SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE SELF

II. OBJECTIVES
At the end of this chapter, the students will be able to:

1. discussed the concept of ‘sociological imagination’;

2. explained the various sociological perspectives of the development of the SELF;
3. appreciated the link between the self and the social world.

II. Learning Activity

Title: The Sociological Perspective of the Self
Time Span: 20 minutes
Instruction:
1. Read the article, “Personal Trouble vs. Public Issues: Dana’s Story”
Personal Troubles Versus Public Issues: DANA’S STORY
(Taken from SOCIOLOGY: A Critical Approach by K.J. Neubeck and D.S. Glasberg)

This is a story about Dana, a sincere and pleasant young woman of 19.

Dana grew up in a middle-class neighborhood with her parents and two younger brothers.
She was relatively good student in high school, although she was the first to admit she coasted
whenever she could. To provide the family the basic necessities, Dana’s parents both worked.
They gave up vacations in order to put a small amount of money aside each month to help pay
for their children’s college expenses. Dana and her brothers found part-time pay jobs to pay for
their personal expenses. There were few luxuries. Dana’s family was proud last year when she
went off to a public college that had a good reputation. It was just affordable with Dana’s summer
earnings and a modest boost from the financial aid office. She was on track. But now her world is
falling apart.
Dana’s father has been out of work for over six months. He was laid off when his employer,
an industrial firm where he had worked his way up to a middle-management position, “downsized”
its labor pool. To his dismay, he found little interest from other employers. He wondered how
much his being middle-aged had to do with it or if his physical disability, the result of a car accident,
counted against him. He took it for granted that his dark skin was a liability. Dana’s mother had
been working ever since her youngest child was old enough to care for himself after school. But
salary as a clerk-typist in an insurance company was not sufficient to support much above the
poverty level, let alone contribute to Dana’s college expenses. When Dana asked for more
financial aid, the college aid office told her that the federal government had tightened the eligibility
rules and it couldn’t give her anything more. Even with the part-time jobs she was holding down,
Dana could not afford to stay at college.
When Dana arrives home, she finds her family in turmoil. The stress seems to be ripping
apart her parents’ marriage. Mutual hostility and periodic outbursts of physical abuse mark their
relationship. Dana’s father was always strict but fair with his children. Now he behaves
unpredictably. Her brothers seek refuge with their friends and try to avoid their father. They are
also beginning to get in trouble at school; her mother is receiving a stream of calls and notes from
school authorities. Dana spends a lot of time in her room, anxiety stricken and chronically
depressed by the overwhelming facts of her difficult situation. Away from her friends, and too
frightened to approach her parents, Dana suffers alone.
NAME:

Guide Questions:

1. What is the problem of Dana? (5 points)

2. What are the causes of Dana’s problem? (5 points)

3. What are the possible solutions to Dana’s problem that you could suggest? (5 points)
III. INTRODUCTION

Key Points: Sociological Approach of Understanding the Self

➢ Sociology is the systematic study of human society. It is the study of people as participants
in and creators of society… and at the heart of it is the “sociological imagination”.

➢ C. Wright Mills’ coined the concept of sociological imagination. In Mills view, the
sociological imagination is the ability to see the connections between individuals’ personal
troubles and larger structural patterns in the society (Johnson 2008).

➢ Sociologists are interested in understanding the nature of society or social structure: its
forms and patterns, the ways in which it develops and is transformed. Assumes that there
is a reciprocal relationship between the self and society (Stryker, 1980 as cited in
Stets and Burke, n.d.)
▪ means that we must also understand the society in which the self is acting, and
keep in mind that the self is always acting in a social context in which other selves
exist
▪ sociologists study the role of society in shaping behavior
▪ sociologists tend to look outward (social institutions, cultural norms, interactions
with others) to understand human behavior

➢ The self is socially constructed in the sense that it is shaped through interaction with other
people.
▪ Self develops only with social experience
▪ Social experience is the exchange of symbols
▪ Understanding intention requires imagining the situation from the other’s point of
view

➢ The self is a relatively stable set of perceptions of who we are in relation to ourselves,
others, and to social systems.
▪ Sociologists are more likely to focus on how different aspects of society contribute
to an individual’s relationship with his/her world.

