Exploring Inner Realities: Mead's Concept in Sociological Thought

1. imaginative ideas in different minds Frequently mistaken We correct ... genuine personnalities on the same level of reality (Actual experience) The conceptual scheme of George Herbert Mead in “Cooley’s Contribution to American Sociological Thought”, American Sociological Journal, 1930 (p. 704, par. 12) Inner forum of experience / psychical phase / Imagination mind Essential to meaning arises from Experience Objective phase of experience Primitive human behavior (Phases of experience) (Evolution since) the dim beginnings of human behavior

2. Symbolic Interaction, according to Mead, “Cooley’s Contribution to American Sociological Thought”, American Sociological Journal, 1930 (p. 704) and Blumer, “George Herbert Mead”, in Rhea, The Future of Sociological Classics, 1981, p. 146 f. “The human organism (…) assumes the attitude of another which it addresses by vocal gesture, and in this attitude address itself, thus giving rise to its own self and to the other.” (Mead) “Mead had in mind that a significant gesture has the same meaningfor the person who uses it as it has for the person to whom it is directed. (…) Significant gestures (…) evoke a common response on the part of the person who uses the gesture and on the part of the person to whom the gesture is directed. (…) The import of the foregoing discussion is that self-interaction must be seen as an inescapable component of social interaction in human society.” (Blumer) Self addressed by the gesture Otheraddressed by the gesture