Theoretical Perspectives In Sociology Module 4

MODULE IV INTERACTIONIST PERSPECTIVE Symbolic interactionism is a major sociological perspective that is influential in many areas of the discipline. It is particularly important in microsociology and social psychology. Symbolic interactionism is derived from American pragmatism and particularly from the work of George Herbert Mead, who argued that people's selves are social products, but that these selves are also purposive and creative. Herbert Blumer, a student and interpreter of Mead, coined the term "symbolic interactionism" and put forward an influential summary of the perspective: people act toward things based on the meaning those things have for them; and these meanings are derived from social interaction and modified through interpretation. Sociologists working in this tradition have researched a wide range of topics using a variety of research methods. However, the majority of interactionist research uses qualitative research methods, like participant observation, to study aspects of (1) social interaction and/or (2) individuals' selves. The symbolic interaction theory is about communication and interaction of people expressed either verbally or by body language. The symbolic interaction sociology is formed from many diverse influences left by people like John Millar, Adam Smith, Charles Darwin, and pragmatist Philosopher, John Dewey and others. The main concern with the symbolic interaction is not its intrinsic ‘meaning’ but meaning perceived by people in day to day communication which vary from one person to another. People look at things from various angles of vision and convey them to people portraying meanings different from the situations they have encountered. They from meaning and partial attitudes about them; they make sense on the pattern of behaviour and shape up meaning to follow in course of time. All these put together constitute the symbolic meaning of certain, things and even of human being. Thus symbolic interaction is a process of developing one’s conception and perception of objects, issues, situation and other matter and with their meaning to shape their environment in the way they like. It is an active, creative and conscious characteristics of the individuals. The concept is fundamentally based on the meanings people make of things around them and express through their language. Mead argue that language allows us to see ourselves more clearly and consciously and to form images of ourselves as well as of others. Objects and environment in the society. Mead argued that once we need no to see the elephant again what it was like because the image of elephant was in our mind. The Historical Roots of Symbolic Interactionism Symbolic interactionism, especially the work of George Herbert Mead (1863-1931), traces its roots to two intellectual traditions: pragmatism and psychological behaviorism. Mead adopted from the pragmatists three important themes: (1) a focus on the interaction between actors and the social world, (2) a view of both actors and the social world as dynamic processes, and (3) the centrality of actors' ability to interpret the social world. In sum, both pragmatism and symbolic interactionism view thinking as a process. Mead recognized the importance of overt, observable behavior, but expanded the understanding of mental capacities of most psychological behaviorists by stressing the importance of covert behavior. Unlike the radical behaviorists, Mead believed that there were significant differences between human beings and animals, particularly the human capacity to use language and dynamically created social reality. Symbolic Interactionism originated with two key theorists, George Herbert Mead and Charles Horton Cooley. Mead’s influence on Symbolic Interactionism was said to be so powerful that other sociologists regard him as the one “true founder” of symbolic interactionism tradition. People act toward things based on the meaning those things have for them; and these meanings are derived from social interaction and modified through interpretation. Blumer was a social constructionist,and was influenced by Dewey as such this theory is very phenomenologically based. The term "symbolic interactionism" has come into use as a label for a relatively distinctive approach to the study of human life and human conduct (Blumer, 1939). With Symbolic interactionism, reality is seen as social, developed interaction with others. Most symbolic interactionists believe a physical reality does indeed exist by an individual's social definitions, and that social definitions do develop in part or relation to something “real.” People thus do not respond to this reality directly, but rather to the social understanding of reality. Humans therefore exist in three realities: a physical objective reality, a social reality, and a unique reality. The Basic Principles of Symbolic Interactionism The basic principles of symbolic interactionism include the following: (1) human beings possess the capacity for thought, which is shaped by social interaction; (2) people learn meanings and symbols through social interaction; and (3) people are able to modify or alter the meanings and symbols they use in interactions by interpreting the situations they are engaged in. Socialization is one way individuals learn to think, interact with one another, and understand how to use meanings and symbols. Defining the situation is another way that individuals actively engage in creating the social world. Finally, developing a "lookingglass" self helps individuals to perceive and judge the impressions we make on others we interact with. Criticisms of Symbolic Interactionism and Its New Directions Symbolic interactionism has been criticized for relying too much on qualitative methodology and for failing to incorporate quantitative methodology into its research program. It has also been criticized for being too vague on the conceptual front and for downplaying large-scale social structures. Given its micro-level focus, some have argued that symbolic interactionism is not microscopic enough, because it tends to ignore psychological factors. Symbolic interactionists are currently trying to answer some of these criticisms by integrating micro- and macro-level theories and synthesizing their approach across other fields of study. For example, some scholars are redefining Mead's theory to show that it accounts for both micro- and macro-level phenomena. Others are using role theory as a way to integrate structure and meaning. Some symbolic interactionists are focusing more attention on culture and are working within cultural studies to examine the role communication technologies play in producing and representing social reality. Symbolic interactionism has changed considerably since its inception. According to one symbolic interactionist, Gary Fine, the field has fragmented, resulting in greater diversity. It has expanded beyond its concerns with micro-level relations, incorporated ideas from other theoretical perspectives, and