George Herbert Mead: Taking the Role of the Other

George Herbert Mead is one of the founding fathers of the sociological theory known as symbolic interactionism. Mead is best known for explaining how the mind and self emerge from social interaction. According to Mead, there can be no self without a prior social group. The process, he argues, requires communication through gestures — or significant symbols — as well as the ability to take the role of the 'other.' Mead also addressed the developmental nature of the ability to take the role of the other, and was interested in how individuals and societies grow and change over time. In addition to his contributions to sociology, Mead was a philosopher as well. His thoughts on mind/body dualism and shared knowledge will also be reviewed.

Keywords Act; Games; Generalized Other; Gesture; Play; Self; Significant Symbols; Symbolic Interactionism; The 'I'; The 'Me'

George Herbert Mead: Taking the Role of the Other

Overview

George Herbert Mead, whose work provided the foundation for the sociological theory known as symbolic interactionism, is best known for emphasizing the social over the personal. As Ritzer (2008) explains, "A thinking, self-conscious individual is … logically impossible in Mead's theory without a prior social group. The social group comes first, and it leads to the development of self-conscious mental states" (p. 351). Mead viewed the development of the self as a process, and one that was dependent on taking the role of the 'other,' or as he called it, the generalized other. Although the concept of the generalized other is frequently cited and footnoted, many argue it has been both underutilized and often misunderstood (Holdsworth & Morgan, 2007; Dodds, Lawrence, & Valsiner, 1997).

Some of the misunderstanding surrounding Mead's work is due, in part, to the way in which it was communicated. Whereas most academics share their ideas through publication, Mead relied primarily on his teaching. One of his students noted, "Conversation was his best medium; writing was a poor second" (Smith, 1931, as cited in Ritzer, 2008). Even Mead himself once remarked "I am vastly depressed by my inability to write what I want to" (quoted in Cook, 1993, as cited in Ritzer, 2008). Despite Mead's difficulty writing, a record of his work exists in several forms — posthumously published student notes and public lectures, unpublished and undated works, and published papers. Mind, Self, and Society, a 1934 posthumous compilation of student notes, is arguably Mead's best-known work.

Although many claim that Mead's early work was lost to everyone but his students (Deegan, 2001), a recently discovered manuscript suggests Mead wrote more than many thought. Why the manuscript for his first book was never published remains a mystery, but Deegan (2001) argues that its discovery is important for putting Mead's career in proper perspective. The title of his book was to be "Essays on Psychology," but as Deegan (2001) writes, modern-day psychologists would find this label misleading. The essays demonstrate, she argues, that he was transitioning from psychology to what would later become known as social psychology. The essays, and the date of their intended publication, also demonstrate that he was a founding father of the field of sociology. Deegan (2001) writes, "Mead's 'first book' clearly locates him as a major figure in the classical, founding years of the [sociological] profession" (p. xv).

Mead's influence, and the ideas and people who influenced him, were far-ranging. Part psychologist, philosopher, sociologist, and educator, Mead studied under and with many people. As a graduate student, Mead left Harvard University to study in Germany with Wilhelm Wundt, the founder of experimental psychology. Many of the concepts that formed the bedrock of Mead's theory — play, gesture, consciousness — can be traced to Wundt's influence (Deegan, 2001). Shortly after beginning his teaching career, Mead was invited to the University of Chicago by John Dewey. The core beliefs of philosophical pragmatists — that the mind is not a static thing but a thinking process, reality is not 'out there' but is created by our interactions with the world — greatly shaped Mead and symbolic interactionists more generally (Ritzer, 2008). Finally, Mead is indebted to John Watson and the behaviorist tradition. Like behaviorists, Mead believed in the fundamental relationship between stimulus and response. Unlike behaviorists, however, Mead viewed people as thinking, interpreting subjects (Farganis, 2000).

