Charles Horton Cooley Flashcards, test questions and answers
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What is Charles Horton Cooley?
Charles Horton Cooley was an American sociologist and psychologist, who is best known for his theories of human interaction and social identity. He is credited with developing the concept of the looking glass self, which explains how people shape their identities by taking cues from the reactions of others around them. Cooley’s influence on modern sociology continues to be felt today, as his ideas have shaped various aspects of the discipline, including symbolic interactionism, group dynamics, and communication theory.Cooley was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1864. He attended the University of Michigan before switching to Harvard for graduate studies. While at Harvard he studied philosophy and published several books on topics such as individualism and democratic ideals. After graduating from Harvard in 1892 he started teaching at his alma mater in Ann Arbor before becoming a professor at the University of Michigan in 1895 where he would remain until his death in 1929.Throughout his career Cooley developed several concepts that are still relevant today such as the looking glass self which states that individuals form their sense of self based not only on their own thoughts but also on what they believe other people think about them. This idea has been influential to many different fields within sociology including symbolic interactionism which looks at how we define ourselves through our interactions with other people as well as group dynamics which looks at how groups operate both internally and externally when negotiating power structures within organizations or communities. In addition to this Cooley’s work has been used by theorists working within communication theory to explain how individuals interact with each other using language to express themselves while simultaneously creating meanings based upon shared understandings between participants within a conversation or dialogue.