been adopted by sociologists who would not define themselves as symbolic interactionists Pragmatism Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that began in the United States around 1870. Pragmatism is a rejection of the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. Instead, pragmatists develop their philosophy around the idea that the function of thought is as an instrument or tool for prediction, action, and problem solving. Pragmatists contend that most philosophical topics--such as the nature of knowledge, language, concepts, meaning, belief, and science--are all best viewed in terms of their practical uses and successes rather than in terms of representative accuracy. Pragmatism pointed out that the meaning of object or social interaction is rooted in action in everyday practical conduct not in one or another element intrinsic to the object or event in questions. A few of the various but interrelated positions often characteristic of philosophers working from a pragmatist approach include:  Anti-representationalism; any view in philosophy of language that rejects analyzing the semantic meaning of propositions, mental states, and statements in terms of a correspondence or representational relationship and instead analyzes semantic meaning in terms of notions like dispositions to action, inferential relationships, and/or functional roles (e.g. behaviorism and inferentialism). Not to be confused with pragmatics, a sub-field of linguistics with no relation to philosophical pragmatism.  Coherentist theory of justification; a rejection of the epistemological claim that all knowledge and justified belief rest ultimately on a foundation of non inferential knowledge or justified belief. Coherentists hold that justification is solely a function of some relationship between beliefs, none of which are privileged beliefs in the way maintained by foundationalists theories of justification.  Deflationary or pragmatist theories of truth; the former is the epistemological claim that assertions that predicate truth of a statement do not attribute a property called truth to such a statement while the later is the epistemological claim that assertions that predicate truth of a statement attribute the property of useful-to-believe to such a statement.  Empiricism; the broad epistemological assertion that knowledge comes only or primarily from sensory experience; contrary to rationalism.  Fallibilism; the epistemological principle that human beings could be wrong about their beliefs, expectations, or their understanding of the world, and yet still be justified in holding their incorrect beliefs.  Instrumentalism; the view in the philosophy of science that a scientific concept or theory should be evaluated by how effectively it explains and predicts phenomena, as opposed to how accurately it describes objective reality.  Pluralism; a view in metaphysics and epistemology that there is more than one sound way to conceptualize the world and its content.  Verificationism; the view that a statement or question is only legitimate if there is some way to determine whether the statement is true or false, or what the answer to the question is. Pragmatism as a philosophical movement began in the United States in the 1870s. Its direction was determined by the Metaphysical Club members Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and Chauncey Wright, as well as John Dewey and George Herbert Mead. The first use in print of the name pragmatism was in 1898 by James, who credited Peirce with coining the term during the early 1870s. Charles Sanders Peirce (and his pragmatic maxim) deserves much of the credit for pragmatism, along with later twentieth century contributors, William James and John Dewey. The word pragmatism derives from Greek πρᾶγμα (pragma), "deed, act",which comes from πράσσω (prassō), "to pass over, to practise, to achieve". The word "Pragmatism" as a piece of technical terminology in philosophy refers to a specific set of associated philosophical views originating in the late twentieth-century. However, the phrase is often confused with "pragmatism" in the context of politics (which refers to politics or diplomacy based primarily on practical considerations, rather than ideological notions.) and with a non- technical use of "pragmatism" in ordinary contexts referring to dealing with matters in one's life realistically and in a way that is based on practical rather than abstract considerations. Although, such a position may not appear to be particularly controversial, it is based on a host of assumption regarding the nature of the individual and his relationship to the external world. Particularly important in this regard is the indebtedness of Mead to german idealism and philosophy of Immaual Kant and George Hegal. Equally important from Kantian view, there is no reality seperable from the perceiving subject. Instead, the conscious apprehension of them. The world is thus not something out there to be experienced by the subject but rather it is a task to be accomplished. Moreover, consciousness itself cannot be said to exist unless there is some object in the external world that one notes or becomes aware of. The act of knowing (subject) and the known (object) are thus intimately connected. BEHAVIORISM In psychology the theory of Behaviorism was propounded by Watson. According to him all behavior, whether animal or human; was fundamentally of stimulus response pattern. The fear of man is a response to stimulus of explosion. According to Watson, the social actions are response to various social stimuli. Behaviorism reduced all actions to stimulus responses pattern. The view of parson is different. According to parson while animal behavior can explained in this manner, in human behavior many factors other than stimulus and response play their part in different psychological situations, a man acts differently. The same stimulus may produced different responses in two persons. Thus it is clear that parson theory of social action is quite different from that of behaviorism. The Pragmatist view of consciousness and its importance for guiding our actions is not without its detractors. The behaviorist branch of psychology in response to which Mead fashioned his own theoretical framework that he labeled “ social behaviourism”. Psychological behaviorism is a resolutely empirical branch of psychology that focuses solely on observable actions. Indeed, its proponents argue that only overt behaviours are open to scientific investigation. From this it follows that because states of mind, feelings, desires and thinking cannot be observed, they cannot be studied scientifically. As a result behaviourism is confined to studying the links between the visible stimuli and the learned responses that are associated with them. MEANING OF BEHAVIORISM Mead was influenced by psychological behaviorism (J. Baldwin, 1986, 1988a, 1988b), a perspective which also led him in a realist and an empirical direction. In fact, mead called his basic concern social behaviorism to