The Nature and the Task of Meadian “Social Psychology”

Abstract

As often as not Mead's “social psychology” has been argued as the theory of the subjective world of the creative individual. And the concept of the self, or especially of “I” and “me”, has been concerned as the central one in Mead's theory. But, to what degree does this acceptance reflect the orientation involved in his own social theory? Mead's theory is not the theory of the self. It is the criticism of social institution in terms of his view of the progress, and an attempt to reconstruct the larger society-namely, the theory of social reform. How can we harmonize the highly complicated universalization process in the society with the individuation process of individuals? To deal with the ever appearing novel problems, how can we overcome the conflicts among the social groups or nations, and recostruct the larger society? These are Mead's own questions. That is, his task is the theoretical study of the mutually relational reconstruction process of the common perspective shared in society and the individual perspectives of the individuals. However, Mead's argumentation is not sufficiently successful. He insists on an application of the scientific method to the social process. But it does not seem to be a mature theoretical answer to the above questions. On the contrary, it is thought that his description illuminates the cult institutions in the modern society, the actual conflicts among the social groups, and the social psychological processes of the vicious circle of narrowing perspectives, because of the “sociality” of human being. Paradoxically, it shows the multiple-divided social world and the social psychologically compartmentalized life of the individual in it. Then, Mead's theory is rather on social processes and social groups, and it looks rather tough-minded. From such a social theory, what implications should we take up ?