ROLE TAKING THEORY

George Herbert Mead

The theory says that in play; the children learn to take the role of the other, that is, to put themselves in
someone else’s shoes to understand how someone else feels and thinks and to anticipate how that
person will act. Learning to take the role of the other goes through three stages; imitation, play and
games.

Children under the age of three can only mimic others. They do not have a sense of self-separate from
others, and they only imitate people’s gestures and words. The second and active aspect is execution
and completion. He imitates people who enjoy the most prestige in his own eyes, those who evoke his
positive, affectionate feelings. At the same time, the child borrows or becomes these persons.

LOOKING GLASS SELF

Charles Cooley

The ability of children to visualize themselves through the eyes of others, to imagine how they appear to
others, is what Cooley calls the “looking glass self” or the social self. In childhood, the family, friends,
teachers, classmates, and peer group exert a great influence in forming a child’s self-concept. They
constitute his or her primary group or form a part of what is called “significant others.” These significant
others become models for the child who usually identifies with them and patterns his or her behavior
after them. In later life, colleagues or co-employees, the boss, sweetheart, and eventually the spouse
contribute to the process. The individual imagines how he or she looks to others and compares ideas
about him or herself with the social norms of the group.

According to Cooley, the looking glass self has three elements: the imagination of how we appear to
other persons; the imagination of the judgment of that appearance; and some sort of self-feeling, such
as pride or mortification. This means that we see ourselves through the eyes of other people and try to
see how they evaluate our appearance. This self-development is a lifelong process, and personality is
thus not fixed.

DRAMATURGY
Erving Goffman

Goffman compared the behavior of people in the society to acting on stage. People play out a script vis-
à-vis society’s expectation, and in order to improve their chances of presenting a good performance as
to impress the audience, they develop certain dramatic skills. As an individual performs a role, he or she
has to see it that the impressions conveyed by to others (the audience) is in accordance with the role or
appropriate personal qualities ascribed to it. So, a teacher is expected to be patient, knowledgeable, and
firm; a seller to be affable, understanding, and courteous; a priest or nun to be pius, humble, and
compassionate.