 George
Herbert Mead was born in South Hadley, Massachusetts in February 27, 1863.
Mead's father, Hiram Mead, was a minister of a Congregational church. Both
of George's parents were well educated. His father also taught at the Theological
Seminary at Oberlin, Ohio, and his mother also taught at the Oberlin College.
It was at Oberlin College during Mead's undergraduate work that he first
showed interest in philosophy and religion. Possibly in response to Mead's
religious upbringing, he became critical of the religious beliefs, specifically
in regards to the idea of the correlation between human existence and to
the idea and reality of the supernatural. After stays in careers such as
survey engineer and grade school teacher he moved to Leipzig, Germany to
study psychology. Mead was interested specifically in the work of Wilhelm
Wundt and his theory of the central nervous system. Wundt's idea was that
the central nervous system "held possible keys for understanding the mind
and resolving important philosophical problems." It was from Wundt that
Mead gained an understanding how the gesture is involved in social interaction.
During this time when Mead was studying in Germany, Charles Darwin was changing
the scientific world with his theory of evolution. Mead was influenced heavily
by evolution theory and incorporated much Darwins theory into his own developing
theory. |
| During this time Mead developed what Baldwin
calls a "quiet rebellion" against the idea that man's origin or dependence
was a theological one. "Mead moved toward a purely, scientific, naturalistic,
worldview devoid of non empirical and supernatural concepts. Mead then married,
cut short his Ph.D training to teach philosophy at the University of Michigan.
Later Mead would become an assistant professor at the University of Chicago.
Mead expounded on Wundt's idea of gesture and incorporated his own additions
such as role taking, mind and self. Here he became a part of what is known
as the "Chicago school of pragmatism." Members of this "school" included
John Dewey, Angel, Moore, and Ames. While at Chicago he continued to develop
his theory of symbolic interaction, the mind, self and society. Mead sought
to incorporate his theory into the totality of science, using it to explain
such ideas as improving education and international relations. "Mead was
constructing an empirically grounded theory that integrated the central
theories of physics, biology, psychology, and sociology, dealt with ethics,
aesthetics and the philosophy of science and resolved the problems of metaphysics
and epistemology." Before Mead died in April 26, 1931, he had wrote over
thirty journal articles, many book reviews, and abstracts. Mead never published
a book though. So after he died many of his notes, class notes from students
and class materials were gathered together and published in a collection
of papers called "Mind, Self, and Society" (Baldwin, 1986: 7-12). |
| A pragmatist in the truest sense of the word
Mead sought to use scientific method to explain and interpret intellectual
inquiry such as psychology, sociology, and philosophy (Baldwin, 1986:14).
Mead was a naturalist. His premise for life was that nothing is of 'supernatural'
origin or by supreme metaphysical consequence (Miller, 1973: 3). One of
the theories George H. Mead is known for later in sociology became the Theory
of Symbolic Interactionism. Mead described that man was a social creature.
That everything to man including sounds, gestures, words, and letters were
symbols. Man used these symbols to operate in society. According to Mead
objects are given meaning based on the socially constructed definition arising
out of contact with objects. Symbolization is the process by which objects
exist based on the "context of social relationships wherein symbolization
occurs." Meaning exists totally within the social situation. For Mead, meaning
is given to symbols or gestures and this is key in the creation of the social
creature. Two key points made by Mead in regards to meaning are; 1) "that
the social process, through the communication which it makes possible among
the individuals implicated in it, is responsible for the appearance of a
whole set of new objects in nature, which exist in relation to it, objects,
namely, of 'common sense'; and 2) that the gesture of one organism and the
adjustive response of the an other organism to that gesture within any given
social act bring out the relationship that exists between the gesture as
the beginning of the given act and the completion or resultant of the given
act, to which the gesture refers " (Morris, 1934: 79). In other words the
entire definition of meaning is created, harbored, and completed within
the social act, or "the basis of meaning is thus objectively there in social
conduct…" This concept is according to Mead, fundamental in the social process.
You have one gesture or symbol initiated by one "organism," then the adjustive
response of the second "organism" is the interpretation of the initial act
that gives meaning. In other words meaning is given to a specific act or
gesture based not on the initial individual's ascribed meaning, but meaning
is subjugated in response of the second individual (Morris, 1934: 146).
Communication according to Mead is important because "it provides a form
of behavior in which the organism or individual may become an object to
himself." Mead is not referring to communication such as the sounds of animals,
but communication "in the sense of significant symbols." Significant symbols
are different in that they have ascribed to them specific meaning in a social
situation. For example, if an organism were to scratch their tooth repeatedly,
only those involved within that social situation might be able to interpret
that gesture and subsequently be able to respond. This is the essence of
the significant symbol. It has meaning. One can respond to it. (Miller,
1973:17). |
| The mind is a social phenomenon according to
Mead. In and during the social contact the mind recognizes symbols translates
those symbols, and acts or adjusts to symbols based on the previous knowledge
of meaning. This adjustment to meaning is what gives humans the ability
to make decisions. Unlike animals of a lower species, humans are distinct
in that they have freedom to respond in a creative manner. If you bark at
a dog, the dog will bark back. If you bark at a human, the human may or
may not bark back. It all depends on the humans decision to the symbol (Miller,
1973: 3-4). |
| Through communication of symbols in a social
act the creation of the self is born. Mead describes a two intervals in
the development of the self. The first is the "the individual's self is
constituted simply by an organization of the particular attitudes of other
individuals toward himself and particular attitudes of other individuals
toward himself and toward on another in the specific social acts in which
he participates with them. But at the second stage in the full development
of the individual's self that self is constituted not only by an organization
of these particular individual attitudes, but also by an organization of
the social attitudes of the generalized other or the social group as a whole
to which he belongs" (Morris, 1934: 158). Basically what Mead is saying,
even though there's nothing basic with George, is that you have an individual
with a set of attitudes, plus the set of attitudes that he has about himself
which are constructed in the social process. This pluralism of the self
is called the "I" and the "Me." |
| The individual is constituted of both an "I"
and a "Me." This is not referring to someone having a split personality,
but that there is a conversation or process that goes on socially in an
individual that makes up who he is. The "I" and the "Me" are necessary.
The "I" is the part of the self that creates. The "Me" is necessary for
control over the "I." And without the "I" there would be no new acts for
the individual to do. The "I" is how a person sees himself or herself, but
the "Me" is how an individual actively sees him or herself through the eyes
of society. In other words, "the "I" is the response of the organism to
the attitudes of the others; the "Me" is the organized set of attitudes
of others which one himself assumes." Mead says that the collective and
organized attitudes of "others" are what constitute the "Me" (Morris, 1934:
175). To illustrate; when a person thinks to himself or herself the question,
"what should 'I' do?" Then the individual thinks, "what will they think
about me?" The self has just been exercised. As soon as the self hears him
or herself talking the "I" has become the "Me." "The "I" of this moment
is present in the "Me" of the next moment"(Morris, 1934: 174). |
| The development of the self can be seen clearly
in the life of a child. When a child is born he or she is immediately bombarded
with symbols. The doctor is there, the mother, and nurses and so on. But
these mean nothing to the newborn. Only that the symbols are there but no
meaning can be made about them. The principle socialization actors are the
parents of a child. As the months go on and the child becomes familiar with
his or her surroundings, symbols begin to have meaning. Baldwin illustrates
that when a child cries, and the parents come to his or her aid, a connection
or correlation begins to be made by repetition between the gesture by the
child and the reaction by the parents. This is called "gesture-response-consequence"
or "G-R-C." That is Baldwin is describing "the triadic relationship between
the infant's inborn gesture, the parental response to it, and the consequences
of this interaction." Similar the triadic relation of meaning from Mead,
only here Baldwin is describing it in the specific sense of an infant. Over
time the child will become familiar with the repeated responses of the parents
to his or her cry. What is not addressed though is the changing of response
by the second organism or parents in this case. If the parent suddenly stops
coming to the "aid" of the child when he or she cries, what effect does
this have on the child? Does the child 'drop' the association between cry
and aid? Based on what I have read, I would say that the child would readjust
meaning with response. For example, if a child learns early that the cry
will bring a response of picking up and holding the child by the parent,
then suddenly the parent were to cease this type of response to be held,
I believe the child would unlearn the cry equals holding G-R-C. This is
important to note that when raising children, every symbol is important.
A child never does not see a symbol. In other words any symbol that he or
she sees or comes into contact with is not not seen. An adjustment one way
or the other is made on the part of the infant. If you make a funny face
to a child, he or she will try to make meaning out of that symbol. If you
stand on you head in front of the child, the same process goes on. Meaning
is devoid in the child till association is made between act and response
(Baldwin 89-19). The implications for this are significant in that the socialization
process of a child can be scrutinized and redeveloped to improve the socialization
of children. Different techniques can be applied to figure out what works
and what does not. To think of a child as having the competency to make
decisions in the socialization process is just ludicrous and anti-Mead.
The child is not yet aware of it self and what it needs without first recognizing
that it has a self (Baldwin, 1986: 90-91). |
| As the infant becomes aware that he or she
has mother and father the child begins to become social. But to repeat a
child must first develop a sense of symbol and response before a self can
be developed. Also before a child can develop a self, he or she has to have
a grasp on the object of the "other." Object manipulation is key for a child
to understand meaning. Baldwin uses the example of when a child sees his
father using a spade to dig, the spade becomes associated with the digging.
When a child sees someone using a ball to bounce and throw, the child associates
throwing and bouncing with a ball. This might go towards understanding why
a child throws his or her toys, even the ones that were not made for bouncing
or throwing. Is a toy horse made for throwing or bouncing? No. But give
it to a child and the child will throw it. The child has not yet made the
connection between the manipulation of the horse, the object, and that horses
were not made for bouncing, the meaning. It would be necessary for an other
to relate meaning to what the activities of a horse are (Baldwin, 1986:
92). |
| As a child learns language he or she acquires
meanings that he or she uses. "They gain access to socially meaningful significant
symbols that allow them to communicate ever more effectively with others
and carry on inner conversation experiences as mind" (Baldwin, 1986: 93).
This is the difference between the significant symbol and the plain symbol.
The significant symbol is understood internally that the child has understood,
to use the earlier example, that when an other says that horses are not
made for bouncing, that the child understands the command and quits bouncing
the ball. The words or vocal gestures have meaning, and the child understands
both vocal gesture and the meaning that accompanies it. |
Baldwin, John D.George Herbert Mead; A Unifying
Theory for Sociology. California: Sage. 1986
Morris, Charles W. ed. Mind, Self, & Society. Chicago: Chicago Press. 1934
Miller, David L. George Herbert Mead; Self, Language, and the World. Chicago:
Chicago Press. 1973... |
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