George Herbert Mead

George Herbert Mead

George Herbert Mead Symbolic Interaction Theory
George Herbert Mead studied and used an interactionist approach for many years.   He was a philosophy professor at the University of Chicago.   Mead theory was primarily about the symbolic nature of self and society (Allan, p.6).   Mead thought that the true test to any theory is whether or not it is useful in solving complex social problems.   So Mead decided to study the procedures of communicating, specifically with symbols, the theory was titled Symbolic Interactionism.   In Mead’s opinion, human thought, experience and conduct are essentially social.   Mead begins his argument of symbolic interaction by defining three core principles that deal with language, meaning, and thought.   His theory is that humans act toward people or things on the basis of the meanings they assign to those people or things.  
The first core principle deals with language.   Mead declared that our gift of language, our ability to manipulate and interpret abstract symbols, was what separated human beings from the other animals.   I feel in a big way that Mead is correct.   Humans understand and filter out information whether they intend to or not, all due to the channel of symbols.   A symbol is a stimulus with meaning and value; it's an object whose meaning can be shared.   Just think of all the symbols that stand universal throughout America, green light = go, heart = love, and red octagons = stop.   What about the symbols that shines through our feelings, emotions and actions?   A yawn usually means you're bored or tired.   A smile is attached to happiness and laughter, symbols leak out naturally, and are read naturally as well.   A newborn is nonsocial until it learns to be channeled through communication with the knowledge of symbols.   The goals of human interactions with one another are to create shared meaning.   For example, language is itself a symbolic form, which is used to affix meanings to the symbols of verbal conversations, in which...