George Herbert Mead (1863–1931) has argued that everyone in society has an “I” and a “me” that work in tandem.32 The “I” is our acting self that has needs and desires, while the “me” is our ability to grasp the roles and perceptions of others (somewhat analogous to Cooley’s looking glass). For instance, we learn to take into account others’ perspectives as we progress from playing imaginatively with dolls and trucks to participating in organized games where we must understand everyone else’s roles as well as our own. However, Mead makes the key point that, past infancy, nobody is purely an
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