' I ' and the ' me ' - wikipedia ' I ' and the ' me ' The ' I ' and the ' me ' are terms central to the social philosophy of George Herbert Mead, one of the key influences on the development of the branch of sociology called symbolic interactionism. The terms refer to the psychology of the individual, where in Mead 's understanding, the `` me '' is the socialized aspect of the person, and the `` I '' is the active aspect of the person. One might usefully ' compare Mead 's `` I '' and `` me '', respectively, with Sartre 's `` choice '' and `` the situation ''. But Mead himself matched up the `` me '' with Freud 's `` censor '', and the `` I '' with his `` ego '' ; and this is psychologically apt '. Contents 1 Characteristics 2 Fusion 3 Conventionality 4 Dissociation 5 Literary examples 6 See also 7 References Characteristics The `` Me '' is what is learned in interaction with others and ( more generally ) with the environment : other people 's attitudes, once internalized in the self, constitute the Me. This includes both knowledge about that environment ( including society ), but also about who the person is : their sense of self. `` What the individual is for himself is not something that he invented. It is what his significant others have come to... treat him as being. '' This is because people learn to see who they are ( man or woman, old or young, etc. ) by observing the responses of others themselves or their actions. If others respond to a person as ( for instance ) a woman, the person develops a sense of herself indeed as a woman. At the same time, ' the `` Me '' disciplines the `` I '' by holding it back from breaking the law of the community '. It is thus very close to the way in a man Freud 's ' ego - censor, the conscience... arose from the critical influence of his parents ( conveyed to him by the medium of the voice ), to whom were added, as time went on, those who trained and taught him and the innumerable and indefinable host of all the other people in his environment -- his fellow - men -- and public opinion '. It is ' the attitude of the other in one 's own organism, as controlling the thing that he is going to do '. By contrast, ' the `` I '' is the response of the individual to the attitude of the community '. The `` I '' acts creatively, though within the context of the me. Mead notes that `` It is only after we have acted that we know what we have done... what we have said. '' People, he argues, are not automatons ; Mead states that `` the `` I '' reacts to the self which arises though the taking of the attitude of others. '' They do not blindly follow rules. They construct a response on the basis of what they have learned, the `` me ''. Mead highlighted accordingly those values that attach particularly to the `` I '' rather than to the me, ``... which can not be calculated and which involve a reconstruction of the society, and so of the ' me ' which belongs to that society. '' Taken together, the `` I '' and the `` me '' form the person or the self in Mead 's social philosophy. According to Mead, there would be no possibility of personality without both the `` I '' and the `` Me ''. Fusion Mead explored what he called ' the fusion of the `` I '' and the `` me '' in the attitudes of religion, patriotism, and team work ', noting what he called the `` peculiar sense of exaltation '' that belongs to them. He also considered that ' the idea of the fusion of the `` I '' and the `` me '' gives a very adequate explanation of this exaltation... in the aesthetic experience '. In everyday life, however, ' a complete fusion of the `` I '' and the `` me '' may not be a good thing... it is a dynamic sort of balance between the `` I '' and the `` me '' that is required '. Conventionality When there is a predominance of the `` me '' in the personality, ' we speak of a person as a conventional individual ; his ideas are exactly the same as those of his neighbours ; he is hardly more than a `` me '' under the circumstances ' -- ``... the shallow, brittle, conformist kind of personality... '' that is `` all persona, with its excessive concern for what people think. '' The alternative -- and in many ways Mead 's ideal -- was the person who has a definite personality, who replies to the organized attitude in a way that makes a significant difference. With such a person, the I is the most important phase of the experience. Dissociation Mead recognised that it is normal for an individual to have ' all sorts of selves answering to all sorts of different social reactions ', but also that it was possible for ' a tendency to break up the personality ' to appear : ' Two separate `` me 's '' and `` I 's '', two different selves, result... the phenomenon of dissociation of personality '. Literary examples Walt Whitman ' marks off the impulsive `` I '', the natural, existential aspect of the self, from critical sanction. It is the cultured self, the `` me '', in Mead 's terms, that needs re-mediation '. See also Conformist stage Generalized other Socialization True self and false self References Jump up ^ Mead, George Herbert ( August 15, 1967 ). Mind, Self, and Society from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist. Chicago : The University of Chicago Press. pp. 173, 174. ISBN 0226516687. Jump up ^ Victorino Tejera, Semiotics from Pierce to Barthes ( 2001 ) p. 59 Jump up ^ Paolo Inghilleri, From Subjective Experience to Cultural Change ( 1999 ) p. 26 Jump up ^ Erving Goffman, Relations in Public ( Penguin 1972 ) p. 327 Jump up ^ Greg Marc Nielson, The Norms of Answerability ( 2002 ) p. 135 Jump up ^ Sigmund Freud, On Metapsychology ( PFL 11 ) p. 92 and p. 90 Jump up ^ Charles W. Morris ed., George Herbert Mead, Mind, Self and Society, ( Chicago 1967 ) p. 196 ^ Jump up to : Mead, p. 196 Jump up ^ Mead, George H. Mind, Self, and Society. p. 174. Jump up ^ Mead, p. 214 Jump up ^ Mead, George H. ; Morris, Charles W. ( 1967 ). Mind, Self, and Society from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist. Chicago : The University of Chicago Press. p. 182. ISBN 0226516687. Jump up ^ Mead, p. 273 Jump up ^ Mead, p. 280 Jump up ^ Tejera, p. 62 ^ Jump up to : Mead, p. 200 Jump up ^ Anthony Stevens, On Jung ( London 1990 ) p. 43 Jump up ^ Mead, p. 143 - 4 Jump up ^ Stephen John Mark, The Pragmatic Whitman ( 2002 ) p. 144 Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%27I%27_and_the_%27me%27&oldid=852818200 '' Categories : Social philosophy Conceptions of self Identity Talk Contents About Wikipedia Čeština Edit links This page was last edited on 31 July 2018, at 15 : 35 ( UTC ). Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike License ; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia ® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. About Wikipedia

Question: which theorist is associated with the concepts of me and i
Answer: George Herbert Mead