HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM

The Inception of Symbolic Interactionism

George Herbert Mead, a Philosophy professor at the University of Chicago from 1894 to 1931, is considered the founder of Symbolic Interactionism (a term later coined in 1937 by Herbert Blumer, one of Mead's students). At UC he taught a course entitled "Social Psychology," which was very popular with graduate students in the Sociology Department. Mead did not write down, in a publishable format, his thoughts on Symbolic Interactionism; rather, he followed the "oral tradition" of instruction, and published very few major papers in his lifetime (Mead 1934). His students, so impressed with what they were learning, wrote down Mead's lectures and turned their notes into what would become a cornerstone work within the paradigm of Symbolic Interactionism, Mead's Mind, Self, and Society: From the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist (Ritzer 1996).

Symbolic Interactionism is rooted in two philosophies: pragmatism and psychological behaviorism (Ritzer 1996). Within pragmatism:

• True reality does not exist "out there" in the real world; it is actively created as we act in and toward the world (Hewitt 1984).
• People remember and base their knowledge of the world on what has proven useful to them.
• People define the social and physical objects that they encounter in the world according to their use for them.
• If people want to understand actors they must base that understanding on what the actors actually do in the world (Ritzer 1996).
• Pragmatism sees the social world as an on-going creation (Bloch 2003).

A well-known and highly respected pragmatist, John Dewey, postulated that the mind is not an object, but rather, a thinking process that involves a series of stages. These stages include defining objects in the social world, outlining possible modes of conduct, imagining the consequences of alternative courses of action, eliminating unlikely possibilities, and selecting the optimal mode of action. This focus on the mind was very influential on the development of Symbolic Interactionism.

Psychological behaviorism, or social behaviorism as Mead referred to it, holds that there is more to behavior than simply that which can be observed. Mead argued that the unit of study is "the act", which is comprised of both overt and covert aspects of human action. Mead did not want to only theorize about covert phenomena, he worked to empirically study the relationship and interaction of a stimulus and the response to that stimulus (Ritzer 1996). Mead, unlike radical behaviorists, held that humans differed from animals because humans posses mental capabilities for language and could use such communication skills in order to decide how to respond to a stimulus. He also held that non-observable activities, like mental processes, could and should be studied. Mead postulated that the mind was a real thing and that each actor was active and dynamic.

The influence of pragmatism and psychological behaviorism on the development of Symbolic Interactionism was great. This influence was felt by Mead's students, who worked as aspiring sociologists to further develop the sociological paradigm put forth by Mead.

Mead's main contribution to Symbolic Interactionism is his development of the following micro-analytical concepts:

• Symbol; something that stands for something else; involves complex social systems of meaning.
• Sign; something that stands for itself; simpler, automatic responses that are common to other species besides humans (Bloch 2003).
• Act; the basic unit of analysis within the symbolic interactions paradigm; what makes us decide to do something that we then do. The act consists of 4 stages:
1. Impulse: social actor is stimulated and feels need to respond;
2. Perception: social actor reacts to stimulus;
3. Manipulation: the social actor manipulates the perceived object, taking action with regard to it;
4. Consummation: the social actor completes the action that he or she thinks will satisfy the impulse they originally felt (Ritzer 1996).
• Gesture; the basic mechanism in the social act and in the social process more generally (Ritzer 1996); "movements of the first organism which act as a specific organism" (Mead 1934).
• Significant symbols; a kind of gesture that only humans can make. Gestures become significant symbols when they arouse in the individual who is making them the same kind of response as they are supposed to elicit from those to whom the gestures are addressed (Ritzer 1996). Mead theorized that significant symbols make the mind and mental processes possible, as well as symbolic interaction in general (Ritzer 1996).
• Self; Mead's concept explaining our ability to see ourselves as both the actor and the subject. The self is reflexive, meaning we can see ourselves as others see us. Mead theorized that the self is developed in a two stage process during childhood:

1. Play Stage: involves learning to take the attitude of a particularized other (a specific person, like the child's mother);
2. Game Stage: involves learning to take the attitude of everyone else and, therefore, learning how to function in organized groups.

• Generalized other; one of Mead's most famous concepts, the generalized other, was developed out of the Game Stage. The generalized other is the collective attitude of the entire community or society. A person can see themselves as a participant of their society, engaging in shared meanings of others.
• I and Me; Mead posited that the self is a social process with two phases - the I and the Me. The I is the immediate response of the individual to others. The Me is the adoption of the generalized other. These concepts were key in developing Mead's theory of social control.