s, once a person has the ability to engage in symbolic interaction and evaluate others, he can also mentally take another's perspective and try to evaluate himself in the same way, thus seeing himself as an object rather than a subject (Stryker, 1980).
Mead took this sociological existentialism as the cornerstone of his theory of the social self. However, he was also heavily influenced by Darwinism and behaviorism. He assumed that group cooperation was necessary for survival of the species and that any actions which facilitated cooperation would tend to endure. Thus, he theorized, mind and self enhance cooperation by allowing one person to take on the role of another and anticipate and adjust to his behavior effectively (Mead, 1934). Knowing how one is expected to act as well as how others should act obviously facilitates group action of all sorts, whether it occurs at home, in the workplace, or on the freeway.
Depending on what book you read, there are either three or four stages of development of the social self. First there is the imitative stage, in which the infant learns to communicate by imitating others in his primary social group. Second, there is the play stage, in which the child practices and acquires a series of selves by playing at different r
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