differentiate it from the radical behaviorism of John B. Watson. Mead recognized the importance of observable behavior, but he also felt that there were covert aspects of behavior that radical behaviorists had ignored. But because he accepted the empiricism that was basic to behaviorism. Mead and the radical behaviorists also differed in their views on the relationship between human and animal behavior, Mead argued that there was a significant, qualitative difference. The key to this difference was seen as the human possession of mental capacities that allowed people to use language between stimulus and response in order to decide how to response. Mead simultaneously demonstrated his debt to watsonian behaviorism and dissociated himself from it. BEHAVIORISM IN STRUCTURAL PERSPECTIVES The most vexing problem in contemporary sociological theory concerned the relationship between individual and society. Theoretical orientations that conceptualize this relationship may be classified. Under four categories 1. NOMINALISM The nominalist view, the oldest and the most extreme position, is that the group is not a real entity but merely a term used to refer to an assemblage of individual. In this perspective, the individual is the only read entity; general concepts such us society, group culture and values are not regarded as careful in the study of human behavior. The only thing that needs to be or can be explained is the behavior of the individual. 2. INTERACTIONALISM This perspective rejects the individual group dichotomy and stresses , instead, the indivisibility of the two neither the group not the individual is real except in term of the other and other fore, interaction becomes the major concern. The interactionist doctrine combines biological, cultural, personal and social explanations and emphasizes the multiplicity of causative factors in the explanation of phenomena. 3. NEO-NOMINALISM This is reductionist perspective which accepts the existence of the group as an objective reality. But claim that the individual is the more fundamental unit. Since society is made up of persons and of processes which have their locus and immediate origin in the person, social phenomena can be explained in terms of individual phenomena. 4. SOCIAL BEHAVIORISM The behaviorism that mead espoused, which he called “social behaviorism”, differed from John B. Watson’s more radical form in that mead included within the legitimate bounds of scientific investigation. Not only observable overt behavior but also convert behavior knowable only through introspection. In this respect he was in agreement with other social theorists, such as cooley and weber, who considered introspection a valid technique for understanding human behavior because it could be made objective by the consensus of scientific investigators. According to mead the evolutionary process led to the development of the human brain so that it is qualitatively different from that of other animals. The crucial difference is the human ability to use vocal gestures or symbols. Mead maintained that this uniquently human phenomenon. Animal use signals that are either genetic in origin or conditioned responses to specific stimuli. For example, a dog may bark under certain circumstance, but before it starts to bark it does not think about the effect barking wil have on another dog or person. In contrast, human behavior involves the prediction of response: before using a symbol person can predict the probable response of other persons. Influence of pragmatism in social sciences Symbolic interactionism, a major perspective within sociological social psychology, was derived from pragmatism in the early twentieth century, especially the work of George Herbert Mead and Charles Cooley, as well as that of Peirce and William James. Increasing attention is being given to pragmatist epistemology in other branches of the social sciences, which have struggled with divisive debates over the status of social scientific knowledge. Enthusiasts suggest that pragmatism offers an approach which is both pluralist and practical. Influence of pragmatism in public administration The classical pragmatism of John Dewey, William James, and Charles Sanders Peirce has influenced research in the field of Public Administration. Scholars claim classical pragmatism had a profound influence on the origin of the field of public administration.[24][25] At the most basic level, public administrators are responsible for making programs "work" in a pluralistic, problems-oriented environment. Public administrators are also responsible for the day-to-day work with citizens. Dewey's participatory democracy can be applied in this environment. Dewey and James' notion of theory as a tool, helps administrators craft theories to resolve policy and administrative problems. Further, the birth of American public administration coincides closely with the period of greatest influence of the classical pragmatists. Which pragmatism (classical pragmatism or neo-pragmatism) makes the most sense in public administration has been the source of debate. The health sector's administrators' use of pragmatism, has been criticized as incomplete in its pragmatism, however.[47] According to the classical pragmatists, knowledge is always shaped by human interests, and the administrator's focus on 'outcomes' simply advances their own interest, but that this focus on outcomes often undermines their citizen's interests, which often are more concerned with process. On the other hand, David Brendel argues that pragmatism's ability to bridge dualisms, focus on practical problems, include multiple perspectives, incorporate participation from interested parties (patient, family, health team), and provisional nature makes it well suited to address problems in this area. Criticisms Arthur Oncken Lovejoy criticized pragmatism in his 1908 essay "The Thirteen Pragmatisms"[56] where he identifies thirteen different philosophical positions that were each labeled pragmatism. Lovejoy argues that there is significant ambiguity in the notion of the consequences of the truth of a proposition and those of belief in a proposition in order to highlight that many pragmatists had failed to recognize that distinction. Neopragmatism as represented by Richard Rorty has been criticized as relativistic both by neoclassical pragmatists such as Susan Haack (Haack 1997) and by many analytic philosophers (Dennett 1998). Rorty's early analytical work, however, differs notably from his later work which some, including Rorty, consider to be closer to literary criticism than to philosophy, and which, attracts the brunt of criticism from his detractors. CONCLUSION Social action is then seen as symbolic behavior, and interaction is based on shared symbolic meanings. These meaning are learned during the process of socialization, a process to which mead devoted considerable attention. It is though socialization that the explained the development of the self and the integration of the individual into society. Pragmatism and behaviorism, especially