Mead and Symbolic
Interactionism
George Herbert Mead
Symbolic interactionism was advanced as a major sociological perspective largely through the writings of Mead. He brought rigorous substance to this emergent micro-level analysis.
To the symbolic interactionist, "society" is the sum total of the countless daily interactions that people engage in. To some extent, Simmel in particular already noted this. But unlike Simmel, the symbolic interactionists developed a purely micro analysis. Moreover, they emphasized different ideas than Simmel. Instead of the dialectics of objective culture, symbolic interactionism begins with a more basic analysis. From this perspective,whether society was functional or unequal or bureaucratic or suffering the tragedy of culture, we must first see how people actually interacted with each other. Without this, say the symbolic interactionists, there is no real "proof" of functionality or conflict, and so on.
Furthermore, the basic unit of analysis was not just interaction, but symbolic interaction. A symbol is something that stands for something else. For example, language provides symbols in the form of words—and language is in fact featured in the symbolic interactionist perspective.
Symbols can be differentiated from signs, in that a sign is something that stands for itself. For example,we might say that a kiss is generally a sign of affection; the gesture and the meaning of the gesture are self-contained. However, giving someone a heart-shaped box of candy might be seen as a symbol of affection. A heart-shaped box of candy has a symbolic meaning that has been socially created. For that matter, actually saying that you like this person is a symbolic gesture, inn the the words themselves are utterances that stand for certain concepts and objects.
As the name would suggest, symbolic interactionism features symbols much more than signs. For symbols involve complex social systems of meaning, while signs are simpler, automatic responses that are common to other species besides humans.
Scholars such as Mead look to see how social meanings and values, as well as social structure and patterns, are communicated symbolically. The symbol might be in the form of the spoken or written word—whether in everyday interactions, or in the arts or media. But it also might involve body language, clothing, the use of color, traffic signals, religious symbols . . . the list is virtually endless.
Mead did not "invent" symbolic interactionism. It was influenced by other schools of thought, such as pragmatism (which saw the social world as an ongoing creation) and behaviorism (which studies only observable behavior, and looks at how people and animals respond to stimuli).
Additionally, the term, "symbolic interactionism," was first coined by another scholar, Herbert Blumer. The so-called Chicago school of symbolic interactionism was largely developed by Blumer out of the University of Chicago. Blumer advocated a relatively "soft" approach to sociology. He felt there should be as little generalizing as possible, and that each interaction must be given its own field study as a unique event. Blumer was highly critical of sociology that looked only to the macro for an understanding of society.
Eventually, the Chicago school had a rival in the so-called Iowa school. Manford Kuhn (out of the University of Iowa) popularized the notion that symbolic interactionism could be used to make general hypothetical predictions. Kuhn began using symbolic interactionism to generate and interpret quantitative, statistical data. Today, symbolic interactionism is used in both qualitative and quantitative studies.
Throughout all these upheavals, Mead has remained a vital force in sociology. At the most basic level, his analysis involves what he termed the act. To Mead, this meant the basic momentum toward action—what makes us decide to do something, and then doing it.
The act consists of four stages. First there is impulse, in which the social actor is stimulated, and feels the need to respond to this stimulus—and so the situation is experienced as a problem to be resolved. The stimulation might arise from internal factors within the self, or from the outside environment.
At the next stage, there is perception of the stimuli. This involves the five senses, as well as mental images associated with the stimuli. Selectivity plays a role. We decide which aspects of the stimuli to address, what object(s) relates to it—and often even which stimulus to address in the first place, given that social actors often are confronted with more than one stimulus at a time.
Manipulation happens next, at which time we manipulate the object we associate with the stimulus, or—often more likely—we do something in regard to the object. Finally, there is consummation, in which we complete the action that we think will satisfy the impulse we originally experienced.
When two people engage in an act together, it becomes a social act. And gestures are what make a social act happen. Gestures can be verbal or nonverbal; in either case, they are what one person uses to signal a stimuli to another person—how interactions happen.
