History
Symbolic interactionism (SI), a phrase coined by Herbert Blumer as early as 1937, was derived from lectures of early philosophy and sociologist theorist George Herbert Mead’s student notes. Mead’s notes from a course he taught in social psychology were posthumously transcribed into the book Mind, Self, and Society; 1934. Mead, born in 1863, arguably laid the foundation for the symbolic interactionism concept of how the individual mind arises out of the social process. Mead’s description of language as communication through significant symbols and concepts of “me” and “I” are examples of his contributions to symbolic behavior perspective. Symbolic behavior perspective stems from symbolic interactionism perspective. Blumer (1962) summarizes the perspective as how people act towards things based on the meaning those things have for them. These meanings are derived from social interaction and modified through interpretation. The symbolic interactionism perspective relates to the organization by describing how employees form a concept of self in relationship to their organization as they interact with individuals, subordinates, and superiors within the organizational architecture. Individuals learn appropriate behavior within an organization as the code of values, roles, attitudes, and norms of behavior of that work environment become apparent (Wood, 1999).
Read more about this topic: Symbolic Behavior
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The steps toward the emancipation of women are first intellectual, then industrial, lastly legal and political. Great strides in the first two of these stages already have been made of millions of women who do not yet perceive that it is surely carrying them towards the last.”
—Ellen Battelle Dietrick, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“The history of our era is the nauseating and repulsive history of the crucifixion of the procreative body for the glorification of the spirit.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“In the history of the United States, there is no continuity at all. You can cut through it anywhere and nothing on this side of the cut has anything to do with anything on the other side.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)