in the theories of Dewey and Mead, were transmitted to many graduate students at the University of Chicago. William James It is proposed here that William Jame’s contribution to Symbolic Interaction (SI), while acknowledged, is underutilized. James’s contribution has been largely ignored by contemporary interactionists who present the canon in textbooks. It is argued here that the concept that James developed are richer and more numerous than has been previously presented, and that the most significant symbolic interaction tenet, that people respond to objects on the basis of the meaning that they have for them, is to be found first in James. William James tried to show the meaningfulness of (some kinds of) spirituality but, like other pragmatists, did not see religion as the basis of meaning or morality. William James' contribution to ethics, as laid out in his essay The Will to Believe has often been misunderstood as a plea for relativism or irrationality. On its own terms it argues that ethics always involves a certain degree of trust or faith and that we cannot always wait for adequate proof when making moral decisions. One of the reasons for the inadequate treatment may be that many interactionists have not examined James’s work. Definition “The interactionist perspective is one of the major theoretical perspectives within sociology. It focuses on the concrete details of what goes on among individuals in everyday life. Interactionist study how we use and interpret symbols not only to communicate with each other, but also to create and maintain impressions of ourselves, to create a sense of self and to create and sustain what we experience as the reality of a particular social situation. From this perspective, social life consists largely of a complex fabric woven of countless interactions though which life takes on shape and meaning.” Contributions of William James According to Larson the real attempts to build on his interaction frame of reference (Larson,C.J., 1986,P. 93) were evident in James’s analysis of self-conciousness. That is the case because, the most significant contribution to sociology James made was his conception of self as “the crucial concept of interactionist research .As a result of this conception James more than Dewey established interactionism as a social-psychological and sociological theory. This contribution is in the end more significant than his conception of radical empiricism. However, radical empiricism appears in the late stage of development of James’s philosophy. It is paradoxical that James had already contributed more to sociology in his “pre-pragmatist” period. It was in this period that he edited his masterpiece. But this was originally James,s idea, for whom the total Self of me must have two aspects discriminated in it, of which for shortness we may call one the Me and the other the I.For James these discriminated aspects are not separate beings. His conception three constitutents –the material Me, the social Me and spiritual Me. The central position is occupied by the social Me, which is the source of the Mead’s final notion of Me. We must state from the start that in spite of certain terminological identities between the occupations of James and Mead, there are some essential differences in the content of their respective concepts. The “Me,, of Mead is not identical to the “Me,, of James, though both are very close in contact In our opinion, the idea of an active human being followed from Jamesian relativistic conception of the stream of conciousness, which was the fundamental idea of his psychology. Joas has correctly noted that James “did not take action (emphasis added) as his starting point ,but instead the pure stream of concious experience, His early psychological works served to mediate between the philosophy of the time and the emergence of interactionist sociology. Conclusion James’s contribution to the crystallization of interactionist sociology, The contribution William James as one of the founders of pragmatism to the origin of interactionist sociology. Along with the general recognition of special role of James among sociologists, we sometimes encounter a certain underestimation of his influence. This recognition of the general contribution of pragmatism to the emergence of early interactionism as one of the most influential schools in American sociology of the 20th century can serve as an additional argument for the timeliness of theme.The real contribution of William James, as one of the founder of pragmatism.However, his work is a good example of the impact of philosophy on the origin and subsequent development of one of the eminent schools in modern sociology. John Dewey One of the classical pragmatists, John Dewey wrote most extensively about morality and democracy. In his classic article Three Independent Factors in Morals (Dewey 1930), he tried to integrate three basic philosophical perspectives on morality: the right, the virtuous and the good. He held that while all three provide meaningful ways to think about moral questions, the possibility of conflict among the three elements cannot always be easily solved. Dewey also criticized the dichotomy between means and ends which he saw as responsible for the degradation of our everyday working lives and education, both conceived as merely a means to an end. He stressed the need for meaningful labor and a conception of education that viewed it not as a preparation for life but as life itself. Dewey was opposed to other ethical philosophies of his time, notably the emotivism of Alfred Ayer. Dewey envisioned the possibility of ethics as an experimental discipline, and thought values could best be characterized not as feelings or imperatives, but as hypotheses about what actions will lead to satisfactory results or what he termed consummatory experience. A recent pragmatist contribution to meta-ethics is Todd Lekan's "Making Morality" (Lekan 2003). Lekan argues that morality is a fallible but rational practice and that it has traditionally been misconceived as based on theory or principles. Instead, he argues, theory and rules arise as tools to make practice more intelligent. John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey is one of the primary figures associated with philosophy of pragmatism and is considered one of the founders of functional psychology. A well-known public intellectual, he was also a major voice of progressive education and liberalism. Although Dewey is known best for his publications concerning education, he also wrote about many other topics, including epistemology, metaphysics, aesthetics, art, logic, social theory, and ethics. Dewey considered two fundamental elements—schools and civil society—as being major topics needing attention and reconstruction to encourage experimental intelligence and plurality. Dewey asserted that complete democracy was to be obtained not just by extending voting rights but also by ensuring that there exists a fully formed public opinion, accomplished by effective communication among citizens, experts, and politicians, with the latter being accountable for the policies they adopt. Dewey was born in Burlington, Vermont, to a family of modest means. In 1894 Dewey joined the newly founded University of Chicago (1894–1904) where he developed his belief in Empiricism, becoming associated with the newly emerging Pragmatic philosophy. His time at the University of Chicago resulted in four essays collectively entitled Thought and its Subject- Matter, which was published with collected works from his colleagues at Chicago under the collective title Studies in Logical Theory (1903). The United States Postal Service honored Dewey with a Prominent Americans series 30¢ postage stamp. Looking Glass self theory- C H Cooley Self and society, wrote Cooley,” are twin- born” This emphasis on the organic link and the indissoluble connection between self and society is the theme of most of Cooley’ writings and remains the crucial contribution he made to modern social psychology and sociology. The objects of the social world, Cooley taught, are constitutive parts of the subject’s mind and the self. Cooley wished to remove the conceptual barrier that Cartesian thought had erected between the individual and his society and to stress, instead, their interpenetration Cooley argued that a person’s commerce with others. “The social origin of his life comes by the path way of intercourse with other persons.”The self, to Cooley, is not first individual and then social; it arises dialectically trough communication one’s consciousness of himself is a reflection of the ideas about himself that the attributes to other minds; thus, there can be no isolated selves. “There is no sense of ‘I’ .… without its correlative sense of you, or he, or he, or they in his attempt to illustrate the reflected character of the self, Cooley compared it to a looking glass: Each to each a looking – glass reflects the other that doth pass. “As we see our face, figure and dress in the glass, and are interested in them because they are ours, and pleased or otherwise with them according as they do or do not answer to what we should like them to be, so in imagination we perceive in another’s mini some thought of our appearance, manners, aims, deeds, character, friends, and so on, and are variously affected by it.” The notion of looking – glass self is composed of three principal elements: “The imagination of our appearance to the other person, the imagination of his judgment of that appearance and some sort of self- feeling, such as pride or mortification.”The self arises in a social process of communicative interchange as it is reflected in a person’s consciousness. Sympathetic Introspection According to Cooley, “Know ledge requires both observation and interpretation. Neither being more scientific than the other. And each branch of science must be worked out in its own way which is mainly to be found in the actual search for truth rather than a priori methodology.”Thus the most valuable exploration of sociological method is the motivation in human behavior which makes for all the difference between the man and the animal. This is sympathetic introspection. It is the process of putting self in touch with other persons and trying to imagine how the world appears to them and then recollecting and describing. Critics of the use of introspection method in sociology do not understand that sociological investigation is not possible without some subjective effort. Human behavior is fundamentally subjective. Therefore, sympathetic introspection is a useful method sociology. Cooley used the concepts of the looking glass self and the primary group as tools in the analysis through sympathetic introspection. He said,” In general the insights of sociology are imaginative reconstruction of life whose truth depends upon the competence of the mind that makes them to embrace the chief factors of the process studied and are produced or anticipate their operation.” Task of sociology According to Cooley the fund mental task of sociology is to understand the organic nature of society as it evolves through the individual’s perceptions of others and of themselves. The sociologist should concentrate upon the mental activities of the individuals making the society. He should focus his attention upon the complex relationship between the individual and the society. There cannot be an isolated person nor there be a nonindividual society. Definition of society Cooley accepts the organic theory of society propounded by Herbert Spencer which affirms the indispensable reciprocity between the individual and the society. Explaining this idea, Cooley wrote, “If we say that society is an organism, we mean that it is a complex of forms of processes of which in living and growing by interaction with the others, the whole being so unified that what take a place in one part affects all the rest. It is a vast tissue of reciprocal activity.” Concerned with the deeper understanding of the individual in a particular psycho – social and historical social atmosphere, unlike Herbert Spencer Cooley wrote, “our life is all one human whole, and if we are to have any real knowledge of it we must see it as such. If we cut it up it dies in the process. Therefore, “the imaginations people have of one another are the solid facts of society…..society is a relation among personal ideas.” The sociologist should perceive each individual as a fresh organization of life.” He constitutes a two fold emergent reality of genetic heredity and social past. Social transmissions include language, interaction and education for each person in his time and culture. Explaining and defining society, Cooley wrote, “society is an interweaving and inter working of mental selves. I imagine your mind, and especially what your mind thinks about my mind, and what your mind thinks about your mind.” Concept of self Explaining his concept of self as the looking-glass self Cooley wrote,” As we see our face, figures and dress in the glass, and are interested in because they are ours, and pleased or otherwise with them according as they do or do not answer to what we should like them to be, so in imagination we perceive in another’s a mind some thought of our appearance, manners, aim deeds, character, friends and so on, and are variously affected by it.” The concept of looking glass self is made of three dimensions: (1) How we imagine our appearance to other (2) How we imagine other’s judgment. To explain these dimensions Cooley gives a simple example of an encounter between lice, Who has a new that, and Angela, who just bought a new dress. Now, between these two the sequence of perceptions is as follows: “(1) the real A lice, know only to the maker,(2)Her idea of herself, e.g.; 1 (Alice) look well in this hat.(3) Her idea of Angela idea of her, e.g.; Angela thinks she thinks of hear self, e.g.; Angela thinks I am proud of my looks in this hat.”