Humans are not the only species to use gestures, or engage in social acts. However, Mead felt that humans did have a unique ability to make a specific kind of gesture called a significant symbol. These are gestures that generally are understood by both the person making the gesture, and the person who is receiving it. Significant symbols can be nonverbal. However, they are more likely to be verbal, because there is a greater likelihood that we will consciously control our speech than our body movements, especially when engulfed in deep thought or emotion.
Significant symbols are what make real human communication possible—as well as human thought, according to Mead. They also are what make symbolic interactions possible, because there are mutually-understood symbolic meanings being exchanged. The true meaning of the symbol is gleaned not merely from the gesture itself, but by the subsequent action it inspires.
These symbolic meanings can and do change over time. For example, the English language is not exactly the same as it was a hundred years ago; there are new words, and new meanings for older words. But the English language stays essentially the same form one day to the next; we do not have to learn an entirely new language each day. Thus, our significant symbols are both constant and changing, They are constant enough for us to engage in agreed-upon meanings, yet also flexible enough to change as needed. For these symbolic meanings are, after all, created by social actors themselves.
Mead places considerable emphasis upon the mental processes involved in creating, maintaining, and changing our cannon of significant symbols. He looks at these processes from a sociological perspective. For example, intelligence, in Mead's view, refers to a one's ability to adjust to the circumstances of one's environment. This often involves a delayed response—one must contemplate what to do. For humans, this means referring to one's understanding of significant symbols, to find an appropriate strategy or action.
Similarly, Mead is interested in consciousness from the standpoint of the objective, outer world: How the environment informs human consciousness. Interaction is the means by which thoughts are created and developed. Our ideas are seen as emerging in a social venue, and not in a state of isolation. Covert behavior refers to this pure thought process of sorting through symbolic meanings, while overt behavior is the observable behavior that emerges from thought.
The mind itself is defined in terms of a social process—a sense of shared meanings with others. For Mead, it is not just that the mind harbors information that occurs in the social world. Rather, he states that the social world has actually created the mind itself. How it organizes information, and which information it keeps, stems from how we are shaped within society. For example, two people from entirely different societies might notice two different aspects of a given situation, or interpret the same one differently. Or perhaps they do not even have a similar point of reference, and one of them never even knew that such an event was possible.
The self, in Mead's view, stands for the ability to see oneself as both subject and object. In Mead's view, this again was uniquely human. We both spontaneously experience the world, and we objectively organize or judge the experience in our minds. For we have the ability to be reflexive—to see ourselves as others do. And so the self is also a social process. Both the interaction itself, and our points of reference on it, are located in the social world.
This ability to see ourselves objectively is developed through our social experiences. Society, in effect, give birth the self. Specifically, Mead explores how childhood socialization informs the development of the self. He postulated that there were two basic stages of training in symbolic meanings. The play stage involves learning to take the attitude of a particularized other—a specific person. This might be someone we know, such as a family member, or someone (real or fictional) we have heard about through a story or other media. Thus, younger children play at being "Mommy/Daddy" or "Barbi" or "Captain Kirk." They strive to take on the perspective of that persona. From this, they are able to learn, for example, that "Mommy" does not like it if they sneak a cookie before dinner.
Older children engage in the game stage, at which point a full self starts to be developed. At the game stage, children do not simply "Play," but learn specific games, with rules to be followed. This gives children a sense of the generalized other. They learn that if you play baseball, three strikes means you are out, no matter who you are. The generalized other means that children absorb not only "Mommy's" attitude, but the collective attitudes of society—one develops a self and a consciousness and a mind. One sees oneself as a participant in society, engaging in the shared significant meanings of others.
Mead added another dimension to this discussion of the self, and posited that there was both an "I" and a "me" within each person. The "I' spontaneously acted in society. To some extent, the "I" cannot be fully contained, because it is always acting and reacting. The "I" makes social change possible, and gives dynamism to Mead's model.
The "me" is, in effect, the internalized generalized other—the assortment of attitudes we collect and store as social actors. The "me" conforms to society, and is better-known to people, because it is the aspect of ourselves we feel we are "supposed to" convey. For example, at a job interview, or meeting our in-laws for the first time, we might especially strive to feature the "me," and control the "I" as best we can. The "me" also comments on and criticizes the "I." For in Mead's view self-criticism is really social criticism. What we do not like about ourselves stems from lessons we have learned in society. The "me" is in, effect, an expression of society as a whole.
