The subject of this chapter will be the processes of role taking. Put as simply as possible role taking refers to the human ability to mentally decenter from one’s own perspective or vantage point and see events from the standpoint of others. This is certainly not something that humans do all the time, it takes effort and therefore some special motivation to do so. In fact one of the interesting tasks that sociologists have undertaken is to find out what types of social situations foster role taking and what types of situations do not. Even though we do not role take continually, the ability to do so is absolutely critical to making society possible and is one of the major inabilities in autistic mentality. Role taking in short, is the process by which the individual person becomes linked with their relevant society. The way this process was originally formulated by George H. Mead demonstrated this link in a way that retained the interlocking nature of the individual and society. It was specifically designed to allow for a non-dualistic approach to a thoroughly social view of the person as inseparable from society, but also frequently in tension with it. In the role taking processes the self-motivated efforts of the person to control him or her self also inadvertently acts as social control. In other words, in order to achieve one’s own ends one automatically tends to act in ways that result in socially shared orderly behavior. Thus, one should keep in mind that role taking is a theory along with learning theory and Freudian models of behavioral control. It differs in that it emphasizes conscious, deliberate behavior and puts the person squarely in the driver’s seat instead of being completely pushed by unknown forces outside of awareness. Though unknown forces can be active, it leaves room, for an important amount of self-determination.

Failures in Role-Taking

Human communications that lack role taking are frequently humorous in their ineptness. Our youngest daughter worked in a fast-food place that had the pictures of the various plates hanging from the ceiling over the counter. Naturally they were facing outward to the customers, what else? So people would come in and just point to the pictures and say, "I want that". Since our daughter was behind the pictures this was of little help. She would have to lean way over the counter and then twist around so she was looking up or come from behind the counter to be where the customer was. One took the agility of a professional contortionist and the other seriously limited the ability to serve fast food.

To take a less humorous, but important, example, the last pronoun children learn to use is usually "I". If you ask the youngest four-year-old of three male children how many brothers he has, he will usually tell you, "I have two." If he doesn’t know his numbers he will just say, "Paul and Joe". It is harder for him to answer the question, " How many brothers does Paul and Joe have?" because this includes himself. In his direct, visual experience he usually sees only his two brothers, not himself. So not considering that he is also a brother to Paul and Joe, he will say, " Paul only has one brother, Joe". It is hard at such an early age to role take and realize that from Paul’s point of view both Joe and himself are Paul’s brothers.

This example illustrates another important aspect of role taking. In looking at things from the viewpoint of others you are frequently led to be conscious of yourself and how you may look to them. It is through taking the role of others that we become aware of ourselves. But our picture of ourselves depends on how we think others think of us (if we think what they think is important). We have to know something about the other person’s mind-frame to know what we look like to them. It should also be very evident in this discussion that all of this involves the cognitive ability to grasp the emotional likes and dislikes of other people (among other extra-sensory aspects of their "inner" world). From a very early developmental stage we are learning to make theories of others people’s "personas"--what they are like "inside", beyond physical or sensed experience. Since most of these attributes are extra-sensory in nature, the process so far is essentially cognitive. The implications of role taking for the social nature of the developing child’s self-awareness is also clear. To have self-awareness one must also have a fairly well developed notion of the inner world of others. This is because the "mirror" by which we know ourselves is the social response of others. To know their response we must imagine what they are thinking. Leading neurologists are becoming quite aware of the social nature of the developmental process of the brain. For example, both Damasio (1994) and Brothers (1996) point to the inability to construct reasonably accurate theories of other people's minds as paramount deficits in agnosognosia and autism respectively.

Self-Awareness and Behavioral Flexibility

The significance of role taking does not stop at its import to the process of self-awareness and the social nature thereof. It is just this self-awareness that is crucial in the human ability to control our own behavior in a remarkably flexible way compared to other animals. Let us turn to the crucial role of role taking and self-awareness in the control of our own behavior and the resulting critical flexibility of the human response.

