George Herbert Mead’s Theory of Development of Self

George Herbert Mead was a philosopher and social theorist who was born in South Hadley, Massachusetts on February 27th 1863. His theories, mostly, consisted of human development within a society. Mead attended the University of Harvard where he received his Masters in philosophy and sociology. Mead is widely recognized for his theory of development of self and his concept of “I” and “Me.” The concept of the “I” and the “Me” refers to how we act and respond. According to Mead, the “I” is a reactive response whereas; the “Me” is a developed response. Meads concept of self and his theory of the development of self are well exhibited by the character Genie in the film, Genie: Secrets of a Wild Child.

The film Genie: Secrets of a Wild Child is about a girl who was kept in seclusion by her father, for over a decade. She was physically abused and was found tied to a potty chair, in a confined room, by a social worker on November 4, 1970. Her father committed suicide right after she was found, as he knew he was guilty of child abuse. After her discovery, researchers wanted to see if they were able to reverse the trauma from her horrific upbringing. They used the concept of nature versus nurture in order to observe whether a nurturing family was able to reverse her traumatic past, whereas waiting for her improvement with time. For the next four years, she was a test subject for: linguists, doctors and psychologists, who came from all around the world. During this time, she was used in various experiments, which resulted in her being frequently assessed by the many researchers. Through most of the research Genie lived with numerous families until the family of David Rigler, who was one of the psychologists working on her case. He chose to ...

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...velops in chronological order based on the four stages of Mead’s theory. Genie displays various instances where her actions transitioned from an impulse to a well comprehended action. According to the film, a nurturing atmosphere was able to reverse her traumatic past, however, only to a certain extend. Although Genie was still able to develop, even having passed the critical period, she was only able to fully develop up to the third stage of Mead’s theory. Therefore, what was presented by the movie validates up to and including the third stage of Mead’s Development of self theory.

Works Cited

Brym, Robert. (2014).[Socialization] In, Whittington-Walsh, F. (Ed), Introduction to Sociology: SOCIO 1125: Introduction to Society (91,93,119). Toronto: Nelson Education.

Garmon, Linda. (1994). Genie: Secrets of a Wild Child. In, Nova. Boston: Public Broadcasting System