George Herbert Mead and Erik H. Erikson Essay

George Herbert Mead was a ground-breaking sociologist that coined the phrase egotism-importance-importance and the surmise behind it in the primordial 1900s. The self can simply be defined as, the let out of an persons personality composed of self-awareness and self-image. Meads primary approach to tender behaviorism centered around the idea that ones self is purely a product of social interaction with former(a)s. Sociologists today materialise Meads work of import as the self is needed for choice of edict and gardening. Comparatively, Mead shared some intellectual sociological interchangeableities with Erik H. Erikson. Particularly with Eriksons broader view of socialization his eight stages of phylogenesis.Mead understood the self to thrive as long as quaternion major components that revolved around social cooperation fell into place. The first belief he transmitted was that the self was not present in a person at birth. It must(prenominal) be developed over time with social reciprocity with separate individuals. Mead past believed that social experience is the product symbol exchanges. In other words, human beings can find meaning not only done language and words but also within the work of actions and much(prenominal) other symbolic representations.His next conceptualization assumed that in site to fully understand ones intentions we must take the spot of the other. What Mead plainly meant by this was that anticipation of how another human being allow for react can often be attained when we imagine ourselves in another persons shoes. His final inference about the self is by taking on the role of another we then croak self-aware. This idea spilt the concept of self into two sectionalisations, the I and the me. The I part is used to describe the self in action, the subjective aspect of self. The me part outlines the self as we imagine others to see us.Mead then theorized that the growth of these four components could be achieved i n four basic stages. In developing the self, we must learn to take the role of another. Infants lack the social experience to do this so they achieve responses through imitation, or the mockery of actions. Children learn to use symbols and language to evolve the self through play. Play involves the assumption of a curious role in a singular situation. This role is typically modeled on significant others, such as parents, those mostimportant to a child in their life. The child gradually learns to accept the roles of some(prenominal) other stack at once in a singular situation as opposed to just one at a time. Mead called this evolution engaging in games. Therefore, if play refers to a game of catch, then exhibition in games would be the sport of baseball. The final stage of development occurs when one is able to recognize the roles of m whatsoever others in many situations. Mead referred to this as the extrapolate other.The existence of self depends upon the existence of society and culture in a very key way. The primary reason self is so important perhaps revolves around communication for survival. In order for the ball to be able to support society and culture in any facet people must communicate. Mead described this as transmission through the use of words, hand and facial gestures and a general sense of self composure. Without total and proper development of the self, communication would be extremely difficult. If everyone in the world suffered deficient or no personal growth people would struggle to find ways both as a culture and as a society to flourish within inter-group communication.Erik H. Erikson explained socialization with the theory that people face challenges throughout the life course that develop and bring personality indefinitely. He mapped out these potential challenges within eight generalized stages. These stages stretch to include infancy, toddlerhood, preschool, preadolescence, adolescence, young adulthood, middle adulthood, and ol d age. Though Erikson presented a much broader and different view of socialization than Mead, their works remain similar because they share one familiar aspect, the self. Erikson never used the phrase the self within these eight stages of development, however, he explains that in many of these stages communication with family members, peers and society in general helps to play crucial roles in the proper development of ones personality.George Herbert Mead was indeed a brilliant sociologist and theorist. By study the concept of the self, Mead relayed the idea that social experience or lack therefore could create or destroy a human being thereby affecting society and culture as we know it. He cogitate that the selfcontinues to change and evolve as we encounter social experiences. passim this evolution, we remain creative individuals. It is in the shadow of this creativity that we, indeed, play a very distinctive role in our own socialization process.