(4) Her idea of what Angela thinks she thinks of herself, e.g.; Angela thinks I am proud of my looks in the hat’(5) Angela’s idea of what Alice thinks of herself, e.g.; Alice thinks she is stunning in that hat’. And of course six analogous phases of Angela and her dress. ” Thus, the imaginations people have of one another are the solid facts of society. The institutions are constitute the facts of society. Institutions are constituted of organization and crystallization of thought around the forms of customs, symbols, beliefs and lasting sentiments. Thus, the individual is a creation and hot only an effect of the social structure. Social institutions are the mental creations of the individuals, sustained by habits and familiarity. In his first book, Hum an nature and the social order, Cooley started with the analysis of the meaning of the ‘I’ as observed in daily thought of speech. This ‘I’ is what he calls the looking glass self. It is the empirical self definition of mind. Explaining the social institution as a quality of mental habit Cooley defined mind as follows: “ who mind is n organic up of cooperating individualistic in somewhat the same way that the music of an orchestra is made up of divergent but related sounds. No one would think it necessary or unreasonable to divide that music into two kinds that made by the whole and that of particular instruments and no more are these two kinds of mind, the social mind and the individual mind”. Conclusion Cooley argued that a person’s self develops through contact and interaction with others. By identifying a sense of self, individuals are able to view themselves the same way they do any other social object Cooley stated that there can be no isolated selves. “There is no sense of ‘I’………..without its correlative sense of you, or he, or they.” Individuals again a sense of self when they reserve consistent message from others. Actors are most interested in and value ,most, the reactions of significant others, especially primary – group members. Cooley is best known for introducing sociologists to the concepts primary groups and looking – glass self. Cooley has tried to prove the inseparability of the individual and society. This principles has not only theoretical value but has practical importance also. All one-sided theories regarding individual and society lead to friction and strike in social relationship. If society is given preponderant value and importance the freedom of the individual is infringed and the growth of human personality is impeded. On the other hand, if the individual is given exaggerated importance, anarchy is liable to result. Cooley has avoided both extremes and presented a balanced point of view. George Herbert Mead Mind, Self, and Society Mead's most widely read work, Mind, Self and Society, gives priority to society over the mind and highlights the idea that the social leads to the development of mental states. To Mead, the mind is a process, not a thing, and is found in social phenomena rather than within individuals. The act is the fundamental union in Mead's theory, and it is represented by four stages: impulse, perception, manipulation, and consummation. The basic mechanism of the social act, according to Mead, is the gesture. Mead pays particular attention to one kind of gesture, significant symbols, which make it possible for humans to think, to communicate, and to be stimulators of their own actions. The self occupies a central place in Mead's theory. Mead defines the self as the ability to take oneself as an object and identifies the basic mechanism of the development of the self as reflexivity - the ability to put ourselves into the place of others and act as they act. Mead makes it clear that a self can arise only through social experiences, and he traces its development to two stages in childhood: the play stage and the game stage. During the play stage, children learn how to take the attitude of particular others to themselves, but it is only during the game stage that children learn how to take the roles of many others and the attitude of the generalized other. Mead also discussed the difference between the "I" and the "me" in his theory of the self. The "I" is the immediate response of an individual to the other; it is the unpredictable and creative aspect of the self. The "me" is the organized set of attitude of others that an individual assumes; it is how society dominates the individual and is a source of social control. The self is not so much a substance as a process in which the conversation of gestures has been internalized within an organic form. This process does not exist for itself, but is simply a phase of the whole social organization of which the individual is a part. The organization of the social act has been imported into the organism and becomes then the mind of the individual. It still includes the attitudes of others, but now highly organized, so that they become what we call social attitudes rather than roles of separate individuals. This process of relating one's own organism to the others in the interactions that are going on, in so far as it is imported into the conduct of the individual with the conversation of the "I" and the "me," constitutes the self. The value of this importation of the conversation of gestures into the conduct of the individual lies in the superior co- ordination gained for society as a whole, and in the increased efficiency of the individual as a member of the group. It is the difference between the process which can take place in a group of rats or ants or bees, and that which can take place in a human community. The social process with its various implications is actually taken up into the experience of the individual so that that which is going on takes place more effectively, because in a certain sense it has been rehearsed in the individual. He not only plays his part better under those conditions but he also reacts back on the organization of which he is a part. The very nature of this conversation of gestures requires that the attitude of the other is changed through the attitude of the individual to the other's stimulus. In the conversation of gestures of the lower forms the play back and forth is noticeable, since the individual not only adjusts himself to the attitude of others, but also changes the attitudes of the others. The reaction of the individual in this conversation of gestures is one that in some degree is continually modifying the social process itself. It is this modification of the process which is of greatest interest in the experience of the individual. He takes the attitude of the other toward his own stimulus, and in taking that he finds it modified in that his response becomes a different one, and leads in turn to further changes Fundamental attitudes are presumably those that are only changed gradually, and no one individual can reorganize the whole society; but one is continually affecting society by his own attitude because he does bring up the attitude of the group toward himself, responds to it, and through that response changes the attitude of the group. This is, of course, what we are constantly doing in our