Self

according to
Sociology
and Anthropology
Sociology
- One of the disciplines in the Social
Sciences which aims to discover the ways
by which the social
surroundings/environment influences
people’s thoughts, feelings and behavior.
- The study of the development, structure,
and functioning of human society.
 He is an American philosopher,
sociologist, and psychologist. He is
regarded as one of the founders of social
psychology and the American sociological
tradition in general. Mead is well-known
for his theory of self.

During the span of his career, he wrote and

published many articles and book reviews
but did not publish any book. It was his
George Herbert Mead students who put together his numerous
writings and edited them for publication.

He died due to heart failure in 1931.

Social Behaviorism
- It is his approach used to describe
the power of the environment in
shaping human behavior.
Self according to Mead
• It is the dimension of personality that is made-up of the individual’s
self-awareness and self-image.
• It cannot be separated from the society.
• It represents the sum total of people’s conscious perception of their
identity as distinct from others. He argued that the self like the mind is
social emergent. This means that individual selves are the products of
social interaction and not logical or biological in nature.
• It is something which undergoes development because it is not
present instantly at birth. The self arises in the process of social
experience and activity as a result of their relations to the said
process as a whole and to other individuals within that process. In
other words, one cannot experience their self alone, they need other
people to experience their self.
The social emergence of self is developed due to the three forms
of inter-subjective activity, the language, play, and the game. He
proposed the stages of self formation:

1. The Preparatory Stage

- Mead believed that the self did not exist at birth. Instead, the
self develops over time. Its development is dependent on social
interaction and social experience. At this stage, children’s
behaviors are primarily based on imitation. It was observed that
children imitate the behaviors of those around them. At this
stage, knowing and understanding the symbols are important for
this will constitute their way of communicating with others
throughout their lives.
2. The Play Stage
Skills at knowing and understanding the symbols of communication
is important for this constitutes the basis of socialization. Through
communication, social relationship are formed. Now children begin
to role play and pretend to be other people. Role-taking in the play
stage is the process of mentally assuming the process of another
person to see how this person might behave or respond in a given
situation (Schefer, 2012).
The play stage is significant in the development of the self. It is at
this stage where child widens his perspective and realizes that he is
not alone and that there are others around him whose presence he
has to consider.
3. The Game Stage
Here, the child is about eight or nine years of age
and now does more than just role-take. The child
begins to consider several tasks and various types
of relationships simultaneously. Through the
learnings that were gained in stage two, the child
now begins to see not only his own perspective
but at the same time the perspective of others. In
this final stage of self development, the child now
has the ability to respond not just to one but
several members of his social environment
https://study.com/academy/lesson/game-stage-in-soci
ology-definition-lesson-quiz.html
 STAGES OF SELF FORMATION

Stage Existence of Self Characteristics

Preparatory Stage None Imitates another

Play Stage Developing Role-taking

Game Stage Present Generalized other

“Generalized other”
It was used by Mead to explain the
behavior of the person when he realizes
that people in society have cultural norms,
beliefs and values which are incorporated
into each self. This realization forms basis
of how the person evaluate themselves or
the self-evaluation.
Theory of the Self
According to this theory, the self is not present at birth
but begins as a central character in a child’s world.
They begin to see other people and is now concerned
about people’s reactions. People around him play a
major role in the formation of the self. They are called
as “significant others”.
 The self, according to Mead is not merely a passive reflection of the
generalized other. The responses of the individual to the social world are
also active, it means that a person decides what they will do in reference to
the attitude of others but not mechanically determined by such attitudinal
structures. Here, Mead identified the two phases of self:
1. the phase which reflects the attitude of the generalized other or the “me”;
2. the phase that responds to the attitude of generalized other or the “I”.

In Mead’s words, the "me" is the social self, and the "I" is a response to the
"me". Mead defines the "me" as "a conventional, habitual individual and the
“I” as the “novel reply” of the individual to the generalized other. Generally,
Meads theory sees the self as a perspective that comes out of interactions,
and he sees the meanings of symbols, social objects, and the self as
emerging from negotiated interactions.
 He was an American sociologist
who made use of the
Sociopsychological approach to
understand how societies work.

In his written work “Human Nature

and the Social Order” (1902), he
discussed the formation of the self
through interaction.
Charles Horton Cooley
 Looking-glass Self
- The view of the self that is significantly influenced by the
impression and perception of others.
- This self is the product of social interaction.
- He believed that the process of developing a self has 3
phases such as:
1. People imagine how they present themselves to others.
2. People imagine how others evaluate them.
3. People develop some sort of feeling about themselves
as a result of those impressions.

