Mead, George Herbert

(born Feb. 27, 1863, South Hadley, Mass., U.S.—died April 26, 1931, Chicago, Ill.) U.S. philosopher, sociologist, and social psychologist prominent in the development of pragmatism. He studied at Oberlin College, graduated from Harvard University (B.A., 1888), and went on to study philosophy and psychology at the Universities of Leipzig and Berlin (1888–91). Mead then taught philosophy and psychology at the University of Michigan (1891–94) with John Dewey and Charles Horton Cooley. In 1894 he joined Dewey in moving to the University of Chicago and taught there the rest of his life. Mead's focus was the relationship between the self and society, particularly the emergence of the human self in the process of social interaction. His works include The Philosophy of the Present (1932) and Mind, Self, and Society (1934). See also interactionism.

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