Sociology 355
Short Essay #5-Q2
March 15, 2013
Charles Cooley had his theory the Looking Glass; it is made of three stages, “the imagination of our appearance to the other person, the imagination of his judgment of the appearance, and some sort of self-feeling, such as pride or mortification (Cooley 293)”. George Herbert Meads believed that the self is developed through social interactions and he had three stages; play, game, and generalized other.
Charles Cooley and George Herbert Mead both said that the self is develop through a socialization process. They believed that the self can be defined as a collection of beliefs that we hold through are lives. Then is the self-socialization where you are allowed to reflect upon yourself. Through the self-socialization is where you develop the self because in this process you are allowed to reflect and have a conversation with yourself that can help you develop a better self-image. The self is changing our personality through the collection of beliefs that we hold about ourselves. The beliefs that we hold are the ones that format our self through our social interactions with others around us. Charles Cooley believed that the opinions of others and the opinions of society is what shaped the individual into the person they are becoming. George Herbert Mead also believed that society had a huge part on the shaping of the self in an individual. When the individual is having conversation with itself it is like the looking-glass.
There was some difference between Charles Cooley looking-glass and George Herbert Mead stages of the self. George Herbert Mead believed that our self was not equally influence by all persons. They are influence by the most important people in our lives. The judgments of the most important people in our lives would be our significant others, like our mother, father, and grandparents, teachers or peers. It is the interaction and the connection that is taking place with someone that determines...