Whether we think of Mead as an outstanding lecturer, author, sociologist, or social psychologist, his contribution to the humanities is undeniable. More specifically, his work was especially important in helping resolve a persistent tendency to dichotomize the social and the personal. Dodds, Lawrence, and Valsiner (1997) believe Mead's notion of the generalized other and related conceptual work should be more often revisited by contemporary developmental psychologists who seek to understand how the personal and social can exist simultaneously.

Theoretical Work

At its core, much of Mead's work is an attempt to better understand the 'self' — how it should be defined, how it arises, whether it is constituted individually or in interaction with others. In general, Mead defined the self as the ability to be both subject and object (Ritzer, 2008). He traced the origin of the self developmentally, and suggested it could arise only in social interaction, and only as the individual develops the ability to take the role of the other. He wrote, "It is only by taking the role of the others that we have been able to come back to ourselves" (as cited in Ritzer, 2008, p. 360). A fuller understanding of Mead's self, however, requires us to investigate other aspects of his theory, beginning with the act and evolving toward the notion of the generalized other.

The Act & the Gesture

The basic unit of Mead's theory is 'the act.' Mead identified four stages of the act — impulse, perception, manipulation, and consummation — and investigated the ways in which the act differed for humans and lower animals (Ritzer, 2008). While the basis of Mead's act is the stimulus-response unit of the behaviorist tradition, Mead believed thinking occurred in between stimulus and response. In other words, humans could choose a response, rather than react mechanically. The act, however, describes one individual's interaction with the environment; because Mead's theory emphasizes the social over the personal, he needed a concept to describe interaction between people as well.

For Mead, communication between two or more beings occurs through the gesture, which can be either conscious or unconscious (Farganis, 2006). He defines gestures specifically as "movements of the first organism which act as specific stimuli calling forth (socially) appropriate responses of the second organism" (as cited in Ritzer, 2008, p. 356). Lower-order animals, and sometimes humans as well, communicate via unconscious gestures, or gestures that elicit automatic, unthinking responses. Screaming in response to being frightened unexpectedly by another person is an unconscious gesture. What differentiates humans from other animals, however, is our ability to think and act intentionally through the use of conscious gestures (Farganis, 2006).

Mead, like others, identified the vocal gesture — and more specifically language — as the most influential conscious gesture in the development of human society and knowledge (Ritzer, 2008). He believed the vocal gesture, as distinct from other conscious gestures such as facial grimaces, had two distinguishing features - the ability for the speaker to hear and understand the gesture in the same way as the listener, and the ability for the speaker to control it (Ritzer, 2008). More specifically, Mead defined language as a particular kind of gesture, a significant symbol, which arouses the same (or similar) response in both speaker and listener. Uttering the word 'car', for example, evokes similar mental images for both people. As Ritzer (2008) explains, "only when we have significant symbols can we truly have communication" (p. 357). Or as Mead might say, it is only through the social act of exchanging significant gestures that meaning arises (Dodds, Lawrence, & Valsiner, 1997).

The Role of the Other

How do the social act and the use of gestures give rise to a sense of self? The second half of Mead's theoretical equation relies on the notion of taking the role of the 'other.' For Mead, the ability to take on the role of the other developed in stages - first the play stage, and then in the game stage.

The Play Stage

In the play stage, children learn to take the attitude of particular others toward themselves, such as the attitude of teachers, doctors, parents, or siblings (Ritzer, 2008; Farganis, 2000). In this instance, children learn to use stimuli - such as writing on the chalkboard, homework, reading from a textbook — that evoke in them the reactions teachers might evoke from their students. In other words, the child becomes student and teacher, subject and object, at the same time. By taking the attitude of another person toward themselves, the child begins to develop a sense of self. Because they are only taking on the role of particular individuals, however, they lack a more generalized, complete sense of self. Or as Mead writes, play is "the simplest form of being another to one's self" (as cited in Farganis, 2000, p. 165).

