Entry from the Encyclopedia of Marxism:
Mead, George Herbert (1863-1931)
American pragmatist social psychologist, founder of Symbolic Interactionism.
Mead studied at Oberlin College and Harvard University; 1891-94 taught philosophy and psychology at the University of Michigan; 1894 -1931 at the University of Chicago.
Mead’s main contribution to social psychology was his attempt to show how self-consciousness arises through interaction with others. He thought that spoken language played a central role in this development. Through language, the child can take the role of other persons and guide his behaviour in terms of the effect his contemplated behaviour will have upon others. Mead indicated this idea in the relation between the “I” which is the subject of action and the “me” which is constituted by the reaction of others.
Mead was influenced by Einstein’s theory of relativity and the idea of “emergence”, holding that a thing’s properties emerged as objective properties, but only under specific conditions.
Mead’s works were published only after his death, when his students edited four volumes from stenographic recordings and notes on his lectures and from unpublished papers: The Philosophy of the Present (1932); Mind, Self, and Society (1934); Movements of Thought in the Nineteenth Century (1936); and The Philosophy of the Act (1938).
Site: http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/m/e.htm#mead-george-herbert
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