➢ People’s self-concepts are multidimensional.

▪ They may reflect roles associated with various personal characteristics as well as
with the social positions they occupy.

➢ The concept of role links the individual’s self-concept to the structure’s features of the
social world.
▪ These roles include those associated with gender, age, family, status, occupation,
race or ethnicity, residential location, leisure time pursuits, general lifestyle
preferences, and so on.
▪ Roles are likely to be partially structured by general cultural expectations as well
as by specific expectations that develop among people who interact on a regular
basis.
 To further widens our understanding of how the sociological perspective helps in
understanding the self, the lens of Symbolic Interaction Theory will be followed.
Symbolic Interaction Theory sees society as the product of everyday interactions of
individuals. Human beings are creatures who live in a world of symbols, attaching meaning to
virtually everything. Reality is simply how we define our surroundings, our obligations toward
others, even our own identities. The following are various sociological approaches under
Symbolic-Interaction Perspective:
a. George Herbert Mead’s Development of the Self
b. Charles Horton Cooley’s The Looking Glass Self
c. Identity Theory
d. Erving Goffman’s Dramaturgical Self
e. Herbert Blumer – Self as Multidimensional
f. Manford Kuhn’s stable image of the social world
g. Gerry Lanuza’s The Constitution of the Self

IV. CONTENT
A. Mead’s Development of the Self
Many of the core ideas of symbolic interaction theory are grounded in the pioneering work
of George Herbert Mead, particularly his perspective regarding the close relationship between
the mental processes whereby people make sense of their environment and their interaction with
one another. This relationship is manifested in the patterns of collaboration among people as they
seek to develop shared interpretations of the situations they face. It is also reflected in how one’s
self-concept develops through awareness of the perspectives of others.

Social behaviorism, Mead’s perspective, criticizes psychological behaviorism. To him, the

simple stimulus-response model of behavioral psychology ignored the subjective process of
interpretation whereby the meanings of environment stimuli are established through interaction.
Human beings respond to the environment intentionally, or they go beyond the automatic,
nonreflective conditioned responses by integrating the process of subjective interpretation that
occurs between stimulus and response.

Mead regarded the mind itself as the thinking process whereby human being seeks to
make sense of their environment in the process of adapting to it (Johnson, 2008). Mead
emphasized that the active thinking process is often triggered by the appearance of a problem
that blocks individuals’ efforts to meet their needs or goals or satisfy their impulses. The ability to
think through alternative actions and try to anticipate their probable consequences represents a
major evolutionary advance that enables human beings to adapt to their environment in a less
risky and more efficient way than through trial and error.

Mead emphasized the reciprocal interplay between the self as acting subject (the “I”) and
the self as object, as seen through the perspective of others (the “me”).

The self-concept to Mead is composed of the “I” and the “Me”.

“I” – is the nonreflective aspect of the self and consists of one’s awareness of the actual behavioral
responses he or she is making to the current situation as it is taking place.
“Me” – this is reflexive. In the reflective process the individual evaluates the completed action from
the standpoint of others as well as his or her own self-evaluation.
Furthermore, Mead says that the key to developing the self is learning to take the role of
the other.

Individual’s self-concept is related to the acquisition of roles in the society. Roles are
seen as the behavioral expectations associated with particular social status (mother, son, friend,
employee, customer, citizen, member, and so on), though actual role behavior reflects individuals’
unique styles that may not necessarily conform completely to idealized expectations. A status on
the other, is a social position that an individual occupies. The general perspective of role theory
can be used to investigate how social roles are learned and incorporated in individuals’ identities
and how people are linked through their roles to various institutional structures (Ralph H. Turner,
pp. 233–254 in Jonathan H. Turner, ed. 2001).
The self is, thus, both individual and social in character (Stets and Burke, n.d).
▪ It works to control meanings to sustain itself, but many of those meanings, including the
meanings of the self, are shared and form the basis of interaction with others and
ultimately social structure.