The Game Stage

Mead distinguishes play from games, the major distinction being that "in the latter the child must have the attitude of all the others involved in that game" (as cited in Farganis, 2000, p. 166). Mead uses the game of baseball to illustrate his point, suggesting that any one player must have in mind the roles of all the other players on the field in order successfully participate. More specifically, he must take their attitude not just toward himself, but toward the activities and goals of the entire group. Mead writes, "Only in so far as he takes the attitude of the organized social group to which he belongs toward the organized, co-operative social activity or set of such activities in which that group is engaged, does he develop a complete self" (as cited in Ritzer, 2008, p. 361). In this stage, the attitude of the entire group — whether a baseball team, a community, or a classroom — is known as the generalized other.

'I' & 'Me'

In order to better understand the process by which taking the role of the other constitutes a self, one must understand Mead's distinction between the 'I' and the 'me.' According to Mead, the 'I' is the self that acts in present time; it is only available for observation by others with whom the individual interacts. As Dodd, Lawrence, and Valsiner (1997) explain, "I as subject creates meaning in social interaction, but I cannot be conscious of that meaning in the instant when the action is actually occurring. Self-inspection is dependent on memory … in memory there is both an observed 'I' and an observing 'me' (p. 490). The memory of our gesture — performed by the 'I' — and the attitude taken by the other, referred to as the 'me', persists after the gesture is completed, and is then available for reflection. By reflecting on the gesture, and the attitude of the other toward the gesture, we develop a sense of self.

The Role of the Generalized Other

At first glance, Mead's theory of self might seem deterministic. If sense of self is achieved by taking on the role of the generalized other, does his theory leave any room to explain creativity or change? In one sense, Mead did view the generalized other, or the 'me' as a mechanism of social control (Ritzer, 2008). Individuals dominated by the 'me' would likely be conformists and the 'me', according to Mead, is what makes a society function. On the other hand, as Morris (1934) writes, "If this were all that there is to the self, the account would be an extreme and one-sided one, leaving no place for creative and reconstructive activity; the self would not merely reflect the social structure, but would be nothing beyond that reflection. The complete self, however, is conceived by Mead as being both 'I' and 'me'" (p. xxv). And it is the 'I' that makes change possible. The 'I' is unpredictable and every act it performs, Mead argues, changes the society to one degree or another.

Because all selves emerge by taking on the role of the generalized other, some might question how Mead explains individuality. If the generalized other is the attitude of all others in a community, why are people not all the same? As Ritzer (2008) explains, "Mead is clear that each self is different from all the others" (p. 362). According to Mead, there is no single overarching generalized other; each person belongs to many groups simultaneously, thus each individual has multiple generalized others, and therefore multiple selves.

Further Insights

Morris (1934), in the introduction to Mind, Self, and Society, argues that Mead contributes most to the development of theory, rather than the empirical verification of it. He writes, "It is true that the two aspects of science are ultimately inseparable…but the observations to which Mead appeals are for the most part open to anyone — they involve no special scientific technique. Not in figures and charts and instruments is his contribution to be found, but in insights as to the nature of minds and selves and society" (p. xii).

Mind-Body Dualism

As stated earlier, Mead was in many ways as much a philosopher as he was a sociologist or psychologist. As such, he grappled with the mind/body split — the idea that the mind and body are two separate entities — in the same way other philosophers did. Even as an undergraduate student, Miller (1982) writes, he "rebelled against the theological claim that the mind (or the soul) is a supernatural substance, that it can exist apart from the body" (p. 3). The solutions proposed by others such as Hegel, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume were unsatisfactory to Mead, so he came up with his own by "making a functional, not a substantive, distinction between mental (symbolic) processes and overt bodily behavior" (Miller, 1982, p. 4). For Mead, the mind could not be separated from the act — especially the social act — and the act itself is always physical, embodied.

