George Herbert Mead's Symbolic Interactionism

By: Arienne L. Longstreth

George Herbert Mead was known as the Father of Symbolic Interactionism even though he did not coin the term. Mead was a philosophy professor at the University of Chicago, and is widely renowned in the sociology field. He believed that people talking to each other were the most human and humanizing activity that people can engage in (Griffin, 84). It was after his death in 1934 that his students pulled together all his class notes and published Mind, Self, and Society. It was then that the term symbolic interactionism was coined by his disciple Herbert Blumer.

Mead's Theory of Symbolic Interactionism is composed of three core principles.

1. Meaning, which refers to people's social construction of reality.

Once people define something as real, they assign to it very real

consequences. Therefore everyone's reality differs.

2. Language, which refers to the assigning of meaning through social

interaction. We ascribe meaning by talking with others.

3. Thought, which refers to how an individual interpretation of

symbols is modified by their own thoughts. This is also called minding.

You can find out more about Mead's Symbolic Interactionism by checking out the following links:


Research Report
Mike's Critique
Application
Arienne's Links Page

Click here to go to a page dedicated to semiotics. This site relates to Symbolic Interactionism because it also deals with the social construction of signs, and symbols in communication. Works Cited Griffin, Em. A First Look at Communication Theory. 3rd Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997.