The Social Psychology of George Mead

Abstract

Mead considers that the data for solving the problems of social psychology were to be found in the conduct and experience of men rather than in the behavior of lower animals or in the facts of physiology. The ongoing social process was his starting-point, and man was assumed to be a part of nature, entirely and without residue. In the analysis of conscious reflective action he found use for all the psychological concepts. The social nature of man was assumed, and the self is shown to have its origin in communication which leads in man to self-stimulation and self-response and the taking of the role of the Personality is a role in a social situation. Every self is in a social context. Auditory gestures are of first importance in self-stimulation; and when one becomes his own object, he achieves selfhood. The conception of the self is therefore dependent on the defining responses of others, which responses are abstracted into a generalized other. Significant symbols, used with a consciousness of th...