passing images of self arising and changing in every relationship the individual enters
and the often more vague but much more vital sense of self as the real and lasting
“I-myself.”
-- one’s appearance at an instant of time, will be called a self-image
-- “I-myself as I really am” will be called the self-conception
--> compared with other person-conceptions, the self-conception is more extensively
shaped by what the person would like to be or is trying to be....
--> for any self-image to be evaluated there must be some standard of comparison
-- here is where introduction of the idea of self-conception makes a major
difference from simple conformity and social approval models of human
behavior
--> the self-image -- is an object constituted out of stimuli in such a fashion that is can be
directly compared with the self-conception
--> as a criterion, self-conception indicates the types of activity which are relevant and
the standards for achievement
--> simply, it is by comparison with the self-conception that the level of achievement is
translated into a favorable or unfavorable self-image
-- as a consequence, identical performance by different individuals can be
translated into quite different self-images
--> if the self-conception sets the standard for behavior, positively as well as negatively
discrepant images bring self-consciousness
--> the dynamic of the self-conception, both in its formation and in its direction of
behavior, lies in the interplay between self-conception and a continuous succession of
self-images.
-- much interaction proceeds under a modus vivendi between self and
environment, such that little attention is paid to self as object.
-- but when the self-image appears to threaten the self-conception, implying that
it should be either lowered or raised, the character of interaction is pervasively
altered by heightened preoccupation with self-images...
*** self-image = outside -- more public
*** self conception - more private
*** self -image can support or undermine the self conception
Postmodern Self or the Situated Self
Do we have a true self?