DISCIPLINES AND IDEAS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM (Lesson 4)

Charles Horton Cooley and George Herbert Mead are considered the co-founders of symbolic
interactionism. The symbolic interaction perspective, also called symbolic interactionism, is a major framework
of sociological theory. This perspective relies on the symbolic meaning that people develop and rely upon in
the process of social interaction.
Symbolic interactionism analyzes society by the descriptive meanings that people have given to objects,
events and behaviors. The behavioral pattern of people will be based on these descriptive meanings because
people behave according to their descriptive beliefs rather than the objective truth. These descriptive beliefs
and meanings are nothing but interpretations given by the people thus the theory suggest that society is
based on the interpretations of the people. The people interpret each other’s behavior and a social bond is
thus created which is grounded on this interpretation. These interpretations are often called “definition of the
situation” because they just define the situations.
For example, why would young people smoke cigarettes even when all objective medical evidence points
to the dangers of doing so? The answer is in the definition of the situation that people create. Studies find that
teenagers are well informed about the risks of tobacco, but they also think that smoking is cool, that they
themselves will be safe from harm, and that smoking projects a positive image to their peers. So, the symbolic
meaning of smoking overrides that actual facts regarding smoking and risk.
SUBJECTIVE OBJECTIVE
Smoking is “cool” Smoking is harmful to your health
Smoking is not harmful Smoking can cause lung cancer

Some fundamental aspects of our social experience and identities, like race can be understood through the
symbolic interactionist lens. Having no biological bases at all, race is a social construct (meaning, created by
society) that function based on what we believe to be true about people, given what they look like. We use
socially constructed meanings of race to help us decide who to interact with, how to do so, and to help us
determine, sometimes inaccurately, the meaning of a person's words or actions.
One shocking example of how this theoretical concept plays out within the social construct of race is
manifested in the fact that many people, regardless of race, believe that lighter skinned blacks and Latinos are
smarter than their darker skinned counterparts. This phenomenon occurs because of the racist stereotyping.
This theory explains how humans develop a complex set of symbols that gives meaning to the world in
their perspective. The meanings are molded from the interactions with the society. And these interactions are
subjectively interpreted by them to suit the meaning in accordance with the existing symbols. It can be said
that if we need to understand the behavioral patterns of the society we need to understand the existing
symbols.

Examples of Symbols and its Meaning

GESTURE MEANING
handshake friendship
waving goodbye
 MEN WOMEN
Symbolic interactionism consists of three core principles: meaning, language and thought.
Meaning states that humans act toward people and things according to the meanings that give to those
people or things.
Language gives humans a means by which to negotiate meaning through symbols. Humans identify meaning
in talking to others. Meaning is negotiated through the use of language, hence the term symbolic
interactionism.
Thought modifies each individual’s interpretation of symbols. Thought is a mental conversation that requires
different points of view.

I and Me
In this work, Mead made a fundamental contribution to sociology by theorizing the difference between "I"
and "me," wherein "I" is the self as a thinking, breathing, active subject in society; and "me" is the
accumulation of knowledge of how that self as an object is perceived by others. Taking the example of the
selfie today, we can say that "I" take a selfie and share it in order to make "me" available to the world. The "I"
is the active aspect of the person, and the "me" is the socialized aspect of the person.

Looking Glass Self

Do you sometimes experience that the mere presence of other people leads to feelings of discomfort and
tension? When not knowing exactly what other people think of you it may lead to self-doubt and feelings of
insecurity. According to the American sociologist Charles Horton Cooley (1864-1929), the degree of personal
insecurity you display in social situations is determined by what you believe other people think of you.
Actually, how we see ourselves does not come from who we really are, but rather from how we believe others
see us.
Cooley introduced the term looking glass self to describe the process by which our sense of self develops.
Through symbolic interaction, humans serve as mirrors for one another. Whether we hold a good or poor
opinion of ourselves depends upon our relationships with other people. The greater our skill in bringing our
actions into accord (agree) with theirs, the better is their opinion of us.
According to Cooley, this process has three steps:
First, we imagine how we appear to another person. Sometimes this imagination is correct, but may also
be wrong since it is merely based on our assumptions.
Second, we imagine what judgments people make of us based on our appearance.
Lastly, we imagine how the person feels about us, based on the judgments made of us. The ultimate result
is that we often change our behavior based on how we feel people perceive us.