To Mead, the development of the self also follows the following stages of role taking:
a. Imitation – with limited social experience, infants can do this only through imitation, that
is, they mimic behavior without understanding underlying intentions and, so, have no self
b. Play – as children learn to use language and other symbols, the self emerges through
play, which involves taking the roles of significant others, especially parents
c. Games – gradually, children learn to take the roles of several others at once. By about
age seven, most children have the social experience needed to engage in team sports.
Generalized others – refer to widespread cultural norms and values we use as a reference in
evaluating ourselves.

SELF-CONCEPT
▪ Develops when humans point out who they are to themselves and to others – a view
of who they are
• Here, humans are an entity that embodies content and a structure.
▪ Self-concept often meant self-esteem (one’s evaluation of oneself in affective
(negative or positive) terms).
▪ the sum total of our thoughts, feelings, and imaginations as to who we are
(Rosenberg, 1979 as cited in Stets and Burke, n.d).
▪ Later conceptions elaborated and refined this view suggesting that the self-concept
was made up of cognitive components (given the collection of identities) as well as
affective components or self-feelings including self-esteem (both worth-based and
efficacy-based self-esteem) (Franks & Marolla, 1976; Stryker, 1980 as cited in Stets
and Burke, n.d).
▪ The set of meanings we hold for ourselves when we look at ourselves. It is based
on our observations of ourselves, our inferences about who we are, based on how
others act toward us, our wishes and desires, and our evaluations of ourselves.
 ▪ includes not only our idealized views of who we are that are relatively unchanging,
but also our self-image or working copy of our self-views that we import into
situations and that is subject to constant change and revision based on situational
influences (Burke, 1980 as cited in Stets and Burke, n.d).
▪ It is this self-image that guides moment-to-moment interaction, is changed in
situated negotiation, and may act back on the more fundamental self-views.

B. Charles Horton Cooley’s Looking glass self

Cooley’s perspective on the relation between a person’s self-concept and face-to-face

interaction within primary groups is expressed in his frequently cited concept of the ‘looking glass
self’.
▪ One’s identity is formed from the reflections one sees of oneself in the reactions of
others.
• The self-concept emerges out of the reflected appraisal process
• most of what we know about ourselves is derived from others
▪ Has three elements:
a. Our imagination on how we appear to others
b. Our imagination on their judgments of that appearance
c. Self-feeling
▪ Cooley stressed the importance of our emotional reactions to the responses from
others.
• When we perceive the reactions of others as indicating either approval or
disapproval, we feel pride or shame as a result.
▪ Our self-concepts are filtered through our perceptions and resemble how we think
others see us (Shrauger and Schoeneman ,1979 as cited in Stets and Burke, n.d).

▪ Cooley also pointed out that our identity may extend beyond our selves to include our
family, friends, and primary group relations.
• To speak of ‘my family’ or ‘my group’ is to expand our sense of self to include
these relationships.

Primary group – group with which we identify most strongly

Secondary group – characterized by intimate face-to-face relationships.

• It is through primary groups (family) that individuals are bound together

with the sense of unity and cohesiveness that finds expressions in the
mutual regard (or sympathy) they have for one another in their common
life.

