Cooley, Charles Horton

(born Aug. 17, 1864, Ann Arbor, Mich., U.S.—died May 8, 1929, Ann Arbor) U.S. sociologist. The son of an eminent Michigan jurist, Cooley taught sociology at the University of Michigan from 1894. He believed that the mind is social, that society is a mental construct, and that the moral unity of society derives from face-to-face relationships in primary groups such as the family and neighbourhood. In Human Nature and the Social Order (1902), he referred to this form of social reference as “the looking glass self.” Cooley's other works include Social Organization (1909) and Social Process (1918).

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