George Herbert Mead's Symbolic Interaction Theory (SIT)

Introduction

This writing is an academic writing for SSF2063 Social inquiry subject. We need to choose a relevant theory of social sciences and explain social phenomenon that happen around us with the selected theory.

Introduction of Theory

In this writing we have been decided to choose Symbolic Interaction Theory (SIT). SIT is a theory that been develop by George Herbert Mead. This theory is about how people understand the symbol and interpret the meaning of the symbol. According to West and Turner (2014), Mead proposed that people communicate in a given situation based on the symbolic meaning. The center of SIT is between symbol and interaction. How we interpret the symbol we see and how the symbols help us built our own self-concept. Mead also

Look at the theory of looking-glass self, theory that been borrowed from sociologist Charles Coley in 1912. The theory explains how we see ourselves as we imagine how people see us and the feelings result. It is like how we see other people and how they feel about us. Mead does not believe that a person only looked at one’s own. But we always reflect others with us. For example, you think you can do the read a thousand page of book in three hour, but when you do it, you felt that you cannot finish it until your friend said to you that you are amazing because you can read a thousand page of book in three hour, and then your start to think that “yes I am amazing person”. Besides in self-fulfilling concept, has produced a label called Pygmalion effect which means we living up or down to another’s expectation of us. For instance, when your teachers said that you will get an A’s for your exam, and after the result turn up, you got an A’s, and your teachers will conclude that you have her/he expectation. Moreover, Mead also has classify dimension of self which is I is equal to subject or acting self and me is equal to object or observing