C. Blumer – Self as Multidimensional

▪ Coined symbolic interactionism and emphasized on the interrelated process of mutual
role-taking, interaction, and subjective interpretation that occur as people adjust their
actions to one another in dealing with the particular situations they face (Johnson, 2008).
▪ Sees society as always in the process of being created through the interpretations
and definitions of actors in situations.
 ▪ Actors identify the things that need to be taken into account for themselves, act on
the basis of those identifications, and attempt to fit their lines of action with others in
the situation to accomplish their goals.
▪ This perspective sees the inference is made that individuals are free to define the
situation in any way they care to, with the consequence that society is always
thought to be in a state of flux with no real organization or structure.
• Patterns of behavior within and between individuals have different levels of
analysis, and this is key to understanding the link between self and society
• Individuals act, but those actions exist within the context of the full set of
patterns of action, interaction, and resource transfers among all persons all of
which constitute the structure of society.
▪ Blumer emphasized on the need for people to improvise their responses to their
environment and to one another seems to downplay the habits and memories that
individuals bring to situations that they encounter over and over it (Johnson, 2008).
▪ When people repeatedly face similar types of situations, they may employ ready-made
responses with only a minimal amount of negotiation or reflection.
▪ People sometimes face novel situations that are unstructured and ambiguous and so
will need to take a conscious effort to make sense of them as they explore with one
another how to cope.
▪ Blumer’s emphasis on the uniqueness of people’s responses to particular situations
▪ Blumer’s Structural version of symbolic interaction theory puts greater emphasis on
the standardized and routine expectations and behaviors of various roles.

IDENTITY

▪ Overall self
▪ The overall self is organized into multiple parts (identities), each of which is tied to
aspects of the social structure.
▪ an “internalized positional designation” (Stryker, 1980 cited in Stets), for each of
the different positions or role relationships the person holds in society.
▪ The identities are the meanings one has as a group member, as a role-holder, or as a
person. These meanings are the content of the identities.
▪ There are various styles of interaction that are appropriate in each situation for each
identity.
▪ Often, we operate in two or more identities at a time
▪ it has been argued that the self must be complex, reflects the dictum that the “self
reflects society” (Stryker, 1980)

D. Role and Identity Theories

D.1 Norbert Wiley’s Triadic Model of the Self-Concept

▪ Proposed an integration of Mead and Pierce by combining Mead’s “I” and “me” with
Pierce’s “I” and “you” so the result is a triad of “I-me-you”.
▪ In this model, the “I” is the self in the present, the “me” is the self as past, and the “you”
is the anticipated future self.
▪ Our present actions (the “I”) may reflect the past (“me”), but they may also be oriented
toward a future self that is different from the past (the “you”).
- In practical terms, this seems to reduce the determining influence of the past
on present behavior. Instead, present actions are directed intentionally toward
an ideal future self that has not yet come into being.
- Like Scrooge in Charles Dicken’s Christmas tale, we are not destined to
continue to be what we were; instead, we can become active agents in
constructing the self we want to become as we learn from the past and resolve
to change.
▪ Actual self-concepts of those who are grouped together (based on race, gender,
sexual orientation, or other personal or demographic characteristics) are by no means
identical. Nor are these characteristics necessarily salient for the core self-concepts of
all of those who are so categorized.
▪ To regard people simply as members of a homogeneous category on the basis of
objective social characteristics such as nationality, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual
orientation, and so on represents a failure to recognize the uniqueness of each human
being and the personal efforts individuals often make to establish their own distinctive
individuality.
▪ Wiley considered an adequate theory of the self-concept to be important for a
democratic society. Such theory goes beyond the characteristics shared with others
in the same category in recognizing the unique identity, dignity, and worth of each
individual person.
▪ Personal characteristics shared with others may become relevant for a person’s
identity or self-concept as alliances are established to purse shared interests.
▪ In addition to objective personal characteristics that may be shared with others, it is
important also to note that the specific manner whereby people perform their roles in
various social positions (family member, friend, employee, student, neighbor, and so
on) are also likely to constitute an important part of their self-concepts.
▪ People’s self-concepts may include idealized notions about their basic character
(honest, loving, hard-working, ‘people person’, risk-taking, free spirit, conservative,
outdoor person, and others).
▪ People’s identities may also incorporate personal tastes or lifestyle preferences, some
of which may be related to family status, socioeconomic position, and so on.
▪ People’s self-concepts are thus multidimensional, incorporating a variety of self-
identifying terms and associated images.
- Despite the similarities among people in terms of personal characteristics and
social positions, the specific mix of roles and other aspects of self-identity will
vary for different people, as well as their importance and the specific ways their
roles are performed. In everyday life we recognize that some people give
higher priority to their family roles than their occupational roles. All of the roles
we play, and the various characteristics that we use to define ourselves, can
be seen as arrayed in a kind of hierarchy, ranging from central or highly
important at the top to minor or rather peripheral at the bottom. People vary in
terms of how stable this hierarchy is over time and in different situations.
D.2 George McCall and J.L. Simmons’ Role Identity Model

