Symbolic

Interactionism
Tiffany Kotalik
Laura Byrd
Shawn Oetjen
 Symbolic Interactionism QuickTime™ anddecompressor
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Term coined by Herbert Blumer

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Symbolic interactionism- “is based on the idea that social reality is

constructed in each human interaction through the use of
symbols, such as, words or gestures.” Studying symbolic
interaction assists us in understanding human behavior. There
are 3 premises to symbolic interactionism:
 Human beings act toward things on the basis of the meanings
that the things have for them. Things include everything that the
person has in their world.
 The meaning of things that is derived from the social interaction
that you have with someone.
These meanings are handled in, and modified through, an
interpretative process used by the person in dealing with the
things he/she encounters.
Darwin wrote, Expression of the Emotions
in Man and Animals
Theory of evolution into the field of “conscious experience.”

 Darwin viewed consciousness as a psychological state.

 Mead believed consciousness is an emergent form of
behavior.

Darwin’s ideas led Mead to believe that behavior is not

accidental or random but formed through individuals’
interactions with one another in a social environment.
 Romantic Philosophers: Gottlieb Fichte,
Friedrick Von Schelling, and G.W.F Hegel

They argued humans construct their own

worlds and their realities.

*Mead learned from the German tradition that

there is no consciousness which is not
conscious of something.
 Pragmatism
Pragmatists believe that true reality does not exist “out there” in
the real world.
 They reject the idea of absolute truths and regard all ideas as
provisional and subject to change in light of future research.
 Truth is determined by humans’ adaptations to their
environments.
 Pragmatism helped to develop the idea that people base
knowledge on what is most useful to them.
 Pragmatists believe that human beings reflect on the meaning
of a stimulus before reacting.
 The meaning placed on various acts depends on the purpose of
the act, the context in which it is performed, and the reactions of
others to the act.
 Mind, Self, & Society
Mead explains people begin their understanding of the social
world through “play” and “game”.
 Play becomes first in the child’s development. Child gains
understanding of the different social roles.
 Game occurs later and a child gains understanding that
he/she has to relate to norms of behavior in order to be
accepted as a player.
 “Mead calls this the child’s first encounter with the
generalized other (the individual understands what kind of
behavior is expected, appropriate and so on, in different
social settings.)”
 Mead’s Me & I

 “Me” is the socialized self. “Me” is what is

learned in interaction with others. Including
both knowledge about the environment/society,
and who he/she is; their sense of self.
 “I” can learn who I am by observing the
responses of others. The “I” is the
unsocialized self. It is the subject of one’s
actions.
 William James
James recognizes that habit reduces the need for
conscious attention. If individuals are capable of forming
new habits, they are also capable of modifying their
behavior.
 He viewed the consciousness as “I” (the self as
knower/pure ego) and “Me” (the self as known/ empirical
ego).
 “Me” is everything that you can claim as your own: your
own thoughts, feelings, emotions, etc.
 “I” is what you are at, at any given specific moment in time.
 Charles Horton Cooley

 Cooley identified the influence of the

environment on behavior.
 People learn to act as society wants
them to act.
 Individuals modify their behaviors as the
situation dictates
 Erving Goffman, “Presentation of
Self in Everyday Life”
 Dramaturgical perspective- society is viewed as a
stage where humans are actors giving
performances for audiences.
 Front stage includes using props to illustrate the
role that one is playing.
 Backstage is closed and hidden from the
audience. Actors can act as they really are and let
their guard down.
 Arlie Russell Hochschild

Well known for her work on the sociology of

emotions. “Emotion work becomes most
necessary when the actors’ feelings do not fit
the situation they find themselves in.”
Charles Horton Cooley
 Born in 1864 on the Ann Arbor Campus
at the University of Michigan
 4 of 6 children
 Financially well off and well- educated
family
 Sickly child, causing strain between
Cooley and his father
 Cooley had a speech impediment
 His father was “larger than life”
 The only expectation of Cooley was not
to embarrass his family.
 He enjoyed reading Charles Darwin and
Herbert Spencer in his free time.
Cooley’s Background
 Cooley did his undergrad work at the University of Michigan
majoring in Engineering, which he disliked.
 He enjoyed history, philosophy, and economics.
 Worked as a mechanical engineer in Washington for two
years as a surveyor for the Interstate Commerence
Commission and the Census Bureau
 Cooley then decide to go to Graduate School at the
University of Michigan
 While in Graduate school Cooley met his wife Elsie Jones,
whose father was the dean at the University
 They had three children, “who later would become subjects of
observation in their father’s quest to understand the
development of self”.
Cooley’s Background
 Cooley then got his PhD in political economy and a minor in
Sociology. His dissertation was “ The Theory of
Transportation” His thesis was “ The theory of transportation
is a pioneering study in human ecology, still highly required.
 He then continue to teach at the University of Michigan. “
Because of his sickly demeanor and nervous approach he
was not well-liked by the undergraduates”.
 However the “graduate students were impressed by his in
depth analysis.
 Cooley helped in founding of the American Sociological
Association.
Cooley’s Publications
 Personal Competition (1899)
 Human Nature and the Social
Order (1902)
 Social Organization (1909)
Cooley’s best selling book
 Social Process(1918)
 The posthumous Sociological
Theory and Social Research
The Organic View of Society
 Cooley believed that society was
interrelated
 Cooley also believed that Organic View
contained three parts know as the triadic
relationship. The triadic relationship
contains the primary group, human nature,
and the looking-glass self.
Primary Groups
 Cooley’s main goal was to explain the relationship between
man and society
 “Primary Groups are intimate, face to face groups that play
a key role in linking the individual to the larger society”.
Properties of primary group
1. Face to face association
2. Unspecified Nature of associations
3. Relative permanence
4. A small number of persons involved
5. Relativity intimacy of participants
Primary Groups
 Primary Groups are important to the
development of children
 “The children develop a sense of self”
 “Provide socialization”
 They give a sense of belonging
 “Cooley concluded that human nature
cannot develop without primary group”
The Looking-glass Self Theory
Contains three parts
1. 1.The imagination of our appearance
to the other person
2. 2.The imagination of their judgment
of the that appearance
3. 3. Our resulting self-feeling , such as
pride or mortification
The theory of the Looking-glass Self is
most prevalent when is applied to
children
George Herbert Mead
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 Born February 27, 1863
 Educated and religious family
 Both parents were teachers
 Mother hoped he would be a minister
 Attended Oberlin college at age 16
 Rigid Christian school
 Questioning and conversation discouraged
 Lost faith in his religion
Background
After Oberlin