Objective Relativism

According to Miller (1982), Mead made a second significant philosophical contribution, which he calls objective relativism. Many philosophers before Mead believed that things like color, odor, taste, and sound (what they called secondary qualities) required a perceiver in order to exist. They had no reality apart from the individual perceiving them, and thus were called subjective as opposed to objective. As a result, philosophers and psychologists had no way of explaining how knowledge could be shared, since it belonged to each individual subject independently. Mead, however, was able to provide a solution, and as he said "return these stolen goods to the world" (as cited in Miller, 1982, p. 5). According to Mead's theory "if one can evoke in himself, by his gesture, the same (functionally identical) response that he evokes in the other, then the gesture's meaning is relieved of its privacy, it is objective and also real" (Miller, 1982, p. 5).

Morality

Mead's theory also contributed to understanding of morality. He rejected the notion of absolutes — that there is a fixed, unchanging perspective known to God overarching all human perspectives. Instead, Mead believed morality, or the moral act, is the one that is governed by the perspective of the whole community. Thus, morality, like the development of the self, depends on role-taking. As Miller (1982) explains, "recently sociologists have rightfully argued that such emotions as shame, embarrassment, guilt, conscience, etc have powerful control over the moral behavior of the individual. None of these emotions would be possible apart from language and role-taking" (p. 19). Finally, Mead believed societies should continually "remake values…in terms of the best knowledge available" (Morris, 1934, p. xxxiii); for Mead, morality is closely related to the democratic ideal.

Viewpoints

Mead's contribution to the study of humanities — despite the relatively few publications in his name during his lifetime — was immense. Of his success in proving the social origin of the mind and self, Morris (1934) writes, "It is hardly necessary to say that a much smaller achievement would be sufficient to serve as a milestone in science and philosophy" (p. xv). And yet, as noted previously, many believe his work is underutilized and misunderstood (Holdsworth & Morgan, 2007; Dodds, Lawrence, & Valsiner, 1997).

In the end, the nature of Mead's publications — the fact that many were published posthumously, for example, and often based on student notes — may be both a blessing and a curse. Dodds, Lawrence, and Valsiner (1997) argue that researchers have relied too heavily on Self, Mind, and Society, for example, and that many of Mead's concepts were "lost in the translation" of student notes. On the other hand, the posthumous publication of his work — the most recent being the 2001 publication of his 'first' book — has given sociologists an expanded and changing view of Mead's contributions. Deegan (2001) argues, for example, that the lost manuscript demonstrates Mead's contribution to the study of emotion, childhood development, and political theory. Perhaps the man whose "genius best expressed itself in the lecture room" has not had his final word yet (Morris, 1934, vii).

Terms & Concepts

Act: The act is the basic unit of analysis in Mead's theory, and represents an individual's interaction with the world. It is composed of four parts — impulse, perception, manipulation, and consummation. The act — and especially the social act — also represents Mead's belief that experience is the basic unit of existence from which all else emerges — selves, minds, knowledge.

Games: According to Mead, the ability to take the role of the other develops in stages, the first being the play stage, the second the game stage. During the game stage, children learn to take the roll of all others involved in the game, rather than just a particular other. The attitude of the entire group is often referred to as 'the generalized other.'

Generalized Other: According to Mead, it is our ability to take on the role of the generalized other that allows us to develop complete, whole selves. Taking on the role of the other requires that we take on the attitude of the entire group not just toward ourselves, but toward a common goal or activity as well.

Gesture: Mead defines gestures as "movements of the first organism which act as specific stimuli calling forth (socially) appropriate responses of the second organism" (as cited in Ritzer, 2008, p. 356). Unconscious gestures call forth automatic, unthinking responses in others, whereas conscious gestures elicit thinking responses. For Mead, the vocal gesture - and more specifically language — is the most important gesture in the development of thought and human communities.

Play: According to Mead, the ability to take the role of the other develops in stages, the first being the play stage. During this stage, children learn to take the role of a particular other - such as a teacher, doctor, parent, or sibling. By becoming both subject and object, they develop a sense of self. This sense of self is incomplete, however, because they are taking on the role of a single person, rather than a community.

