Module 2 Social Self

self

aside from being an aggregate of traits or personality disposition, the ________ is interactive, social, and processual

Charles Horton Cooley (1902)

He articulated the theory of a 'social self'. He argued that human beings are not born with a pre-existing self; instead, our sense of self emerges from our continuous engagement in social interaction.

social interaction; Cooley; looking-glass self

It is through ____________ that we are able to see things from the point of view of another person, which is at the core of what _______ referred to as the '____________'.

looking-glass self

It enable us to perceive how others see us

looking-glass self

It is used as the basis for how to effectively relate with others

looking-glass self

A concept where you base your assessment of yourself on your interactions with other people, such as your immediate interactions with family. To assess who you are, you always have to base your idea of yourself on those with whom you have strong relationships and interact regularly.

self-concept

accumulation of more experiences and knowledge refine our own '___________'

It is the definition of who we are based on what we consider as our own traits, attributes, personality disposition etc.

emotional; mutable (liable to change); situational

• One way of understanding Cooley's 'looking-glass self' is to: see this process of the emergence of the social self as an _________ response to a variety of situations rather than exclusively a product of thinking 

• Thus, the self may be understood as _________ rather than stable, and _______ rather than structural. 

George Herbert Mead (1934)

While cooley spoke of it as a process of social interaction thats emotional rather than rational while mead added to the idea of when and how it happened

He expounded on the social self and described when and how it emerges.

Mead

_______ made a distinction between the 'I' and the 'me', which both refer to the self.

'l'

• The _______ is our perception of our self as the doer of action; it is our active and creative self.

'l'

• The _______ is where our agency emanates.

'l'

• At birth, the _______ dominates our behavior as we are aware of and concerned with only our own needs and our own power to satisfy those needs.

'me'

• But as we develop as human beings and as we constantly engage in social interaction, we develop an awareness of the _______. 

'me'; 'l'

• The _______ our perception of our self as an object and receiver of action; it is the self that we perceive as we continuously receive action and feedback from others and even from our _______

As we grow older we expand our social network and we tend to see people that's different from us, we are also becoming a person, an object, a doer of an an action and a reciever of an action. We cant always act as the “I”, we must always consider others in different context, whenever we act or behave socially

As we grow older we expand our social network and we tend to see people that's different from us, we are also becoming a person, an object, a doer of an an action and a reciever of an action. We cant always act as the “I”, we must always consider others in different context, whenever we act or behave socially

Preparatory/Imitation Stage

• When you're a child, you have no ability to take the role of others, you're just pushing for what you want. 

Play Stage

• As you grow older, you could have playtime with a friend, you are engaging in play, and you reenact situations like acting to cook for example. 

• Pretend play.

Game Stage

• Then you engage in games, you assume the roles of other people, you guys could act as a family and one child acts as the mother while the other acts as the father. You are capable of expanding your social interaction even if it's not a real situation.

• This is the time, even when you're not in that situation, you can still imagine what would happen. For example, you're in your own situation but see others that are suffering and appreciate your own situation, you acknowledge that there are other people in other situations.

• This is when there is an acknowledgement of the “generalized other” or society as a whole.

Differentiate between the different stages of George Herbert Mead’s theory on social development.

Significant other

They are specific individuals to whose expectations the child internalizes

Significant other

They are the people close to us, especially during childhood. Parents, siblings, close relatives, close friends

Generalized other

The organized community or social group which gives to the individual his unity of self

The expectations of the society is now the basis of self-evaluation

Generalized other

What Mead would call society as a whole.

reflexivity

We are a product of our social interaction with people and as actors, we are not passive actors we are active individuals, we have reflexivity and agency.

The continuous process of thinking and doing in the context of interacting with others is referred to by Mead as ___________.

Reflexivity

We are a product of our social interaction with people and as actors, we are not passive actors we are active individuals, we have reflexivity and agency.

__________, or the ability to see one's self as an object, is a uniquely human capability, which enables human beings to create and achieve a sense of self.

Reflexivity

___________ as a form of cognition, or thinking, is a social process that involves the interpretation of symbols and meanings and the expectation of possible responses.

Reflexivity

__________ is not instinctive, whenever we see a cockroach we don't immediately scream, but consider where we are and who we are with.

• When you see a failed exam score do you cry immediately?

  • Do you consider what your friends and teachers think of you when you do that?

  • Your younger self would, and of course they would because they are more focused on the ”I” but as your older self you're able to consider many actors and many roles in many situations you don't immediately act out of instinct.

problem-solving actor;

The important implication of Mead's conceptualization of the self is that the self is understood as a ____________ and not simply as a subject of its position in the social structure.

agency

Human beings have _______, or the capability to cause necessary and desired changes (self-determination and autonomy).

passive

We are not merely ________ actors, based on the roles and status that we possess. It doesn’t mean that you’re a student now, that’s all you do, you still have the capability of doing other activities that aren’t related to that role of being a student.

