(topic 2)

The Sociological perspective

What is Sociology?

Sociology is the scientific study of human society & social behavior.

  •   Sociological perspective of the self is based on the assumptions that human behavior is influenced by group life.

  •   A particular view of oneself is formed through interactions with other people, groups, or social institutions.

  •   Sociological perspective draws on the principles and concepts of well known sociologists to foster student understanding of sociology and how sociology impact students' everyday lives, and provide a pathway to self understanding of "who you are" and "what you are" in contemporary society.

  •   Sociology as a scientific study of social groups and human relationships generates new insights into the interconnectedness between the self and other people.

  •   Sociologists offer theories to explain how the self emerges as a product of social experience.

Looking-Glass Self

Charles Horton Cooley

  •   Looking-Glass Self: The interactive process by which we develop an image of ourselves based on how we imagine we appear to others-other people act as a mirror, reflecting back the image we project through their reactions to our behavior

  •   People adjust their self-image continually as they reinterpret the way they think others view them.

  •   Development is a three step process:

  • we imagine how we appear to others

  • based on their reactions to us, we attempt to determine whether others view us as we view ourselves

  • we use our perceptions of how others judge us to develop feelings about ourselves.

Three Step Process

  • Step One: We imagine how our personality and appearance appears to others

  • Attractive/unattractive, heavy/slim, friendly/unfriendly

  •   Step Two: We imagine how other people judge the appearance we think we present in step one

  • How do we think they feel about us

  •   Step Three: We develop a self-concept based on how we feel we are judged in step two

  • If we are judged in a good way, we have a favourable self-concept

  • If we are judged in a bad way, we have an unfavourable self-concept

"I am not who you think I am;

I am not who I think I am;

I am who I think you think I am."

- Charles Cooley

Mead's Development Stages of the Self

George Herbert Mead

  •   "I": The self as subject who makes decisions and takes actions based on his or her desires

  •   "Me": The self as object as the person is regarded by others

  •   Take the role of the other: To understand how others view the situation and what it means from their perspective

  •   Generalized other: The collective attitudes of the entire community regarding how they are expected to behave

Mead's theory of the social self is based on the perspective that the self emerges from social interactions, such as:

  •   observing and interacting with others

  •   responding to others' opinions about oneself

  •   and internalizing external opinions and internal feelings about oneself

  • The social aspect of self is an important distinction because other sociologists and psychologists felt that the self was based on biological factors and inherited traits.

  • According to Mead, the self is not there from birth, but it is developed over time from social experiences and activities.

Mead's Theory of Development of Self

  •   Mead furthered Cooley's theory of looking-glass self. He stated that some people are more important to us than others.

  •   Significant others - those people whose judgments are most important to our self-concept (mother, father, grandparents, playmates, etc.)

  •   Role taking - the process which allows us to take the viewpoint of another individual and then respond to ourselves from that imagined viewpoint. A cognitive process that permits us to play out scenes in our mind.

According to Mead, three activities develop the self: language, play, and games:

  • Language develops self by allowing individuals to respond to each other through symbols, gestures, words, and sounds.

  • Play develops self by allowing individuals to take on different roles, pretend, and express expectation of others. Play develops one's self-consciousness through role-playing.

  • Games develop self by allowing individuals to understand and adhere to the rules of the activity. Self is developed by understanding that there are rules in which one must abide by in order to win the game or be successful at an activity.

According to Mead's theory, the self has two sides or phases: 'me' and ‘I’:

  • The 'me' is considered the socialized aspect of the individual. The 'me' represents learned behaviors, attitudes, and expectations of others and of society.

  • The 'I', therefore, can be considered the present and future phase of the self. The 'I’ represents the individual's identity based on response to the 'me’.

  • The 'me' and the 'I' have a didactic relationship.

Geertz and his concept of the self as an Unfinished Animal

Clifford Geertz

  • "We are, in sum, incomplete or unfinished animals who complete or finish ourselves through culture..." (49);

  • "Between what our body tells us and what we have to know in order to function, there is a vacuum we must fill ourselves, and we fill it with information (or misinformation) provided by our culture" (50);

  • "Our ideas, our values, our acts, even our emotions, are, like our nervous system itself, cultural products - products manufactured, indeed, out of tendencies, capacities, and dispositions with which we were born..." (50).

THE COLLECTIVE SELF

Harry Triandis

  • Distinguishes three aspects of self: private, public, and collective.

  • Private self: The way a person understands him-or himself (I'm a hard-working student).

  • Public Self: The way that a person is perceived by others (others think I'm smart).

  • Collective self: A person's sense of belonging to a social group

SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY

TAJFEL AND TURNER, 1979

  •   This theory is all about becoming part of different groups, and how membership to these groups helps construct our identities.

  •   They suggested that people have an inbuilt tendency to categorise themselves into one or more in-groups, building a part of their identity on the basis of membership of that group and enforcing boundaries with other groups.

THE THREE ELEMENTS

  •   Tafjel and Turner decided that Social Identity can be considered in four ways; for our studies we will look at three:

  • Categorization

  • Identification

  • Comparison

CATEGORISATION

  • This looks at the way in which people put others (and ourselves) into categories. We label one another based on interest, ethnicity, gender, occupation and other factors.

  •   Calling someone a Muslim, footballer, student, emo, mother, for example, are ways in which we do this.

  •   IMPORTANT - this is not always negative and is different to stereotyping.

IDENTIFICATION

  •   Once a social identity has been identified, people will choose to associate with certain groups.

  •   Your collective identity becomes your in-group. This could be you family, a friendship group - even your class. This closeness functions to boost our self esteem and to create a sense of belonging.

  •   A group or individual that poses as a threat to your in-group is called the out-group. Examples of this would be an outside family member, a new member to class, someone from a different ethnic background, or more close to home, somebody from the other side of the social area!

COMPARISON

  •   People compare themselves and their groups with other groups, seeing a favourable bias towards the group in which they belong.

  •   Nowadays we see younger people dividing themselves into social groups or subcultures based on clothing, the music they listen to or other interests. Examples of this are emos, goths and hoodies.

Individualism and Collectivism

  •   Individualist culture is a culture in which the goals of the individual take precedence over the goals of the group.

  •   Collectivist culture is a culture in which the goals of the group take precedence over the goals of the individual.

Individualism and Collectivism

  •   The distinction lies in what extent to which cultures promote individual values over collective values.

  •   There is a correlation...

  •   Individualist cultures tend to be economically rich.

  •   Collectivist cultures tend to be economically poor.

  • Also applies on a personal level.

  •   That is, one can personally be collectivist while his or her culture is individualist.

  •   Cooperation versus competition

  •   Importance of in-group and out-group members

In other words

  • In an individualist culture, members are responsible for themselves and, perhaps, their immediate families.

  • In a collectivist culture, members are responsible for the group as a whole.

  • In an individualist culture, success is measured by how far one stands out from the crowd

  •   EX: self-made millionaires, employees of the month.

  •   In a collectivist culture, success is measured by one's contributions to the group as a whole.

  •   EX: loyalty to company or country, specialized skills.