 First job out of college was teaching at a

primary school and lasted four months
 Worked as a tutor and railroad surveyor which
allowed him to read a lot
 Started writing his college friend Henry Castle
who helped shape his life
 Went from theological to secular beliefs
 Roommates at Harvard graduate school
 Studied philosophy but found it too abstract and
changed to physiological psychology
Background
Germany to Michigan
 Went to Germany on scholarship
 Studied under Wilhelm Wundt and Stanley Hall
 Psychology and philosophy of Simmel
 Married Castle’s sister Helene in 1891
 Quit graduate school to teach philosophy and
psychology at the University of Michigan
 Hoped to combine scholarship and social action
 Colleagues: Charles Cooley, James Tufts, and John
Dewey
Background
Chicago
 Became friends with Dewey who received an offer from the University
of Chicago
 Dewey got Mead an assistant professor position

 Mead would stay in Chicago the rest of his life

 Chicago’s social problems provided a good environment for study

and reform
 Mead was not a significant writer
 His lectures were influential however
 Grad students published most of his major works from notes

 Conflict with the president of the college

 Said he would resign and leave Chicago

 Released from hospital the next day and died suddenly at the age
of 68
Intellectual Influences
William James, Pragmatism, Behaviorism
 Social psychology
 Habits and modifying behavior
 Role of consciousness
 Development of the self

 “I” and “me”

American Pragmatism
 Everything socially constructed & subject to change
Behaviorism
 Attempt to explain phenomena by studying behaviors
 Lead Mead to idea of the social act
Intellectual Influences
German Idealism

 Philosophers: Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel

 Subject and object connection
 Influenced Mead’s generalized other
 Hegel: consciousness and society
 Wilhelm Wundt
 language and gesture in social context
Intellectual Influences
Charles Darwin and Evolutionism
 Final push away from theology
 Nothing is fixed; continuing process of change
 Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
 Support for gestures but Mead disagreed that emotion
was a psychological state
 Consciousness emerges, not innate
Concepts and Contributions
Symbolic Interactionism
 Founder of modern symbolic interactionism,
but did not coin term
 Mind, Self, and Society published by his
students after his death influenced Blumer
 Humans think about how they should act
according to their perceptions about reality
and their agreement with others on the
meanings behind the reality
Concepts and Contributions
Mind, Self, and Society
 Mind
 Develops within the social process
 Perceives, defines, evaluates
 Self
 Involves process of reflection
 Both object and subject
 Society
 Nothing is separate from society
 Society is a structure for ongoing communication and
interaction
Concepts and Contributions
The “I” and the “Me”
 The self has two parts
 The “I” is the unsocialized self
 Active, impulsive, unpredictable, initiates action
 Self as Subject
 The “Me” is the socialized self
 Judgemental, controlling, conforms to norms
 Imagine ourselves as others see us
 Self as Object
Concepts and Contributions
Development of the Self
 Critical for consciousness and taking the
role of the other
 Dependent on social environment
 Stages of development:
1. Imitation stage
2. Play stage
3. Game stage
4. Generalized other
Concepts and Contributions
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 How a person responds to stimuli

1. Impulse
• “gut” reaction, “need” to do something
2. Perception
• Deciding stimulus is important, and how to react
3. Manipulation
• Taking action, adapting to the environment
4. Consummation
• Following through to satisfy impulse
Concepts and Contributions
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The Social Act

 involves two or more people
 Requires cooperation and shared understanding
of the social object
 Importance of the gesture
 Vocal gesture allows the speaker to reflect on the
message as well as the other listeners
 mutually understood gesture = symbol
Relevancy
 Symbolic Interactionism and Dramaturgy
 Pragmatic Social Science
 Importance of Symbols, Social Interaction,
and Communication in everyday life
 Used to create the world around us
 Allows for social change
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Philosophy TIFF QuickTime™ and a
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 Realism vs Idealism
 Idealism - we construct reality through our interpretation of
symbols, society constantly recreated
 Realism vs Nominalism
 Realism - abstract concepts (“me” & “I”) real in their
consequences, processes important to Mead
 Idealism vs Materialism
 Idealism - things exist only in the sense that they are
perceived, social objects exist only in the sense that they
are mutually perceived by the group