Topic Three:

The Self as a Product of Modern Society Among other

Constructions
• Questions to answer:

•How does society influences you?

•How do you affect society?
•Who are you as a person in the
community?
• The science of Sociology posits that socially formed norms,
beliefs and values come to exist within the person to a degree
where these become natural and normal.
• Comparisons of different Societies on how people viewed self:
A. Pre-modern Society:
-this society centered on survival for people behaved according to
social rules and traditions while the family and environment
provided supervision.
-choosing where to live, what line of work to do, and even who to
marry was very limited
B. Modern Period
--individualism is dominant
--development of one’ self-identity is central
--a person is free to choose where to live, what to do and whom to
be with
•Effects of Modernization:
a.It affected how an individual builds
and develops his/her self-identity.
b.It has improved people’s living
conditions
c.It has also decreased stability in
tradition and traditional support
systems
Key Characteristics of Modernity:

1. Industrialism—extensive use of material power

and machinery
2. Capitalism—production system
3. Institution of surveillance—massive increase of
power
4. Dynamism—involves vigorous activity and
progress
• Social Groups and Social Network –Georg Simmel
--he expressed that people create social networks by
joining social groups (family, friends, classmates)
--Social networks (ties/connections with the social
groups)
“Every relationship between
A social group can either be: two individuals or two
1. Organic- group that is naturally occurring and groups will be characterized
highly influenced by the family (join a group by the ratio of secrecy that
is involved in it.”
because the family is also part of it—organic
motivation) Georg Simmel was a
2. Rational-group that occurs in modern German sociologist,
philosopher, and a critic
societies(different people from different places) and was one of the first
--people join group because of similarities in generation of German
interests—rational motivation) sociologists
 The Social Self: George
Herbert Mead Two Important Quotes:
George Herbert Mead was an
American philosopher,
sociologist and psychologist,
primarily affiliated with the
University of Chicago, where
he was one of several
distinguished pragmatists
“ A multiple personality is in a certain sense
normal
“The beauty of a face is not a separate quality
but a relation or proportion of qualities to each
other.
--he is well-known for his “Theory of
Social Self”
--for him, self is a product of social
interactions and internalizing the external.
-he believed that self is not present from
birth rather it is developed over time
through social experiences and activities.
• Mead in Developing the Self proposed
three stages:
1. language—gives the individual the capacity to
express himself/herself (verbal and nonverbal)
2. play –individuals role-play or assume the
perspective of others thus enabling them to
internalize others’ perspectives
3. Game –enable them to take into account
societal rules and adheres to it , thus self is
developed by understanding the rules
Two sides of the Self: “I and ME”
--Mead considers the person as active process and proposes two
interactive facets of the self:
a. The “I” and the “me”
B. The “me” and the “I”
“ME”—is the product of what the person has learned while
interacting with others/environment
--it exercises control over the self
“I” ---is the part of the self that is unsocialized and
spontaneous.
--it is the individual’s response to the community’s attitude
toward the person
--it represents impulses and drives, does not follow rules
Reflection:
How people
Who I Am see me

on the inside on the outside

• The looking-glass self is a social
psychological concept
introduced by Charles Horton
Cooley in 1902 (McIntyre 2006).
The concept of the looking-glass
self describes the development
of one's self and of one's
identity through one's
interpersonal interactions within
the context of society.