Lumen Learning

Sociological Perspectives on Self-Development

When we are born, we have a genetic makeup and biological traits. However, who we are as human beings–our identity–develops through social interaction. Many scholars have described the process of self-development as a precursor to understanding how that “self” becomes socialized.

One of the pioneering contributors to sociological perspectives on self-development was Charles Cooley (1864–1929). He asserted that one’s self understanding is constructed, in part, by our perception of how others view us—a process termed “the looking glass self” (Cooley 1902), which was discussed when we first introduced symbolic interactionism. This concept is central to sociological perspectives on self-development because it demonstrates the importance of social interaction in the development of one’s identity.

Later, George Herbert Mead (1863–1931) studied the self, a person’s distinct identity as developed through social interaction. In order to engage in this process of “self,” an individual has to be able to view him or herself through the eyes of others. This is not an ability that is innate (Mead 1934). Through socialization we learn to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes and look at the world through their perspective. This assists us in becoming self-aware, as we look at ourselves from the perspective of the “other.”

How do we go from being newborns to being humans with “selves?” Mead believed that there is a specific path of development that all people go through. During the preparatory stage, children are only capable of imitation; they have no ability to imagine how others see things. They copy the actions of people with whom they regularly interact, such as their mothers and fathers. This is followed by the play stage, during which children begin to take on the role that one other person might have. Thus, children might try on a parent’s point of view by acting out “grownup” behavior, like playing “dress up” and acting out the “mom” role, or talking on a toy telephone the way they see their father do.

During the game stage, children learn to consider several roles at the same time and how those roles interact with each other. They learn to understand interactions involving different people with a variety of purposes. For example, a child at this stage is likely to be aware of the different responsibilities of people in a restaurant who together make for a smooth dining experience (e.g., someone seats you, another takes your order, someone else cooks the food, while yet another clears away dirty dishes).

Finally, children develop, understand, and learn the idea of the generalized other, the common behavioral expectations of general society. By this stage of development, an individual is able to imagine how he or she is viewed by one or many others—and thus, from a sociological perspective, to have a “self” (Mead 1934; Mead 1964).