imagination, in our thought; we are utilizing our own attitude to bring about a different situation in the community of which we are a part; we are exerting ourselves, bringing forward our own opinion, criticizing the attitudes of others, and approving or disapproving. But we can do that only in so far as we can call out in ourselves the response of the community; we only have ideas in so far as we are able to take the attitude of the community and then respond to it. Mind as the Individual Importation of the Social Process Mead has been presenting the self and the mind in terms of a social process, as the importation of the conversation of gestures into the conduct of the individual organism, so that the individual organism takes these organized attitudes of the others called out by its own attitude, in the form of its gestures, and in reacting to the response calls out other organized attitudes in the others in the community to which the individual belongs. This process can be characterized in a certain sense in terms of the "I" and the "me,"the "me" being that group of organized attitudes to which the individual responds as an "I." He want particularly to emphasize is the temporal and logical pre-existence of the social process to the self-conscious individual that arises in it. The conversation of gestures is a part of the social process which is going on. It is not something that the individual alone makes possible. What the development of language, especially the significant symbol, has rendered possible is just the taking over of this external social situation into the conduct of the individual himself. There follows from this the enormous development which belongs to human society, the possibility of the prevision of what is going to take place in the response of other individuals, and preliminary adjustment to this by the individual. These, in turn, produce a different social situation which is again reflected in what I have termed the "me," so that the individual himself takes a different attitude. Consider a politician or a statesman putting through some project tin which he has the attitude of the community in himself. He knows how the community reacts to this proposal. He reacts to this expression of the community in his own experience--he feels with it. He has a set of organized attitudes which are those of the community. His own contribution, the "I" in this case, is a project of reorganization, a project which he brings forward to the community as it is reflected in himself. He himself changes, of course, in so far as he brings this project forward and makes it a political issue. There has now arisen a new social situation as a result of the project which he is presenting. The whole procedure takes place in his own experience as well as in the general experience of the community. He is successful to the degree that the final "me"reflects the attitude of all in the community. What I am pointing out is that what occurs takes place not simply in his own mind, but rather that his mind is the expression in his own conduct of this social situation, this great co-operative community process which is going on. He want to avoid the implication that the individual is taking something that is objective and making it subjective. There is an actual process of living together on the part of all members of the community which takes place by means of gestures. The gestures are certain stages in the co-operative activities which mediate the whole process. Now, all that has taken place in the appearance of the mind is that this process has been in some degree taken over into the conduct of the particular individual. There is a certain symbol, such as the policeman uses when he directs traffic. That is something that is out there. It does not become subjective when the engineer, who is engaged by the city to examine its traffic regulations, takes the same attitude the policeman takes with reference to traffic, and takes the attitude also of the drivers of machines. We do imply that he has the driver's organization; he knows that stopping means slowing down, putting on the brakes. There is a definite set of parts of his organism so trained that under certain circumstances he brings the machine to a stop. The raising of the policeman's hand is the gesture which calls out the various acts by means of which the machine is checked. Those various acts are in the expert's own organization; he can take the attitude of both the policeman and the driver. Only in this sense has the social process been made" subjective." If the expert just did it as a child does, it would be play; but if it is done for the actual regulation of traffic, the there is the operation of what we term mind. Mind is nothing but the importation of this external process into the conduct of the individual so as to meet the problems that arise. This peculiar organization arises out of a social process that is logically its antecedent. A community within which the organism acts in such a co-operative fashion that the action of one is the stimulus to the other to respond, and so on, is the antecedent of the peculiar type of organization we term a mind, or a self. Take the simple family relation, where there is the male and the female and the child which has to be cared for. Here is a process which can only go on through interactions within this group. It cannot be said that the individuals come first and the community later, for the individuals arise in the very process itself, just as much as the human body or any multi-cellular form is one in which differentiated cells arise. There has to be a life-process going on in order to have the differentiated cells; in the same way there has to be a social process going on in order that there may be individuals. It is just as true in society as it is in the physiological situation that there could not be the individual if there was not the process of which he is a part. Given such a social process, there is the possibility of human intelligence when this social process, in terms of the conversation of gestures, is taken over into the conduct of the individual-and then there arises, of course, a different type of individual in terms of the responses now possible. There might conceivably be an individual who simply plays as the child does, without getting into a social game; but the human individual is possible because there is a social process in which it can function responsibly. The attitudes are parts of the social reaction; the cries would not maintain themselves as vocal gestures unless they did call out certain responses in the others; the attitude itself could only exist as such in this interplay of gestures. The mind is simply the interplay of such gestures in the form of significant symbols. We must remember that the gesture is there only in its relationship to the response, to the attitude. One would not have words unless there were such responses. Language would never have arisen as a set of bare arbitrary terms which were attached to certain stimuli. Words