G.H.Mead said that there are two aspects to the self: the "I" and the "me." Some sociologists and psychologists, ignoring Mead's behaviorism, make two erroneous assumptions. 1) The immediacy of the "I": The "I" is known immediately to the self. Or even if it cannot be known immediately, that is no problem, since one can anticipate one's own acts. 2) The exclusive otherness of the "me": The "me," which is the organized set of social attitudes, is derived from others, and is represented as "others" within oneself. The "I," on the other hand, has been there from the start, and has no such character.
But these assumptions cannot be accepted from the viewpoint of the self-perception theory of Bern, which is based on the "radical behaviorism" of B.F.Skinner. It argues that one knows one's own internal states partially by inferring them from observations of one's own overt behavior and circumstances. Mead's theory of the "self" also makes such a point.
The following propositions result from the introduction of self-perception theory.
1 ) The absolute mediatedness of the "I": One's "I" cannot be known immediately, even by oneself. And even though one anticipates one's own acts, one cannot ascertain whether the anticipation is correct, because the perception of one's own internal states is radically dependent on external states such as one's circumstances.
2) The shared otherness of the "I" and the "me": The "me," which is learned from others, is the means to perceive one's own "I." Not only is the "I" represented as one of others, because of its mediatedness, but it also comes from others. The otherness limited to the "me," but is shared by the "I" and the "me."
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