I am not what I think I am

I am not what YOU think I am
I am what I think YOU think I am
 He was a Canadian-American sociologist
known for his role in the development of
Modern American Sociology.

“The Presentation of the Self in Everyday

Life”- one of his popular work; according to
this work, people early in their social
interactions learned to slant their presentation
Erving Goffman of themselves in order to create preferred
appearances and satisfy particular people.
Impression Management
- It refers to the process of
altering how the person
presents himself to others.

Dramaturgical Approach
- In Goffman’s observation of
people in everyday
interactions, he sees
similarities of real social
interaction to a theatrical
presentation.
Performance
Goffman uses the term ‘performance’ to refer
to all the activity of an individual in front of a
particular set of observers, or audience.
Setting
The setting for the performance
includes the scenery, props, and
location in which the interaction
takes place.
Appearance
It functions to portray to the audience
the performer’s social statuses. It also
tells us of the individual’s temporary
social state or role, for example,
whether he is engaging in work (by
wearing a uniform), informal recreation,
or a formal social activity. Here, dress
and props serve to communicate things
that have socially ascribed meaning,
like gender, status, occupation, age, and
personal commitments.
Manner
It refers to how the individual plays the role
and functions to warn the audience of how
the performer will act or seek to act in a role
(for example, dominant, aggressive,
receptive, etc.).
Front
The actor’s front, as labeled by Goffman,
is the part of the individual’s
performance which functions to define
the situation for the audience. It is the
image or impression he or she gives off
to the audience.
FRONT STAGE BACKSTAGE

OFF STAGE
In Front stage, there are:

a. “Matter of Politeness”
- Relates to the way in which the performer treats
the audience while engaged in talk or gestural
interactions.

b. Decorum
- Refers to the set of behaviors that have to do
with the way the performer conducts himself in
the visual or audio range of the audience.
 Simmel was a German sociologist, philosopher, and
critic. He was intensely interested in the ways in
which modern, objective culture impacts the
individual’s subjective experiences.

In contrast to Mead, Simmel proposed that there is

something called human nature that is innate to
the individual. This human nature is intrinsic to the
Georg Simmel individual like the natural inclination to religious
impulse or the gender differences. He also added
that most of our social interactions are individual
motivations.
Simmel as a social thinker made a distinction
between subjective and objective culture.

The individual or Objective culture is

subjective culture
refers to the ability to
embrace, use, and
feel culture.
made up of elements that
become separated from
the individual or group’s
control and identified as
separate objects.
There are interrelated forces in modern society that tend
to increase objective culture according to Simmel.

A. Urbanization
It is the process that moves people from country to city
living. This result to the concentration of population in
one place brought about by industrialization. This
paved way to the organization of labor or increased
division of labor, which demands specializations
wherein this creates more objective culture.
B. consumption of products
By consumption, an individual able to purchase
things that can easily personalized or express the
self. People used commodities to create
self-concept and self-image. Simmel also said that
products used in the modernity to express and
produced the self is also changing. It becomes
more and more separated from subjectivity
(subjective culture) due to division of labor and
market economy. Many products are easily
replaced, subjected to the dynamics of fashion and
diversification of markets which leads to
inappropriate sign use.
Money
It creates a universal value system wherein
every commodity can be understood. It also
increases individual freedom by pursuing
diverse activities and by increasing the options
for self-expression. Money also makes the
individual to be less attached to the
commodities because the individual tends to
understand and experience their possession
less in terms of their intrinsic qualities and
more of their objective and abstract worth.
Additionally, money also discouraged intimate
ties with people. Money further discourages
intimate ties by encouraging a culture of
calculation.
Social Network
An individual tends to seek membership to the same group
which makes the family as basic socialization structure. This
natural inclination to join groups is called as organic
motivation and the grouping is called primary group. This
group is based on ties of affection and personal loyalty
endure over long periods of time, and involve multiple
aspects of a person’s life.
On the other hand, in the modern urban settings, group
membership is due to rational motivation or membership
due to freedom of choice. This characterized the secondary
group which is goal and utilitarian oriented, with a narrow
range of activities, over limited time spans. As a result, it is
more likely that an individual will develop unique
personalities. Role conflict is a situation that demands a
person of two or more roles that clash with one another.
Blasé attitude is an attitude of absolute boredom and lack
of concern. This is the inability or limited ability to provide
emotional investment to other people.
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