Self: In general, Mead defined self as the ability to be both subject and object. He argued that the self could only arise in social interaction, but once it had been developed, it could persist even in the absence of other people. According to Mead, selves emerge through gestures — communication with other people through language — and our ability to take on the role of the other.

Significant Symbol: Significant symbols are particular kinds of conscious gestures which call forth in the person presenting it the same or similar response called forth in the person receiving it. Language is a significant symbol. When one person utters the word 'car', for example, it evokes a similar message in the person who speaks it as well as the listener. According to Mead, it is through the use of significant symbols that meaning arises.

Symbolic Interactionism: Although Mead's influence is far-reaching — he was part philosopher, part social psychologist, part sociologist — his work is categorized most often within the larger theoretical frame known as symbolic interactionism. Mead is often recognized as one of its founding fathers.

The 'I': For Mead, the complete self is made up of two components — the 'I' and the 'Me.' The 'I' is the person who acts, and exists only in present time. The 'I' cannot be conscious of itself at the same time the action is occurring, and therefore is first available for observation only by the other. Because the action of the 'I' is never fully determined, the 'I' is the element of Mead's theory that allows for growth, creativity, and change within selves and communities.

The 'Me': For Mead, the complete self is made up of two components — the 'I' and the 'Me.' The 'I' is the acting self, while the 'me' - also referred to as the generalized other — is the observing self. It is the 'me' that allows communities, and individuals within communities, to function effectively. The 'me' establishes conformity and continuity.

Bibliography

Athens, L. (2012). Mead's analysis of social conflict: A radical interactionist's critique. American Sociologist, 43, 428–447. Retrieved October 28, 2013 from EBSCO online database SocINDEX with Full Text http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=84368863

Deegan, M. J. (2001). Introduction: George Herbert Mead's first book. In Essays in social psychology (pp. xi–xliv). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

Dodds, A. E., Lawrence, J. A., & Valsiner, J. (1997). The personal and the social: Mead's theory of the 'generalized other.' Theory and Psychology, 7, 483–503.

Farganis, J. (2000). Readings in social theory: The classic tradition to postmodernism. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Gallagher, T. J. (2012). G. H. Mead's understanding of the nature of speech in the light of contemporary research. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 42, 40–62. Retrieved October 28, 2013 from EBSCO online database SocINDEX with Full Text http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=71934017

Holdsworth, C., & Morgan, D. (2007). Revisiting the generalized other: An exploration. Sociology, 41 , 401–417.

Huebner, D. (2011). In reference to G. H. Mead: Tracing the development of a foundational social theorist. Conference Papers — American Sociological Association, 866. Retrieved October 28, 2013 from EBSCO online database SocINDEX with Full Text http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=85658394

Miller, D. L. (1982). Introduction. In The individual and the social self: Unpublished work of George Herbert Mead (pp. 1026). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Morris, C. W. (1934). Introduction. In Mind, self, and society: From the standpoint of a social behaviorist (pp. ix–xxxv). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Ritzer, G. (2008). Sociological theory. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Suggested Reading

Cohen, D., & Gunz, A. (2002). As seen by the other: Perspectives on the self in the memories and emotional perceptions of Easterners and Westerners. Psychological Science, 13, 55–59. Retrieved April 14, 2008 from EBSCO online database Academic Search Premier http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=5854690&site=ehost-live

da Silva, F., & Vieira, M. (2011). Books and canon building in sociology: The case of Mind, Self, and Society. Journal of Classical Sociology, 11, 356–377. Retrieved October 28, 2013 from EBSCO online database SocINDEX with Full Text http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=67513939

Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self, and society: From the standpoint of a social behaviorist. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Mead, G. H. (2001). Essays in social psychology. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

Young, R. L., & Thompson, C. Y. (2013). The selves of other animals: Reconsidering Mead in light of multidisciplinary evidence. Studies in Symbolic Interaction, 40, 467–483. Retrieved October 28, 2013 from EBSCO online database SocINDEX with Full Text http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=87715414