Lesson 5:

The Self According To Sociology and

Anthropology (continuation)
George Herbert Mead and the Social Self
Mead 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.
He postulated that, the self represents the sum total of people’s conscious perception of their identity
as distinct from others.
Individual selves are the products of social interaction and not logical or biological in nature.
He claimed that the self is something which undergoes development because it is not present instantly
at birth.
In other words, one cannot experience their self alone, they need other people to experience their self.
Symbolic Interactionism – the self is created and developed through human interaction.
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. Preparatory Stage.
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.
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).
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.
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.
Generalized other the person 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.
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”; and
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.
 The Self as a product of modern society among other constructions
Georg Simmel
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. 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 subjective culture refers to the ability to embrace, use, and feel culture.
Objective culture is 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.
These are urbanizations, money, and the configuration of one’s social network.

Urbanization 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.

Simmel also stressed that the consumption of products has an individuating and trivializing effect because
this enables the person to create self out of things. By consumption, an individual able to purchase
things that can easily personalized or express the self.

Money creates a universal value system wherein every commodity can be understood. Money also increases
individual freedom by pursuing diverse activities and by increasing the options for self-expression.

Additionally, money also discouraged intimate ties with people. Money comes to stand in the place of
almost everything – and this includes relationship! Money further discourages intimate ties by encouraging
a culture of calculation
Group affiliations in urban is definitely different from rural settings wherein the
relationship are strongly influenced by family. 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 by Simmel as organic motivation and the grouping is
called primary group.

On the other hand, in the modern urban settings, group membership is due to rational
motivation or membership due to freedom of choice.

Moreover, Simmel said that a complex web of group affiliations produces role conflicts
and blasé attitude. 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.
 The Self Embedded in the Culture
Clifford Geertz

Clifford Geertz was an Anthropology Professor at the University of Chicago. He studied

different cultures and explored on the conception of the self in his writings entitled, “The Impact
of the Concept of Culture on the Concept of Man” (1966) in his fieldwork at Java, Bali and
Morrocco.
The analysis of Geertz (1966) in his cultural study about the description of self in Bali is that the Balinese
person is extremely concerned not to present anything individual (distinguishing him or her from others) in
social life but to enact exclusively a culturally prescribed role or mask. In one instance, Geertz (1973) gave
an example of the stage fright that pervades persons in Bali because they must not be publicly recognizable
as individual selves and actors points precisely to the fact that agency or an ability to act in one’s own
account is an integral ability of human beings—an ability which continually threatens the culturally
established norm of nonindividuality

Thick description – provide enough context so that a person outside the culture can make meaning of the
behavior
Thin description – stating facts without such meaning or significance.
 Thin description

In India culture In Turkish culture

Thick description

Crossing Fingers