Chap 2

• George Mead's Social Self


  The self is not biological but social, developed through social interaction, and constructed by directly engaging in the world through interaction and through reflections on those interactions
• Self

  • Self-Awareness - Conscious knowledge of one's own character, feelings, motives and desires
  • Self-image - The idea one has of one's abilities, appearance and personality
• Self development


  1. Social interaction

  2. Exchange of symbols (such as language)

  3. Understanding of symbols involves being able to take the role of another
• Role Playing


  The process in which one takes on the role of another by putting oneself in the position of the person with whom he or she interacts
• Stages of Self Development

  1. Imitation or Preparatory Stage - a child imitates the behavior of his or her parents

  2. Play Stage - the child playing the roles of others

  3. Game Stage - the child comes to themselves from the perspective of other people
• "I" and "Me" Self


  I - the unsocialized and spontaneous phase of the self, the acting part of the self, the subjective part<|>Me - the self that results from role playing or role-taking, the organization of the internalized attitude of others, the conventional and objective part
• Generalized Others


  An organized community or social group which gives to the individual his or her unity of self
• Looking-glass Self


  The self is developed as a result of one's perceptions of other people's opinions
• Development of Looking-glass Self

  1. People imagine how they must appear to others

  2. They imagine the judgement on that appearance

  3. They develop themselves through the judgement of others
• Looking-glass Self is made up of feelings about other people's judgement of one's behavior
• Postmodernism


  A report on the mindset of western culture in the latter half of the 20th century, not a philosophy
• 4 Basic Postmodernist Ideas about the Self

  • Multiphrenia - many different voices speaking about "who we are and what we are"
  • Protean - a self capable of changing constantly to fit the present conditions
  • De-centered - a belief that there is no self at all since the self is constantly being redefined or constantly undergoing change
  • Self-in-relation - humans do not live their lives in isolation but in relation to people and to certain cultural contexts
• For Mead, the self is shaped by outside forces, that is why for him there is no "I" self
• For postmodernists, people have no fixed identities which are separable from their surroundings and which remain the same even though certain characteristics and conditions may change
• In postmodern society, a person's status is determined by fashion or style since it changes and people adapts to these changes or is left with identity in question
• For Foucault, the self is a text written from moment to moment according to the demands of a multitude of social contexts
• Two realities dominating the postmodern social condition

  • The rise of new media technologies
  • The dominance of consumerism
• Postmodern View of the Self


  The self is "digitalized" in cyberspace, with every piece of information posted online becoming raw data from which someone can piece together an identity, a virtual version of who you are
• Culture


  Derived from the Latin word cultura or cultus meaning care or cultivation
• Personal Identity


  The way an individual sees themselves as an individual
• Collective Identity


  The way an individual sees themselves as a member of a certain group
• Ways to distinguish people

  • By geographical context or based on where they come from
  • People from the West are different from the people from the East
• Cultural Identity


  The identity or feeling of belongingness to a certain culture group, an individual's perception about himself or herself anchored on their cultural background
• Cultural Identity Theory


  Explains why a person acts and behaves the way he or she does, a single person can possess multiple identities, simultaneously making him or her part of many cultural groups
• Nation


  A group of people built on the premise of shared customs, traditions, religion, language, art, history and more
• National Identity


  The identity or feeling of belongingness to one state or nation, socially constructed and influenced by material and non-material cultures
• Material Culture representing National Identity


  • National Flag
  • Emblem
  • Seal
• Non-Material Culture representing National Identity


  • Norms
  • Beliefs
  • Traditions
• Self-categorization


  The process where one must identify himself or herself with an in-group and differentiate himself or herself from the out-groups
• Individual Self, Relational Self and Collective Self

  The Three Fundamental Selves
• Individual Self


  Reflects the cognitions related to traits, states and behaviors that are stored in memory
• For Mead, who is a sociologist, argued that the self is not biological but social.

  George Mead's Social Self
• a self capable of changing constantly to fit the present conditions.

  Protean
• • In this view, the self is developed as a result of one's perceptions of other people's opinions

  The Looking Glass Self
• is a group of people built on the premise of shared customs, traditions, religion, language, art, history and more.

  Nation
• • reflects cognitions that are related to one's relationships

  RELATIONAL SELF
• refers to "who the person is," or the qualities and traits of an individual that make him or her different from others

  Identity
• argued that the predicament of the self in postmodern societies is complicated by the advent of electronic-mediated virtual interactions of cyberselves and the spread of information technology

  Lyon 1997
• The postmodern social condition is dominated by two realities

  The rise of new media technologies

  
  

  The dominance of consumerism
• Every little piece of information that you post on the Internet - the message you write, the websites you visit, the files you download, the email address you contact, the book, tapes, CDs, and airplane tickets you order on the Internet and the credit card numbers you give - all these become raw data from which someone out there can piece together an identity, a virtual version of who you are."

  Email and Memory