The I and the Me

    

I think that Mead’s theory on the self is very interesting with a lot of valid arguments that make you think differently. Mead’s general idea is that the ‘I’ is your true thoughts. These are thought that you think of before any social structures like norms, propriety, or other social context comes into play. Through socialization, those social structures are built into your ‘me’. Then once your ‘me’ is established, (this is ever changing depending on many variables, mainly the person’s current environment.) it filters the thoughts from your I, and either decides not to say it, alter it, or leave it as is.

     This concept is really cool, because of how many example can be found to prove this accurate. You can look at two groups of people, and look at how and what they say, and you can get a better understanding of how much input either their ‘I’ or ‘me’ gets.

     Another interesting piece of this, is the Me’s interpretation of others’ responses to what they do or say. So, if you begin to respond a certain way, a person’s facial response, body language, or even words can dictate how you restructure your thought to either improve a person’s response to you, or sometimes trigger other responses from someone.          

     Overall Mead’s ideas are really interesting, and bring an interesting concept of looking at an individual’s response from their environment. When so often we look at groups and groups of people and try to understand all of their common behavior. Instead of looking at humans, and choosing individual people to get interested and learn about. Especially, when you pair this with non-psychological theories, and theories that are more based on the environment or other social factors.