We are not merely performers of the roles we have to fill. We have the reflexivity and agency to understand when things no longer work for us, and if it doesn’t then we should make a stand.

Socialization

__________ describes the process by which people learn the attitudes, values, and behaviors that are appropriate and expected by their culture and community, and it typically occurs through the observation of and interaction with the people we are surrounded by.

Cooley; Mead

Unlike ________, who believed EVERYONE influenced our behavior and self-perception, ________ believed it was only certain people at certain times of our lives. The way others influence us changes across our lifespan.

• For example, infants were not actually influenced by others, and they just thought of themselves as the focus of their own world, they did not care what other people thought, NOR did they even have the capacity to understand.

Role taking

________ - mentally assuming the perspectives of another person and acting based on their perceived POV.

Me; I

• ____ - social self

  • How we believed the generalized other sees us, what we learn through interactions with others. 

• ____ - our response to the Me (i.e. social self)

  • Thinks about what those things mean.

Jean Piaget

He studied the intellectual development of his own three children and created a theory that described the 4 stages that children pass through in the development of intelligence and formal thought processes.

1. Sensorimotor stage

   • The level of development where all knowledge is based on what you can perceive with your senses.
     

2. Preoperational stage

   • The child uses language and begins to ask questions to learn about the world.

   • At this point, they can think of the world, which leads to playing pretend and an understanding of symbols.

   • This is limited to how THEY, the children themselves, think of the world, which means they are pretty egocentric.
     

3. Concrete Operational stage

   • Children develop the ability to take in other people’s perspectives and begin to make cause-and-effect connections between events in their surroundings.
     

4. Formal Operational stage

   • Kids start to think in abstract terms and use logic and critical thinking.

What were Jean Piaget's four different stages of Cognitive development?

Lawrence Kohlberg

He expanded on Piaget’s model of cognitive development to include stages of moral development

1. Pre-conventional stage

   • Kids sense of what is “right” starts at this stage

   • Right in this case is only what feels good to them

2. Conventional stage

   • Where what's “right” is what society and the people around them tells them is right.

3. Post-conventional stage

   • Where they begin to consider more abstract ethical concepts than just simply right or wrong.
     

What were Lawrence Kohlberg’s 3 stages of moral development added upon Jean Piaget's theory?

Carol Giligan

She realized that Kohlberg’s research was probably biased cause it only had boys.

Carol Giligan

In her research that included both male and female children, she found that:

Boys

• Tended to emphasize formal rules to define right and wrong - what she called a Justice perspective.

Girls

• Tended to emphasize the role of interpersonal reasoning in moral decisions - what she called a case and responsibility perspective.
  

Justice; responsibility

In Carol Gilligan’s research, which included both male and female children, she found that:

Boys

• Tended to emphasize formal rules to define right and wrong - what she called a _______ perspective.

Girls

• Tended to emphasize the role of interpersonal reasoning in moral decisions - what she called a case and _________ perspective.
  

Carol Giligan

She argued that the differences in moral development between girls and boys stem from the cultural conditioning that girls receive to fulfill ideals of femininity. She thought that we socialize girls to be more nurturing and empathetic, and that influences their moral interpretation of behavior.

Erik Erikson

8-stage theory of development from infancy to old age. 

1. Toddler

   • Getting what you want, or as he puts it, gaining autonomy

2. Young adult

   • No longer requires gaining autonomy but developing intimate relationships.

• Every one of these stages features different expectations that inform what we see as markers of social development.

• Moving out, getting married, and having kids – they’re all societal markers of social development as an adult.

Primary Socialization

Your first experiences with the language, values, beliefs, behaviors, and norms of your society.

This is usually your parents and guardians who are the first teachers of everything.

Primary Socialization

Gender Socialization

Race Socialization

Class Socialization

Anticipatory Socialization

Secondary Socialization

Pierre Bourdieu

He stated the idea of Cultural capital

• Non-financial assets that help people succeed in the world. These could be like reading to a toddler a bedtime story, which helps teach them the importance of reading and can associate books with being intelligent or doing better in school.

Gender Socialization

Learning the psychological and social traits associated with a person’s sex.

Primary Socialization

Gender Socialization

Race Socialization

Class Socialization

Anticipatory Socialization

Secondary Socialization

Race Socialization

• The process through which children learn the behaviors, values, and attitudes associated with racial groups.

• This is partly caused by what parents teach their children about members of other races.

Primary Socialization

Gender Socialization

Race Socialization

Class Socialization

Anticipatory Socialization

Secondary Socialization

Class Socialization

• Teaches the norms, values, traits, and behaviors you develop based on the social class you’re in.

