Chapter 5

Symbolic
Interactionism
AGOT. FONTE. LISING. MORALES.
SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM

• It is not just talking.

• The term refers to the
language and gestures a
person uses in anticipation
of the way others will
respond.
• Expectation of how the
speaker/listener will react.
GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
• An Early Social Constructionist.
• A Philosophy Professor at the
University of Chicago.
• He believed that our thoughts,
self-concept and the wider
community we live in are created
through communication –
SYMBOLIC INTERACTION.
 THE BOOK THAT
L A YS O U T G E ORG E
H E RBERT M E A D ’ S
T H EO RY W H I C H
BOOK: MIND, D E S CR I BES H O W
AWARD
SELF AND LA NG UAG E.
RECIPIENTS
SOCIETY
 HERBERT BLUMER

• Mead’s Chief Disciple at the

• University of California.
• He coined the term
SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM.
NELL
NELL (1994)
(1994)
NELL (1994

MOVIE "NELL (1994)

BLUMER
BLUMER
BLUMER STATED
THREE CORE
P R I N CI P L E S O F
• MEANING
SYMBOLIC
INTERACTIONISM
THAT DEAL WITH:

2 . L A NG U A G E 3.THINKING
 “HUMAN act
toward people or
things on the
basis of the
meanings they
assign to those
people or things.”

M E A NING : T H E C ONST RU C T ION

O F S OC IA L RE A L IT Y
 LANGUAGE: THE
SOURCE OF MEANING

2nd Premise: 'meaning arises

out of social interaction that
people have with each other'.
• meaning is negotiated through the
use of language..
• he extent of knowing is dependent
on the extent of naming.
• Symbolic interactionism is not just
for intelligent expression but also
help us to interpret the world.

• *Default Assumptions
• *Can also be Nonverbal
THINKING:THE PROCESS OF TAKING THE
ROLE OF THE OTHERS

• We use thinking to determine our next move and

anticipate others reaction.
• Mead called an inner dialogue/thinking as Minding.
(SELF TALK)
• Social stimulation and exposure= conceptual
thought process.
• Taking the role of the other is a unique capacity of
humans.
 meaning + language + thinking = interconnected.

THE SELF: Mead taking looking-glass

REFLECTIONS dismissed the the role of the self
IN A LOOKING idea that we other through
GLASS could get “Imagining”
glimpses of who
we are through
introspection.
 • claims “individuals’ selfconceptions result from
assimilating the judgments of significant others.
• According to Mead, the self is an ongoing
process combining the “I” and the “me.”
• The “I” is the spontaneous, driving force that
fosters all That is novel, unpredictable, and
unorganized in the self.
• The “me” is viewed as an object. The image of
self seen In the looking glass of other people’s
reactions.
• Mead saw society as consisting of
GEORGE HERBERT
individualactors who make their own choices.
MEAD
 NO ME AT BIRTH
NO ME AT BIRTH
NO ME AT BIRTH
THERE IS NO
"ME" AT BIRTH
A S A MP LER O F A P P LIED S Y M BOLI C I N T ERAC TI ON

six separate applications of symbolic interactionism

“all the world’s a stage,

and all the men and women
1 . C RE A T ING RE A L IT Y merely players”

- Shakespear

Shakespear + The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life +

Sociologist Erving Goffman +Social interaction =
dramaturgical performance
2. Meaning-ful Research 3. Generalized Other

• Mead advocated research • Tragic potential of negative

through participant responses consequently
observation, a form of reducing a person to perceiving
ethnography. themselves as nothing.

4. Naming

• Name-calling can be devastating because the labels force us to

view ourselves in a warped mirror. The grotesque images aren’t
easily dismissed.
5. Self-Fulfilling 6. Symbol
Prophecy Manipulation
• the tendency for our • It is the process in which
expectations to evoke symbols incite people to
responses in others that unite into action.
confirm what we originally
anticipated.

ETHICAL
REFLECTION: LEVINAS’
RESPONSIVE “I”
Emmanuel Levinas
European Jewish Philosopher
• He states that “without the
Other, there is no ‘I.’ But there’s
a striking difference between
how the two theorists think
this construction project takes
place.
• uses the term ethical echo to
designate the responsibility
he believes we all have to
take care of each other.
 CRITIQUE:
SETTING THE GOLD STANDARD FOR THREE INTERPRETIVE CRITERIA

Mead proclaimed Both the theory and

that humans are the theorist have Symbolic
free to make more than satisfied a interactionism may
meaningful choices fourth interpretive also suffer from
on how to act when requirement for a overstatement
facing problems. good theory

Clarification of Community of
Final Note
Values Agreement