Symbolic Interactionism Of George Herbert Mead (Summary)

The theory entitled Symbolic Interaction was written by George Herbert Mead. It deals with three core principles: meaning, language, and thought.

Meaning is how we act towards people or things with regards to the definition we give to it. They are assigned through language. When we interact with other people – symbolic interaction – with the use of language we give meaning to people or things to communicate or to better understand each other. Symbolic interpretation may also mean a way for us to interpret things around us.

The way we understand symbols are modified through our thoughts or our thought process. Thinking, to interaction theorists, is an inner conversation. Mead calls this minding, a reflective pause or the two seconds halt our brain does when we are constructing what to reply. Thought can also be a mental conversation we hold with others. We unconsciously act how another person we usually have a conversation with would act under circumstances. But we do not become them, else that would be Intrusion of the Body Snatchers, we copy parts of them but not the total person.

Let's take a look at this example. One of the people I usually talk to is my mom. The way she act like taking time to talk to her children, making appropriate decisions by consulting other people, and saying what she thinks is the right thing to me is the meaning of being family oriented , responsible, and being strait forward. I used the language I know and thinking to create and give meaning to her actions.

Through the use of these three core principles we can come up with a concept of our self. When we take the role of another person we can see our self through them.

The generalized others is a term Mead used to describe 1 “an organized set of information that the individual carries in his head about what the general expectation and attributes of the social groups are.” Mead says that we are in an ongoing process of combining the “I”; a driving force that fosters all that is new and forever exclusive, and the “we”; formed only through continual symbolic interaction.

As the general other developed, the individual slowly acquires his own self image, a looking glass self. He takes the role that he portrays through inner dialogs.

My conversations with her created an inner conversation saved in my mind. Slowly I apply thoughts conversation by acting how she'd act in a nearly same scenario happens. I create a concept of my self through the inner dialogues and it's application in my daily activities. but there are more than one people whom i have conversations with. this is just a part of my total self concept.


Reference:

Griffin, Em (2006) A First Look at Communication Theory 6th ed. (p. 61) Boston, MA: McGraw Hill