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Mead - Self and identity

A sociological approach to self and identity begins with the assumption that there is a reciprocal relationship between the self and society. The self-influences society through the actions of individuals thereby creating groups, organizations, networks, and institutions. And, reciprocally, society influences the self through its shared language and meanings that enable a person to take the role of the other, engage in social interaction, and reflect upon oneself as an object. The latter process of reflexivity constitutes the core of selfhood. Because the self emerges in and is reflective of society, the sociological approach to understanding the self and its parts (identities) means that we must also understand the society in which the self is acting, and keep in mind that the self is always acting in a social context in which other selves exist. This chapter focuses primarily on the nature of self and identity from a sociological perspective, thus some discussion of society is warranted. The nature of the self and what individuals do depends to a large extent on the society within which they live. In general, sociologists are interested in understanding the nature of society or social structure: its forms and patterns, the ways in which it develops and is transformed. The traditional symbolic interactionist perspective known as the situational approach to self and society, sees society as always in the process of being created through the interpretations and definitions of actors in situations. Actors identify the things that need to be taken into account for themselves, act on the basis of those identifications, and attempt to fit their lines of action with others in the situation to accomplish their goals. From this perspective, the inference is made that individuals are free to define the situation in any way they care to, with the consequence that society is always thought to be in a state of flux with no real

organization or structure. Our view of self and society is rooted in the structural approach to the symbolic interactionist perspective. Within this perspective, we do not see society as tentatively shaped. Instead, we assume that society is stable and durable as reflected in the “patterned regularities that characterize most human action”. Patterns of behavior within and between individuals have different levels of analysis, and this is key to understanding the link between self and society. At one level, we can look at the patterns of behavior of one individual over time and come to know that individual. By pooling several such patterns across similar individuals, we can come to know individuals of a certain type. At still another level, we can look at the patterns of behavior across individuals to see how these patterns fit with the patterns of others to create larger patterns of behavior. It is these larger, inter-individual patterns that constitute social structure.