But society, in Mead's view, is not frozen in time. Rather, it is a process, ever-unfolding as meanings are exchanged. Social institutions are collective and recognizable habits or responses in society. In Mead's view, these institutions could be and often were oppressive to the individual. But Mead maintained that they did not have to be. Since our interactions were what made up society, our oppressive institutions could change.
Nonetheless, some critics feel that Mead's sociology would be more satisfying if there was more emphasis on the macro-level order. Symbolic interactionism itself is sometimes criticized for not really being a theory, in that was not originally offered in terms of propositions. For example, in Marxism it is postulated that the more capitalism seeks profits, the more it will lead to its undoing. But there were not these equivalent kind of predictions made in symbolic interactionism. Therefore, some people maintain it is really more of a general framework for looking at society than a theory per se.
Essentially, symbolic interactionists sought flight away from the general, macro-level analysis of other scholars. And this is both what some people appreciate about symbolic interactionism, and what some other people do not appreciate about it.
In more recent decades, efforts have been made to offer up a form of symbolic interactionism that more explicitly emphasizes the integration of the macro with the micro.
For example, the contemporary theorist Sheldon Stryker advances the concept of role making, through which social actors can make large-scale social changes by changing how they perform their roles. Norman K. Denzin emphasizes cultural studies within an interactionists framework—the ways in which the macro cultural environment influences and is influenced by micro-level developments.
Furthermore, some authors have asserted that Mead did indeed adequately address the macro in discussing (for example) the generalized other, or the prominence of society in concepts such as the "me."
In any event, several major perspectives emerged out of this interactionist tradition. One of these models was called dramaturgy, as advanced through the efforts of Erving Goffman.
Goffman and Dramaturgy
Dramaturgy uses metaphors from the world of theater to analyze the roles we play as social actors.
Erving Goffman
Goffman expanded upon symbolic interactionism, including Mead's concept of the "I" and the "me" to discuss the tensions that confront the social actor in trying to live upto the expectations of society when enacting the various roles expected of him or her. For example, someone might enact the roles of bank vice-president, mother, daughter, Roman Catholic, and therapy patient, all within a single day.
Like other theorists, Goffman discusses individuals as actors—he looks at symbolic interactions from the standpoint of the role performances being given. From Goffman's perspective, we are not only exchanging significant symbols, but we are doing so within the confines of a specific role.
This dramaturgical perspective notes that our various role performances are vulnerable to interruption. Just like we can walk out of a theater if the performance on the stage is not convincing (or in today's world, change the channel on the TV), so can our real-life audience dismiss our performance(s) as unconvincing. For example, if a bank teller is doing a very poor job of counting out your money, you might decide that he is not convincing you he is a bank teller. At that point, you might "interrupt" his performance by asking to speak to his supervisor.
But most of the time, most of us seem to give convincing performances; most of us manage to become versatile social actors. Or in any case, the audience normally is not inclined to interrupt our performances. People often sit through plays or movies they do not enjoy because they paid to see it, or maybe it was a lot of bother to find a parking place outside the theater. Similarly, that bank teller (or whomever) will have to do a very poor job for most of us to interrupt his performance. We want to be convinced by it, because it is easier that way.
In fact , Goffman stated the performers and audiences actually are a team, mutually involved in giving a performance validation. They are a secret society of sorts, sharing an often-unspoken conspiracy for the performance at hand be completed uninterrupted.
One of Goffman's major themes is the presentation of self. For Goffman, we have a "self" to the extent that we present some sort of role to others. Like other symbolic integrationists, Goffman sees the self as located within the social act. However, unlike Mead, he did not emphasize what the interaction might have meant to the social actor—how it might have altered his sense of significant symbols. Instead, Goffman was concerned with how convincing the performance was to one's audience or co-interactor.
On the stage or in a movie, someone can cry in a scene by thinking of something sad and really crying; or the actor might simply put drops in her eyes to make them water. In either case, what matters most is if the audience believes she is crying. Similarly, Goffman asserted that whether we believed in our social roles mattered far less than if we were convincing in them.