have arisen out of a social interrelationship. One of Gulliver's tales was of a community in which a machine was created into which the letters of the alphabet could be mechanically fed in an endless number of combinations, and then the members of the community gathered around to see how the letters arranged after each rotation, on the theory that they might come in the form of an Iliador one of Shakespeare's plays, or some other great work. The assumption back of this would be that symbols are entirely independent of what we term their meaning. The assumption is baseless: there cannot be symbols unless there are responses. There would not be a call for assistance if there was not a tendency to respond to the cry of distress. It is such significant symbols, in the sense of a sub-set of social stimuli initiating a co-operative response, that do in a certain sense constitute our mind, provided that not only the symbol but also the responses are in our own nature. What the human being has succeeded in doing is in organizing the response to a certain symbol which is a part of the social act, so that he takes the attitude of the other person who co-operates with him. It is that which gives him a mind. The sentinel of a herd is that member of the herd which is more sensitive to odor or sound than the others. At the approach of danger, he starts to run earlier than the others, who then follow along, in virtue of a herding tendency to run together. There is a social stimulus, a gesture, if you like, to which the other forms respond. The first form gets the odor earlier and starts to run, and its starting to run is a stimulus to the others to run also. It is all external; there is no mental process involved. The sentinel does not regard itself as the individual who is to give a signal; it just runs at a certain moment and so starts the others to run. But with a mind, the animal that gives the signal also takes the attitude of the others who respond to it. He knows what his signal means. A man who calls "fire" would be able to call out in himself the reaction he calls out in the other. In so far as the man can take the attitude of the other--his attitude of response to fire, his sense of terror-- that response to his own cry is something that makes of his conduct a mental affair, as over against the conduct of the others.[3] But the only thing that has happened here is that what takes place externally in the herd has been imported into the conduct of the man. There is the same signal and the same tendency to respond, but the man not only can give the signal but also can arouse in himself the attitude of the terrified escape, and through calling that out he can come back upon his own tendency to call out and can check it. He can react upon himself in taking the organized attitude of the whole group in trying to escape from danger. There is nothing more subjective about it than that the response to his own stimulus can be found in his own conduct, and that he can utilize the conversation of gestures that takes place to determine his own conduct. If he can so act, he can set up a rational control, and thus make possible a far more highly organized society than otherwise. The process is one which does not utilize a man endowed with a consciousness where there was no consciousness before, but rather an individual who takes over the whole social process into his own conduct. That ability, of course, is dependent first of all on the symbol being one to which he can respond; and so far as we know, the vocal gesture has been the condition for the development of that type of symbol. Whether it can develop without the vocal gesture he cannot tell. Mead sure that we see that the content put into the mind is only a development and product of social interaction. It is a development which is of enormous importance, and which leads to complexities and complications of society which go almost beyond our power to trace, but originally it is nothing but the taking over of the attitude of the other. To the extent that the animal can take the attitude of the other and utilize that attitude for the control of his own conduct, we have what is termed mind; and that is the only apparatus involved in the appearance of the mind. Mead know that no way in which intelligence or mind could arise or could have arisen, other than through the internalization by the individual of social processes of experience and behavior, that is, through this internalization of the conversation of significant gestures, as made possible by the individual's taking the attitudes of other individuals toward himself and toward what is being thought about. And if mind or thought has arisen in this way, then the neither can be nor could have been any mind or thought without language; and the early stages of the development of language must have been prior to the development of mind or thought. In short, his ideas we can summarize as follows; 1. According to this view, conscious communication develops out of unconscious communication within the social process, conversation in terms of significant gestures out of conversation in terms of non-significant gestures; and the development in such fashion of conscious communication is coincident with the development of minds and selves within the social process. 2. The relation of mind and body is that lying between the organization of the self in its behavior as a member of a rational community and the bodily organism as a physical thing. The rational attitude which characterizes the human being is the relationship of the whole process in which the individual is engaged to himself as reflected in his assumption of the organized roles of the others in stimulating himself to his response. This self as distinguished from the others lies within the field of communication, and they lie also within this field. What may be indicated to others or one's self and does not respond to such gestures of indication is, in the field of perception, what we call a physical thing. The human body is, especially in its analysis, regarded as a physical thing. The line of demarcation between the self and the body is found, then, first of all in the social organization of the act within which the self arises, in its contrast with the activity of the physiological organism (MS). The legitimate basis of distinction between mind and body is between the social patterns and the patterns of the organism itself. Education must bring the two closely together. We have, as yet, no comprehending category. This does not mean to say that there is anything logically against it; it is merely a lack of our apparatus or knowledge (1927) . 3. Language as made up of significant symbols is what we mean by mind. The content of our minds is (1) inner conversation, the importation of conversation from the social group to the individual(2) . . . . imagery. Imagery should be regarded in relation to the behavior in which it functions (1931). Imagery plays just the part in the act that hunger does in the food process (1912).