Part I: The Self from Various

Perspective

Lesson 3: The Self From the

Perspective of Sociology

Alessandra Robert N. Dizon

Instructor
College of Arts and Sciences-
Department of Social Sciences and Humanities
Sociology is one of
the discipline in the
social sciences which
aims to discover the
ways by which the
social surrounding/
environment influences
people's thoughts,
feelings, and behavior.
George Herbert Mead

• He graduated and taught grade

school at Oberlin College. In 1887,
he enrolled at Harvard University
where his main interests were
philosophy and psychology.
• He wrote and published many
articles and book review but did
not publish many books. It was his
students who put together his
numerous writings and edited
them for publication.
Mead's Social Self
• Social Behaviorism is the approach George Mead used
to describe the power of the environment in shaping
human behavior.
• He described the self as a 'dimension of personality that
is made-up of the individual's self-awareness and self-
image.
• According to Mead the self cannot be separated from
the from the society. He explained through set of
stages the person undergoes development
1. The Preparatory
Stage
• Mead believed that a self
did not exist at birth.
Instead, the self develops
over time. Its development
is dependent on social
interaction and social
experience.
• At this stage, children's
behavior is based on
imitation.
 2. The Play Stage
• At this stage, skills at knowing and
understanding the symbols of
communication is important for this
constitutes the basis for socialization.
• The children starts to role play and
pretend to be other people.
• The play stage is significant in the
development of the self. It is at this
stage where the child widens his
perspective and realizes that he is not
alone and that there are others around
him whose presence he has to
consider.
 3. The Game Stage
• Mead gave a specific age for this stage.
Here the child is about eight or nine
years of age and now does more than
just role take.
• The child begins to consider several
tasks and various relationships
simultaneously.
• Through the learnings that were gained
in stage two, the child now begins to
see not only his own perspective but at
the same time the perspective of others
around him.
Mead used the term
"generalized other" to explain
the behavior of the person
when he sees/ considers other
people in the course of his
actions. Through the
generalized other, the person
realizes that people in society
have cultural norms, beliefs and
values which are incorporated
into each self.
Mead's Theory of the Self
• Based on the stages, Mead presented his Theory of
the Self:
"The self is not present at birth but begins as a central
character in a child's world. Children see themselves as
the center of the universe and is having a difficulty in
understanding others. As these children grow and
mature, there is a change in the self. They begin to see
other people and is now concerned about people's
reaction."
 The I and Me
• George Mead explained that the
person's capacity to see the
self through others implies that the self
is composed of two parts, the I and the
Me self:
1. I self – when a person initiates or
performs a social action, the self
functions as a subject.
2. Me self - when a person takes the role
of the other, the self functions as an
object.
• It should be remembered that the formation of the self is not
the end of the process of socialization.
• Socialization continues for as long as the person is alive. The
self may change based on life circumstances that have
strong impact on it.
Charles Horton
Cooley
• Was an American sociologist who
made use of sociopsychological
approach to understanding how
societies work. He earned his
doctorate at the University of
Michigan and taught at the same
university as a sociology
professor.
• His written work, Human Nature
and the Social Order, discussed
the formation of the self through
interaction.
Looking-glass Self
Theory
• Cooley stated that people learn
who they are through their social
interaction with other people.
• The view of the self is also
significantly influenced by the
impression and perception of
others.
• Cooley believed that the
process of developing the self has
three phases.
1. People imagine how they
present themselves to
others.
2. People imagine how
others evaluate them.
3. People develop some sort
of feeling about themselves
as a result of those
impressions.
Erving Goffman

• Was a Canadian
sociologist known for his
role in the development of
Modern American
Sociology.
• One of his popular work
was the Presentation of
the Self in Everyday Life.
Dramaturgical
Approach
• Goffman observed that people in their social
interactions learned to slant their presentation
of themselves in order to create preferred
appearances and satisfy particular people,
often called as impression management.
• In Goffman's observation in people, he sees
similarities of real social interactions to
a theatrical presentation.
• It was also Goffman who used the phrase face-
work that is usually observed in
situations where face-saving measures are
resorted to in maintenance of a proper image
of the self in frustrating or embarrassing
situations.