The extent to which we separate ourselves from a role we are performing is called role distance. Sometimes, the audience does not even notice role distance on the part of the actor; at other times, a certain lack of commitment to the role comes through. For example, a bank teller yawns while counting a customer's money. The nature of role distance can sometimes be related to social status. For example, someone who thinks a certain task is beneath his or her dignity might execute it in a lackluster way.
Another important dimension regarding presentation of self is impression management. This refers to the way we monitor our performances to guard against being interrupted. If we say or do something that seems inappropriate to the performance, we might then try to say or do something else that quickly realigns it.
One way we keep the audience from questioning our performances is through mystification. This refers to the way we often create social distance between ourselves and the audience in order to give a more impressive performance The audience, after all, is willing to believe that someone really is a bank teller or police officer or nurse, and so it is usually will accept or welcome this element of distance. It helps to communicate a sense that there is every aspect of the actor is committed to the role.
Yet at the same time, we often try to convey a sense of closeness to our audiences. Again, this is similar to a performer on the stage who might want the people in the audience to think they are his or her "friends." And so we act that our bank customers or the persona interviewing us for a job is closer to us than any of these people actually are.
Building on the metaphors of the the dramatic stage, Goffman made a distinction between front stage and back stage. Performances transpire in the realm of the front stage. There is a setting for the performance—for example, a bank for a bank teller, or an office for a job interview. There is also one's personal front—the tools or props the actor needs to give the performance. These objects generally are in keeping with what the audience would expect from the performance at hand.
Actors on a stage do not want to let the audience know how many weeks they spent rehearsing; they simply want to give a good performance. Similarly, we often hide certain details from the audience while we are front stage. We usually do not reveal to the audience all the preparation, hardship or mistakes we may have had to endure to give the performance at hand. At the same time, we might conceal pleasures or indulgences that we engaged in prior to the performance—whether recently or in the distant past.
The actor also employs a certain appearance and manner. By appearance, Goffman is referring to items (such as clothing) that signal the actor's social status. Manner cues in the audience as to what to expect from the performance—behaving calmly verses harried, happy verses sad or angry, and so on.
In contrast to the front stage, the back stage is a domain in which information suppressed in the front stage is let out into the open. The audience members are assumed to not have access to the back stage area. Impression management is challenged when information that is supposed to be available only in the back stage somehow becomes known in the front stage. This can happen when audience members unexpectedly enter into the back stage. For example, someone calls a friend after a job interview to complain about the personnel worker who did the interview—and that worker overhears the phone call.
Goffman believes that a given space can switch from front stage to back stage, depending on the context of the moment, Also, a space can simply be outside— neither front stage nor backstage, but a place where there are no actions relevant to the role performance.
Social performances can be recognized and categorized for their familiarity —e.g., she is acting "like" a doctor, he is acting "like" a friend. In Goffman's terms, there are socially created frames that signal what is expected of the social actor(s) in a given situation. For example, if someone complains of a serious misfortune at a party, the tone of the party might become more somber—the social actors at hand will switch from one frame to another.
These frames become fairly standardized in society; people are expected to abide by them. At the same time, though, actors might imbue a frame with their own mood, belief or manner of performing. Thus, two different bank tellers will give similar—but not identical—performances.
Another factor that can affect role performance is stigma. When there is a gap between what is expected of a social actor and the actual performance that is given, the actor will be stigmatized accordingly. For example, if young women are "supposed to" have a certain general appearance, and a young woman looks some other way, she will be stigmatized. Stigma takes two general forms. Discredited stigma refers to situations in which the actor presumes that the audience is aware of how he or she deviates from what is expected. A discreditable stigma is one that is known to the actor but not the audience. Both forms of stigma can affect role performance—perhaps even cause the performance to cease altogether.
Many people have found Goffman's analysis of social roles to be highly intriguing and insightful. Some, however, are disturbed by what they feel to be his overly-cynical outlook—that the emphasis is on giving a performance, as opposed to uncovering what makes people commit to something meaningful.
Another major school of thought examines micro-level interactions, and in ways that deviate from Goffman or Mead.