▪ Useful for analyzing the structure of the self-concept and its stability and change over time.
▪ In their model, role-identities are the idealized self-images individuals have as occupants
of various social positions or as participants in various social relations.
▪ The overall configuration of role-identities makes up a major part of an individual’s self-
concepts.
▪ Role prominence, the term used to identify the long-term importance of a particular role-
identity.
o The position of a particular role-identity in the overall prominence hierarchy reflects
the individual’s level of commitment to and investment in that identity, the
gratifications it provides, the level of social support for it received from others, and
the internal self-support one obtains for that identity.
o For example, if a person purchases a guitar, invests time and money in learning to
play it, greatly enjoys playing and ultimately performs so well that others enjoy
listening, the role-identity of the guitar player would probably become fairly high in
that person’s prominence hierarchy.
▪ Role identities are enacted through role performances, but the specific identity that an
individual express will vary in different situations.
▪ In contrast to the relatively stable prominence hierarchy, an individual’s role-identities can
also be ranked in terms of a more temporary or situational salience hierarchy.
o The salience of an identity will be influenced by the particular situation in which the
individual is involved. Obviously, persons cannot enact all of the role-identities at
once, not even those most prominent. Instead, the role performed will reflect the
opportunities and expectations associated with that situation. As situations
change, the salience hierarchy changes accordingly. For example, the role-identity
of gambler may be fairly low in the guitar player’s prominence hierarchy. But if the
guitar player visits Las Vegas with a gambling friend, the gambler identity may
quickly be added to the salience hierarchy for the time being.
▪ Prominence hierarchy refers to the more or less stable ranking of the role identities making
up a person’s self-concept.
▪ Salience hierarchy refers to role identities that reflect one’s needs at the moment and the
opportunities and expectations presented by the current situation.
▪ Role performances in particular situations are influenced only in part by the idealized
prominence hierarchy and in part by situational opportunities and constraints and specific
needs at the moment.
▪ McCall and Simmons emphasized the importance of our dependence on supportive
reactions from others are well as self-support.
o Persons would probably have difficulty maintaining strong self-support in the long
run if supportive reactions from others were never received.
o Our self-concepts influence our actions, our choice of interaction partners, and our
interpretations of their reactions. Every action we perform may be seen as
expressing some aspect of our self-concept, and every reaction of others has the
potential for reinforcing or undermining it. We generally welcome opportunities to
interact with others who provide social support, and we interpret their reactions so
as to see ourselves in the most favorable light possible. At the same time, as our
 relationships and life experience change, our self-concept changes accordingly.
Moreover, our idealized self-concepts are not necessarily always positive or
satisfying.
o Persons who are often criticized, or whose idealized self-concepts are
unrealistically high, may see themselves in negative terms, even when they do
receive social approval from others. For such persons the need to deal with
constant criticism may lead to coping strategies that at least provide a sense of
stability.

