(Based on Wood's explanation)
Symbolic Interactionism is an assumption of George Herbert Mead. According to Mead, humans use symbols as the foundation of both personal and social life.
It deals with the three core principles: meaning, language and thought.
It’s the meaning we give to things we have seen around us and how we act and observed towards it. The language gives humans a means by which to negotiate meaning through symbols, and for us to be able to understand one another. Engaging in speech acts may also affect like the naming and classifying of some things for further disclosure. The thought modifies each individual’s modification of symbols. It’s the sharing of points of view from what you’ve said through the use of language.
He also included some key concepts in Symbolic Interactionism:
This explanation came only from Wood which according to him, the mind has the ability to use symbols that have common social meaning. Some of the used symbols nowadays we portray to the things we’ve seen are products of our creative minds. When we interact with other people our self-development may progress.
-the “looking glass self” to know more about our selves from other people’s observations or descriptions to us.
-the “self-fulfilling prophecy” we live our lives by the shadows of others. Whatever things they had imposed on us we just go with the flow.
The “I” is the acting subject, impulsive, creative, spontaneous, and generally unburdened by social rules and restrictions. “Me” is the socially conscious part of the self who reflects on the I’s impulses and actions. It’s analytical, evaluative, and aware of social conventions, rules, and expectations. Lastly, our role taking reflects on the particular others (individuals significant to us) and to the generalized others (viewpoint of a social group).
As what I’ve mentioned earlier, people act on the basis of what things mean to them. Meanings are formed in the process of interacting symbolically with others in the society.
Symbols are the foundations of meanings. Individuals’ meanings aren’t strictly personal, but always carry social overtones. The individuals’ meanings reflect the internalized perspectives of particular others and generalized others.
However, Mead’s theory has conceptual inconsistencies. Like, he doesn’t formally write it. There are still concepts that seemed generalize and vague, some are abstract and hard to grasp. Nevertheless, we had been given the chance to understand its basics-- and that from the meanings we created there’s interaction, thus, probably can make a change around us!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment