George Herbert Mead's Social Psychological Theories: An Analysis, Revision, and Integration

Abstract

This paper will analyze various factors concerning Mead's theory of the act and the development of the self in order to show which aspects of his theory are universal or applicable to all men in all cultures and which are particular or mainly applicable to the people of the West who speak languages descendant from Greek origin. The position taken. in this paper is that Mead's Philosophy of the Act most likely is universal as is his conception of the development of the personality and the generalized other. An attempt is made to show how the personality and the generalized other develop from the act by means of the stage of play in which the individual learns the roles of the society and the stage of the game in which he learns how to integrate these roles into a socially accepted pattern by anticipating the reactions of others to his behavior. Mead's concept of self as. consisting of the "I" and the "me" will not be held however, to be universal but particular especially to Western cultures. Finally implications will be made as to possible areas of research with Mead's theory.