D.3 Erving Goffman’s Dramaturgic Approach

▪ Goffman’s dramaturgic focused on the strategies people use in staging their “presentation
of self” in ways designed to gain social validation and to overcome the precariousness
and uncertainty of the social world.
o Using the language of the theater, Goffman described how individual’s employ
various strategies to try to create a good impression on others and thereby obtain
social validation of their self-concepts.
o This approach reflects Shakespeare’s insight that all the world is a stage, a
particular role to perform or character to portray and, finally, an exit.
▪ Individuals seek to control their appearance and physical setting in which they perform to
“put their best foot forward”

E. Cast and Burke’s Self Esteem

▪ Their framework used for the integration of the various conceptualizations of self-
esteem.
▪ Argues that self-esteem is intimately tied to the identity verification process.
▪ Argue that the two components of self-esteem (worth-based and efficacy-based) are
each rooted primarily in the different bases of identities
▪ Argue that verification of group-based identities has a stronger impact on worth-based
self-esteem while verification of role-based identities has a stronger impact on
efficacy-based self-esteem.
▪ Self-efficacy is seeing oneself as a causal agent in one’s life. It is a belief about one’s
causative capabilities. Whether one actually has control, objectively, is less relevant
than what one perceives to be the case.
▪ Like self-esteem, positive outcomes have been associated with high self-efficacy such
as effectively coping with life’s stresses and adopting good health habits.

▪ Pointed out that:

a. high self-esteem has been found as an outcome of the identity
verification process
b. high self-esteem that is generated from the identity verification
process can act as a buffer or resource when the verification process
fails;
 c. the desire for self-esteem may be what motivates people to create
and maintain situations or relationships that verify one’s identity

SELF-EVALUATION
➢ The aspect of the self-concept that has received a significant amount of attention in
sociological social psychology is the evaluative part of the self-concept, better known
as self-esteem (Rosenberg, 1979 cited in Stets and Burke, n.d).

➢ Dimensions of self-esteem (Gecas & Schwalbe, 1983 cited in Stets and Burke, n.d):
a. efficacy-based self-esteem (seeing oneself as competent and capable)
b. worth-based self-esteem (feeling that one is accepted and valued)

or the distinction (Franks & Marolla, 1976):

a. “inner self-esteem” (being effective)
b. “outer self-esteem” (acceptance by others)

F. Anthony Giddens’ Agency vs Structure

The perspectives of agency and structure is used in examining the nature of interaction
between identities of different persons. Giddens focused on how individual autonomy is
expressed in the process whereby individuals seek to develop their identities through the
exploration of alternative patterns of intimate relations in contemporary life.

The concept of agency refers to human beings as actors. This concept includes people’s
intentions plus their knowledge of how the social world works and how to participate in it as
a competent member (Johnson 2008).
- As agents, human beings have the ability or power (within limits of course) to make a
difference in the world through their actions.
➢ This ability to intervene in the course of events to ‘make things happen’ is
implicitly understood in everyday life. At the same time, however, many aspects
of our social and material environment are beyond our understanding or
control.
➢ As agents participate in the social world, they also take account of the
expectations and reactions of other people as well as their changing needs and
wants.
- As agents, individuals can make or create a role by making behavioral choices and
decisions and engaging in negotiation and compromise as well as conflict (Stets and
Burke, n.d).
- People would be able to explain their actions if they were asked to.
➢ This ability to provide reasons for their actions (or to rationalize) is closely
connected with the ongoing process of reflexive monitoring that occurs at a
subjective level, and these processes of monitoring and adjusting to one’s
actions are crucial for sustaining its flow and meaning.
 On the other hand, Structure is relatively fixed and people play out the roles that are given
to them (Stets and Burke, n.d). Identities are embedded in it. This consists of rules and resources
that human beings employ as they engage in the routine practices whereby such structural rules
and resources are continually reproduced (Johnson 2008). It persists and develops according to
its own principles; individuals are recruited into positions and individuals leave positions, but for
the most part the positions remain.

Example: Teachers do the things that teachers are supposed to do.

References:

Stets, J. and Burke, P. A Sociological Approach to Self and Identity. http://en.bookfi.net/g/. Pp: 5-
48
Turner, Jonathan H. (2006). Handbook of Sociological Theory. Springer Science + Business
Media LLC: USA.