George Herbert Mead
A founder of symbolic interactionism, his work on the self, mind, and society emphasized the role of social interaction in shaping identity.
Quotes by George Herbert Mead
The self, as that which can be an object to itself, is essentially a social structure, and it arises in social experience.
The 'I' is the response of the organism to the attitudes of the others; the 'me' is the organized set of attitudes of others which one himself assumes.
Language is the means by which we can be members of a community and still be ourselves.
The individual enters as a self into the social process only in so far as he takes the attitude of others toward himself.
The significant symbol is the gesture that calls out in the individual making it the same response that it calls out in the individual to whom it is addressed.
We are members of a community only as we are members of a conversation.
The self is not something that exists first and then enters into relationship with others, but rather it is a product of those relationships.
The social act is not explained by the individual acts of the separate individuals composing it.
The individual mind can exist only in relation to other minds with shared meanings.
The game is the form of social interaction that provides the most complete and complex organization of the self.
The generalized other is the organized community or social group which gives to the individual his unity of self.
Thinking is simply the conversation of the 'I' and the 'me'.
The self is not a thing, but a process.
The self is essentially a social structure, and it arises in social experience.
The individual experiences himself as such, not directly, but only indirectly, from the standpoint of other individual members of the same social group, or from the generalized standpoint of the social group as a whole to which he belongs.
The self is a cognitive structure, but it is also an emotional and volitional structure.
The 'I' is the novel response of the individual to the organized attitudes of others.
The self is not given at birth, but arises in the process of social experience and activity.
The self is a reflective process, not a static entity.
The self is a social emergent.