The theory of G.H.Mead

The background and intellectual career of G.H.Mead (1863-1931) was in most respects quite different from that of Freud. Mead was primarily a philosopher, who spent most of his life teaching at the University of Chicago. He wrote rather little, and the publication for which he is best known, Mind, Self and Society (1934), was put together by students on the basis of their lecture notes and other sources. Since they form the main basis of a general tradition of theoretical thinking, symbolic interactionism, Mead’s ideas have had a very broad impact in sociology. But Mead’s work provides in addition an interpretation of the main phases of child development, giving particular attention to the emergence of a sense of self.

There are some interesting similarities between Mead’s views and those of Freud, although Mead sees the human personality as less racked by tension. According to Mead, infants and young children develop as social beings first of all by imitating the actions of those around them. Play is one way this takes place. In their play, as has been noted above, small children often imitate what adults do. A small child will make mud pies, having seen an adult cooking, or dig with a spoon, having observed someone gardening. Children’s play evolves from simple imitation to more complicated games in which a child of four or five will act out an adult role. Mead calls this taking the roe of the other – learning what it is like to be in the shoes of another person. It is only at this stage that children acquire a developed sense of self. Children achieve an understanding of themselves as separate agents – as a ‘me’ – by seeing themselves through the eyes of others.

We achieve self-awareness, according to Mead, when we learn to distinguish the ‘me’ from the ‘I’. The ‘I’ is the unsocialized infant, a bundle of spontaneous wants and desires. The ‘me’, as Mead uses the term, is the social self. Individuals develop self-consciousness, Mead argues, by coming to see themselves as others see them. Both Freud and Mead see the child becoming an autonomous agent, capable of self-understanding, and able to operate outside the context of the immediate family, at about age five. For Freud, this is the outcome of the Oedipal phase, while for Mead it is the result of a developed capacity of self-awareness.

A further stage of child development, according to Mead, occurs when the child is about eight or nine. This is the age at which children tend to take part in organized games, rather than unsystematic ‘play’. It is not until this period that children begin to understand the overall values nd morality according to which social life is conducted. To learn organized games, one must understand the rules of play and notions of fairness and equal participation. The child at this stage learns to grasp what Mead terms the generalized other – the general values and moral rules involved in the culture in which he or she is developing. This is placed at a somewhat later age by Mead than by Freud, but once more there are clear similarities between their ideas on this point.

Mead’s views are less controversial than those of Freud. They do not contain so many starling ideas, and they do not depend on the theory of an unconscious basis to personality. Mead’s theory of the development of self-consciousness has deservedly been very influential. On the other hand, Mead’s views were never published in a comprehensive form, and are useful as suggestive insights rather than as providing a general interpretation of child development.

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