Ideas of The Self

The concept of the self may be difficult to discuss, since the study of the self may difficult to do objectively, however several sociologists have tried including Charles Cooley, George Herbert Mead, and Erving Goffman, especially in regards to the concept of symbolic interactionism. According to Ritzer (2000), symbolic interactionism came out of the Chicago School of Sociology and is concerned with the development of the self in regards to the interaction of that self with others (p. 28). One of the first developers of this concept, Georg Simmel, believed that understanding the interaction between people was one of the major tasks of sociology.

Charles Cooley was considered to be a part of this Chicago school of thought. According to Ritzer (2000), Cooley, like Mead, refused to separate the consciousness of the self from the social context. He believed that the self was developed and shaped on a continuing basis through social interaction. This is known as the "looking-glass self". The second idea developed by Cooley in relationship to the "looking-glass self" was that of the "primary group". The "Primary group" includes those individuals that provide intimate, face-to-face interaction with an individual, and in so doing help develop the "looking-glass self" as it is reflected back from those individuals. This is an especially important concept in regards to the social development of children (p. 50). According to Ritzer (2000), Cooley also tried to get sociologists

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nce and manner. The backstage role is seen as a more truthful type of "performance". Because there is no audience, other than perhaps the other performers in the team, there is a less focused effort to play a role, although there is still a "secondary type of performance" (Barnhart, 1994, p. 2). It could be that this back role is the most stable of all three performances since it is the more "truthful". Outside of the stage, of course, is the audience, which plays of the role of the spectator who is willing to suspend their disbelief and believe that the front roles are actually true. It should be noted that different audiences require different performances, forcing the actors to refocus their front performances accordingly. "This allows the team, individual actor, and audience to preserve proper relationships in interaction and the establishments to which interactions belong" (Barnhart, 1994, p. 2). References Barnhart, A. (1994). "Erving Goffman: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life." Available online at: http://www.cfmc.com/adamb/writings/goffman.htm Ritzer, G. (2000). Classical Sociological Theory. Third Edition. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.Short Response Question 2: Pierre Bourdieu has been defined as a "me

Category: Psychology - I