• This may explain why middle and upper-class children go to college; not only can they afford it, but they’re also raised in a home that normalizes college attendance.

Primary Socialization

Gender Socialization

Race Socialization

Class Socialization

Anticipatory Socialization

Secondary Socialization

Anticipatory Socialization

• The social process by which people learn to adopt the values and standards of groups they plan to join.

• They anticipate being a boy or a girl, so they start to act like it - this is also Gender socialization.

Primary Socialization

Gender Socialization

Race Socialization

Class Socialization

Anticipatory Socialization

Secondary Socialization

Secondary Socialization

The process through which children become socialized outside the home, within society at large. This often starts with school.

Primary Socialization

Gender Socialization

Race Socialization

Class Socialization

Anticipatory Socialization

Secondary Socialization

Hidden curriculum

• An education is norms, values, and beliefs that are passed on through schooling.

• Schools are where children starts to learn about system of rules that are not learned at home.

• For example, teaches them that there are winners and losers which is based on your merit or expose kids to a variety of people

Peer groups

• Social groups whose members have interests, social position, and usually age in common. 

James Coleman

___________-'s multiple role theory posits that extracurricular activities provide additional, complimentary roles for a student that benefits the student academically

• According to James Coleman's multiple role theory, there were groups known as the:

  • Nerds

  • Jocks

  • Leading crowds

  • Burnouts 

• According to James Coleman's multiple role theory, there were groups known as the:

  • __________

  • __________

  • __________

  • __________

James Coleman

According to _____________ with these social categories came social prescriptions - behaviors that were expected of people in those groups.

James Coleman

He found out that we don’t choose a group based on our characteristics, but the groups themselves mold our identity.

Total institutions

Places where people are completely cut off from the outside world and have strict rules on how they must behave.

Resocialization

• This is a process where their environment is carefully controlled to encourage them to develop a new set of norms, values, or beliefs.

• They do this by, basically, breaking down your existing identity and then using rewards and punishment to build up a whole new you.

Kingsley Davis

In __________’s case studies of Anna he found that a total lack of social interaction leads to developmental delays in both socializing skills and intellect.

They argue it's not just social conformity but involves active interpretation and self-construction.

How do Dodds et al. reinterpret Mead’s idea of the generalized other?

False. It evolves with context, culture, and development.

True or False

According to Dodds et al., the generalized other is static across a person's life.

Answer: True

True or False

The generalized other represents the internalized perspective of the broader community.

Answer: False
Explanation: Dodds and colleagues argue the opposite—that individuals actively interpret, negotiate, and even resist social norms rather than just absorb them.

True or False

Dodds et al. claim that individuals passively absorb social norms without any critical engagement.

Answer: True

True or False

In Mead’s theory, the “I” refers to the spontaneous and creative aspect of the self.

Answer: True

True or False

The “Me” in Mead’s theory is the part of the self shaped by internalizing society’s expectations.

Answer: False
Explanation: They emphasize that what counts as the generalized other shifts with cultural, historical, and situational contexts—so it’s always evolving.

True or False

Dodds et al. argue that the content of the generalized other remains static across different contexts and life stages.

Answer: True

True or False

According to the paper, meaning-making is an ongoing developmental process involving interpretation and negotiation.

Answer: False
Explanation: Far from reducing it, they highlight Mead’s view of individuals as meaning-makers who exercise agency within and against social expectations.

True or False

Dodds et al. reduce Mead’s theory to simple social conformity with no room for personal agency.

Answer: True

True or False

The authors connect Mead’s concept of the generalized other to a dialogical and semiotic-developmental perspective.

Answer: True

True or False

The generalized other functions as a framework for moral reasoning and self-evaluation.

Answer: False
Explanation: Their key contribution is underscoring the creative, interpretive role people play—showing selves as both socially embedded and personally enacted.

True or False

The main contribution of Dodds et al.’s paper is showing that individuals are merely norm-followers with no creative input.

Minding

_________ is the internal rehearsal of gestures—an inner conversation that mirrors the social conversation of gestures.

internal conversation

Following directly from minding, the __________ is how the “I” and “Me” dialogue within us, using significant symbols to simulate social interactions. It’s where we rehearse different perspectives before acting. ​

Symbolic interactionism

The broader theoretical tradition that sees all social life as constructed through the use of symbols (especially language) in face-to-face interaction. The paper situates Mead—and their reinterpretation—squarely within this lineage, emphasizing meaning‐making over mechanical social control. ​

Agency vs. conformity

Whereas a reductive reading would cast Mead as saying we simply conform, Dodds et al. highlight the creative agency in every act of meaning-making. We don’t just absorb norms; we reinterpret, negotiate, and sometimes resist them—yet always within the social conversation.

Intersubjectivity

This refers to the shared understanding and connection between individuals in a social context, where meaning is created through interaction and communication.