MODULE 2

PERSPECTIVE OF SOCIOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY

GEORGE HERBERT MEAD:
Social Behaviorism – explains environment of self in influencing human
behavior
Self –awareness – is the experience of one’s own personality or
individuality ( it should not be confused with consciousness)
Consciousness - is being aware of one’s environment, body and lifestyle.
Self –image – is the personal view or mental picture that we have of
ourselves; it is an “internal dictionary” that describes the characteristics
of the self, including such things as intelligent, beautiful, ugly, talented,
selfish and kind.
 STAGES OF SELF FORMATION:
1. Preparatory stage- the action of children bases primarily on
imitation.
2. The Play stage – role-taking is the process of assuming the
perspective of another person to see how this person might
behave or respond in a given situation.
3. The Game stage – at this stage, generalized other, was used to
explain the behavior when a person considers other people in the
course of his action; through this the person realizes the cultural
norms beliefs and values incorporated to each self ‘ with this it
forms the basis of self evaluation.
• THE “I” AND “ME”
I self – when the person initiates, the self function as subject.
The subjective element of the self is the I.

ME SELF – when the person takes the role of the other, the
self-function as object.
The objective element of the self is the me.
CHARLES HORTON COOLEY (1864-1929):
Looking-glass self – the self which produces social interactions.
Seeing oneself is based on considering one’s personal qualities and
the perception of oneself is also influenced by the impression of
others.

“ I am not what I think I am

I am not what you think I am
I am what I think you think I am”
 Cooley believed that developing a self has 3 stages;
1. People imagine how they present themselves to others
2. People develop some sort of feeling about themselves as a result
of those impressions.
3. People develop self identities based on the wrong perception of
how others see them. Wrong perceptions however, can still
change on positive social experience.
ERVING GOFFMAN (1922 -1982):
The presentation of the Self in Everyday Life – people in their early
interactions learned to slant their self-representations in order to
create preferred appearances and satisfy individuals or alter the
way the person presents himself to others whom he calls
impression management.
He used the phrase Face-work to describe another aspect of the
self.
This was observed in situations where face-saving measures
resorted to in the maintenance of a proper image of self frustrating
or embarrassing situations.