Charles Horton Cooley was an American sociologist, the son of Michigan Supreme Court Judge Thomas M. Cooley, who studied and later taught economics and sociology at the University of Michigan. He was a founding member of the American Sociological Association in 1905 and served as its eighth president in 1918. He is best known for the concept of the looking-glass self, the idea that a person's sense of self develops out of society's interpersonal interactions and out of how a person imagines others perceive them.
Facts
Nationality / Culture Defining ContributionThe concept of the looking-glass self, the idea that a person's self grows out of society's interpersonal interactions and the perceptions of others. 1 Notable WorkHuman Nature and the Social Order (1902) 1 Connections
Institutions Informed
Source Charles Horton Cooley (Wikipedia)
Theories Developed
Charles Horton Cooley introduced the looking-glass self in Human Nature and the Social Order, describing how a person self-concept forms from imagining how others perceive and judge them.
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Charles Horton Cooley (Wikipedia)
Wikipediaopening sentence
Charles Horton Cooley (August 17, 1864, May 7, 1929) was an American sociologist.
Biography section, birth
Charles Horton Cooley was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on August 17, 1864, to Mary Elizabeth Horton and Thomas M. Cooley.
opening paragraph
He is perhaps best known for his concept of the looking-glass self, which is the concept that a person's self grows out of society's interpersonal interactions and the perceptions of others.
Biography section, on Human Nature and the Social Order
In Human Nature and the Social Order (1902) he foreshadowed George Herbert Mead's discussion of the symbolic ground of the self by detailing the way in which an individual's active participation in society affects the emergence of normal social participation.
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