Generalized other
The generalized other is a concept introduced by George Herbert Mead into the social sciences, and used especially in a field called symbolic interactionism. It is the general notion that a person has of the common expectations that others have about actions and thoughts within a particular society - 'the clarification of my relation to the other as an exemplar of the same social system '.[1] Any time that an actor tries to imagine what is expected of them, they are taking on the perspective of the generalized other.
As a concept, it is roughly equivalent to the idea of the Freudian superego. It has also been compared to 'the father-qua-symbol (Lacan's name-of-the-father)' - to the way 'Convention, Law, Grammar, and Authority become the Third...much as Mead's generalized other'.[2]
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[edit] Role-play and games
Mead contrasted the experience of role-play and pretence in early childhood, 'where there is a simple succession of one rôle after another', with that of the organised game: 'in the latter the child must have the attitude of all the others involved in that game'.[3] He saw the organised game as vital for the formation of a mature sense of self, which can only be achieved by learning to respond to, and take on the others' 'attitudes toward the various phases or aspects of the common social activity or set of social undertakings...they are all engaged in...the generalized other'.[4]
'In the game we get an organized other, a generalized other, which is found in the nature of the child itself....in the case of such a social group as a ball team, the team is the generalized other in so far as it enters - as an organized process or social activity - into the experience of any one of the individual members of it'.[5]
By thus seeing things from an, as it were, anonymous "other perspective", the child may eventually be able to visualize the intentions and expectations of others and see him/herself from the point of view of groups of others: from the viewpoint of the generalized other.
The attitude of the generalized other is the attitude of the larger community. According to Mead, the generalized other is the vehicle by which we are linked to society.
[edit] Multiple generalized others
'There are as many generalized others as there are social groups'[6] in society: as Mead put it, 'every individual member of any given human society, of course, belongs to a large number of such different functional groups'.[7] As a result, 'each self articulates in a unique way the shared set of social and cultural values', so that a 'fully developed self takes the attitude of multiple generalized others in an unrepeatable fashion'.[8]
One can also envisage in the self's relation to the generalized other 'increasing levels of socialisation and individuation (thus, a growing number of people and facets of each self become part of the interplay between the generalized other and the self)'.[9]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ John O'Neill, Sociology as a Skin Trade (London 1972) p. 169
- ^ Vincent Crapanzano, Hermes' Dilemma and Hamlet's Desire (1992) p. 88-9
- ^ George H. Mead, Mind, Self, and Society (Chicago 1962) p. 159 and p. 154
- ^ Mead, p. 155
- ^ Mead, p. 160 and p. 154
- ^ F. C. da Silva, G. H. Mead (2007) p. 50
- ^ Mead, p. 322
- ^ da Silva, p. 50-1
- ^ Johannes Voelz, Transcendental Resistance (2010) p. 131
[edit] Further reading
- 1934: Mead, G. H. (C. W. Morris ed.), Mind,Self, and Society from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
- 1956: Natanson, Maurice, The Social Dynamics of George H. Mead, Public Affairs Press, Washington, D. C.
- 2008: Ritzer, G.R, Sociological Theory seventh edition. McGraww-Hill Higher Companies, New York.
