Mind, Self, and Society

Mind, Self, and Society is a book based on the teaching of American sociologist George Herbert Mead's, published posthumously in 1934 by his students. It is credited as the basis for the theory of symbolic interactionism. Charles W. Morris edition of Mind, Self, and Society initiated controversies about authorship because the book was based on oral discourse and Mead's students notes. Nevertheless, the compilation of his students represents Mead’s most important work in the social sciences. Among them, Mead published a conceptual view of human behaviour, interaction and organization, including various schools of thought such as role theory, folklore methodology, symbolic interactionism, cognitive sociology, action theory, and phenomenology.George H. Mead shows a psychological analysis through behavior and interaction of an individual's self with reality. The behavior is mostly developed through sociological experiences and encounters. These experiences lead to individual behaviors that make up the social factors that create the communications in society. Communication can be described as the comprehension of another individual's gestures. Mead explains that communication is a social act because it requires two or more people to interact. He also explains that the self is a social process with communication between the "I", the pure form of self, and the "Me", the social form of self. "I" becomes a response to the "Me" and vice versa. That same "I" deals with the response of an individual and the "Me" is considered the attitudes you take on, both being related to social selves.