Symbolic Interactionism of George Herbert Mead
Introduction to Symbolic Interactionism and George Herbert Mead
Foundational Concept: George Herbert Mead was an early social constructionist who believed that thoughts, self-concept, and the wider community are created through communication, specifically symbolic interaction.
Primary Text: Mead’s ideas were posthumously published in the book Mind, Self, and Society (1934), compiled by his students from class notes and conversations.
Definitions and Characteristics: * Symbolic Interaction: Defined as the ongoing use of language and gestures in anticipation of how others will react; a conversation. It involves a continuing process where verbal and nonverbal responses are crafted based on the expected reaction of the original speaker. * Essential Human Characteristics: Mead identified three critical components for human development: Mind, Self, and Society. He argued that without symbolic interaction, humanity as it is currently known would not exist.
Biographical Background of George Herbert Mead
Professional History: Mead was a philosophy professor at the University of Chicago for the first three decades of the twentieth century ().
Pragmatism: A close friend of John Dewey, Mead shared the pragmatist view that the test of any theory is its utility in solving complex social problems.
Social Activism: Mead was actively involved in social causes, including marching for women’s suffrage, supporting labor unions against "robber-baron capitalism," and helping Jane Addams launch the urban settlement house movement.
Legacy: Although he taught philosophy, he is most renowned in sociology for training a generation of prominent thinkers. Herbert Blumer, his student at the University of California, Berkeley, coined the term symbolic interactionism after Mead’s death in .
Case Study: The Film Nell
Premise: The film Nell, starring Jodie Foster, provides a cinematic illustration of Mead’s theories. The character Nell is raised in total isolation in the Appalachian backwoods until the death of her mother.
Idioglossia: The film is based on the play Idioglossia (Greek for a private language). Nell’s speech, initially dismissed as gibberish, is actually based on the King James Version of the Bible, spoken through the distorted articulation of her mother, who had suffered a stroke that paralyzed one side of her face.
Key Characters: * Jerry Lovell: A small-town doctor who treats Nell as a human being and attempts to learn her language. * Paula Olsen: A big-city psychologist who initially labels Nell "autistic" and seeks to commit her to a psych ward.
Theoretical Application: The film demonstrates how language serves as a "civilizing influence" and how social stimulation (even if only from a twin sister, as revealed later) is necessary for the development of thought and self.
Blumer’s Core Principles of Symbolic Interactionism
Herbert Blumer stated three core principles dealing with meaning, language, and thinking.
Meaning: The Construction of Social Reality
Principle: Humans act toward people or things based on the meanings they assign to them.
Interpretive Chain: Rather than a simple stimulus–response model, interactionists insert interpretation into the process: .
Social Reality: Meaning is not inherent; it is a "collective hunch." Once people define a situation as real, it remains real in its consequences.
Examples from Nell: * County Sheriff: Views Nell as crazy/needing a padded cell. * Sheriff’s Wife: Views Nell as a free spirit. * Psychiatrist: Views Nell as a research subject to make history. * Local Thugs: View Nell as sexual prey. * Jerry Lovell: Sees her as fully human/friend.
Language: The Source of Meaning
Principle: Meaning arises out of social interaction. Symbols (names) are arbitrary signs with no logical connection to the objects they describe (e.g., the word "kitten" is not inherently small or soft).
Naming and Knowing: The extent of human knowing is dependent on the extent of naming. Intelligence is viewed as the ability to symbolically identify what we encounter.
Default Assumptions: Symbols carry built-in assumptions. The "surgeon puzzle" illustrates this: a story about a surgeon who cannot operate on his son (who is also the son of a man killed in a car crash) confuses people because the label "surgeon" often carries the default assumption of being male, despite the reality that the surgeon is the boy’s mother.
Nonverbal Symbols: As seen in Glynka’s example of a high school class ring, nonverbal objects can carry heavy symbolic meaning (status, protection, relationship status) established through social discourse.
Thinking: The Process of Taking the Role of the Other
Definition of Minding: An inner dialogue used to test alternatives, rehearse actions, and anticipate reactions before responding; self-talk. It is described as a "reflective pause."
Human vs. Animal: Mead believed animals act instinctively/without deliberation. Humans require language as the "software" to activate the brain for conceptual thought.
Role-Taking: The unique human capacity to mentally imagine being someone else viewing oneself. This is often compared to "walking in another man's shoes" (as stated by Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird).
The Self: Reflections in a Looking Glass
The Looking-Glass Self: The mental image resulting from taking the role of the other; the objective self. It is socially constructed by assimilating the judgments of "significant others."
Constituents of the Self: * The "I": The subjective, spontaneous, driving force that is novel, unpredictable, and unorganized. It is similar to right-brain creativity. It vanishes the moment it is examined because it becomes the "me." * The "Me": The objective self; the image of self seen when one takes the role of the other. It is the "organized society within the individual."
Mead’s Quote: "If the ‘I’ speaks, the ‘me’ hears," and "the ‘I’ of this moment is present in the ‘me’ of the next moment."
Society: The Socializing Effect of Others’ Expectations
Generalized Other: The composite mental image a person has of their self based on societal expectations and responses. It acts as an organized set of information regarding the attitudes of the social group.
Function: Individuals align their actions with the generalized other to form institutions such as legal, economic, and healthcare systems. Development of the "me" occurs through interaction with family, playmates, and eventually institutions like schools.
Six Applications of Symbolic Interactionism
Creating Reality: Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical performance. Social interaction is like a stage play where we negotiate our identities. Example: The cooperative effort to maintain the "medical routine" of a gynecological exam.
Meaning-ful Research: Participant observation. Researchers share the lives of those they study as "interested yet ignorant visitors." Example: To understand a horse, one must "smell like a horse."
Generalized Other: The story "Cipher in the Snow" illustrates "symbolic manslaughter," where a boy treated as a nonentity by his community eventually physically collapses and dies.
Naming: Labels (e.g., "dummy," "slut," "liberal") create warped mirrors that are difficult for the individual to dismiss.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: The tendency for expectations to evoke responses that confirm those expectations. Cited from George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion: treatment makes the lady, not behavior.
Symbol Manipulation: Saul Alinsky used the symbol of rats ("Rats as big as cats") to galvanize the Woodlawn neighborhood in Chicago to fight substandard housing, creating pride and political clout.
Ethical Reflection: Levinas’ Responsive “I”
The Responsive "I": Emmanuel Levinas agreed the self is socially constructed but argued that our identity is formed by how we respond to others, not how they respond to us.
Ethical Echo: The panhuman responsibility to care for the other, summed up as "I am my brother’s keeper."
Face of the “Other”: A human signpost reminding us of our ethical obligation to care for others before self. Levinas argued that looking into the face of another renders us "hostage" to a responsibility that precedes any decision.
Critique of the Theory
Strengths (Interpretive Criteria): * Clarification of Values: Recognizes human dignity and the freedom to make meaningful choices. * Understanding of People: Provides insight into the social construction of self and diversity of human response. * Community of Agreement: The Mead–Cooley hypothesis is now a truism in sociology; Mead is considered a premier sociological thinker.
Weaknesses: * Reform of Society: Despite Mead's activism, the theory itself lacks a call to reform and ignores power and emotion. * Aesthetic Appeal: The theory lacks clarity; it is described as having fluid boundaries, vague concepts, and an undisciplined, sprawling approach.
Overstatement Concern: Mead's claim that symbolic interaction as the essence of humanity is challenged by cases like Caleb, a child with a nerve disorder unable to interact symbolically. This raises the question of whether such individuals are considered "less than human" by the theory’s specific definition.