SOCIOL 1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: George Herbert Mead
4.11.18
- Introduction Activity
- Norms set boundaries
- THE GENERALIZED OTHER
- George Herbert Mead
- The idea that, in social life, we take on the vantage point of other people
- We try to imagine the perspectives of other people and we use that as a
guide for our own behaviors
- Points directly to the social influences of our own self consciousness
- As we go through life, we are constantly orienting ourselves to the
anticipated and actual audience responses to our behaviors
- Did anyone not follow that rule? How did the audience respond?
- Sanctions = audience response
- Positive and negative sanctions
- Positive sanction example: “Thank you”, “Good job”
- Negative sanction: rolling eyes, laughing
- Debrief
- Point was not to embarrass anyone for following through on the normative
expectations
- Norms
- Societal expectation
- Sentiments shared by many members of the group
- Norms must be collective sentiments and collectively understood
- Standard that governs our conduct in social life
- Patterns that exist in our minds
- Patterns set limits/ boundaries on behavior in a given social situation
- If you feel like you ought to conform to the normative expectation, that means
you are accepting the norm
- Norms = “ought to” statements
- Set guidelines for behavior
- Tell us what to do in a given circumstance
- Responsibility in society to respect those norms
- Constitute our social structure
- Offer us a sense of predictability (like any good science)
- Norms are deeply internalized through processes of socialization
- Norms in action
- Collective evaluation of what behavior ought to be
- Shared value system in our community
- Collective expectation of what behavior will be
- EXAMPLE: LINES
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Document Summary
The idea that, in social life, we take on the vantage point of other people. We try to imagine the perspectives of other people and we use that as a guide for our own behaviors. Points directly to the social influences of our own self consciousness. As we go through life, we are constantly orienting ourselves to the anticipated and actual audience responses to our behaviors. Positive sanction example: thank you , good job . Point was not to embarrass anyone for following through on the normative expectations. Sentiments shared by many members of the group. Norms must be collective sentiments and collectively understood. Standard that governs our conduct in social life. Patterns set limits/ boundaries on behavior in a given social situation. If you feel like you ought to conform to the normative expectation, that means you are accepting the norm. Tell us what to do in a given circumstance. Responsibility in society to respect those norms.