We will start with the common explanation of the lack of flexibility in many other animal types. Whereas the uncontrollable forces of instinct drive many animals, humans are characterized as having a remarkable capability to respond to "what the immediate situation (in all of its particular uniqueness) demands". This is often called "reality testing. " Much of such "reality testing" depends on role taking not only with people, but also with inanimate situations and objects. For example, we can anticipate the response of a soft rock being hit in a certain way by a harder and sharper piece of flint in the making of stone aged tools. In this case one must have some knowledge of the make up of the stone and some awareness of his own actions on it by way of the harder flint. "Reality-testing" is in marked contrast with what we call fixed instinctual responses that form major adaptive mechanisms of so many mammals, reptiles, fish and birds.

Thus, if we define instinct as inherited, guaranteed, programmed behaviors for stereotyped situations existing in all normal members of a species, it is evident that when beavers hear a particular gurgling sound they will be compelled by their bodily makeup to gnaw on trees to dam up the water flow or when geese perceive some aspect of the seasonal changes, they will all take flight in V formation in long journeys to other climates and feeding grounds. It is possible however, that the beaver’s impulses may bring down on them the firepower of the local farmers or that the geese will automatically take off into hurricane strength winds or go to places that have just been covered over with concrete. American Indians could rely on the herding instincts of Buffaloes that would cause whole groups of them to follow their leader over cliffs to their destruction. Whatever remnants of instincts humans may have are not strong enough to be so uniformly, automatically and blindly compelling (see Averill and Nunley here, p.49). It seems that we have forgone pre-established responses to a kind of response that is established by our own selves in the immediate situation and anticipates the response of our own actions therein. We can use our role taking and self-awareness to anticipate the situational response to our on-coming actions.

The Importance of Anticipation to the Flexibility of Role-Taking

I have to pause here to underscore the importance of the words "anticipation" and "on-coming" action. The ability to anticipate what the other’s response will probably be, and to use this imagined anticipation to guide, and make adjustments in our own on-coming lines of action enables the dynamic, lightening-fast aspect of role taking. This anticipatory quickness characterizes the remarkable flexibility of the human self-control of behavior that role taking makes possible. We can literally incorporate the imagined response of the other into our developing actions be they conversational, gestural or physical. Do not forget that what applies to role taking with others also applies to inanimate objects. But the mutual responses comprising social interaction are so potentially varied, quick and significant to our well-being that the rapid adjustments made possible by role taking are especially relevant to our dealings with others. Because of this, humans must live with an image of what may be coming up around the corner of social interaction and what our response will be. This is much like basketball. One way or the other, to make the team we have to learn not to just throw the ball to where a person visually is, but in front of him to where he is going.

I have a story that illustrates such rapid adjustment and also makes the point that while the role taking itself may be accurate enough, our attempts to change with the prerequisite lightening speed in mid-sentence may not be up to snuff.

Here goes: When I was a teenager, my father was forced by American custom to let me drive his beloved Packard. Daddy was a respected minister that did not often give way to gross materialism, but if the truth were known, he really loved his Packard. On the other hand, I---being more typical of American teenagers than I would have ever admitted--- was very sensitive about his perceived lack of complete trust of my driving abilities. Again, if the harsh truth were known, he may have had his reasons. This made my father apprehensive and made me very defensive. For example I was convinced that putting his right hand through the strap above the window was a desperate act to prepare for the worst. Yet to this day I find myself doing the very same thing as a car passenger simply because it feels good. I even feel a little lost in the front passengers’ seat if the car doesn’t have such a handle-- no matter how I trust the driver. Now I know my role taking about my father’s lack of faith was most likely off target as it is so often with defensive individuals who more than occasionally have something real to defend. But this is not the aspect of role taking I want to stress. That occurred when I was innocently driving my handle-holding father down a major boulevard with a middle ground, and all of a sudden, right out of the blue, a car came careening toward us, jumping the middle ground in a most ominous manner aiming right toward the beloved Packard. "Holy Moley Jesus!" I cried, as I slammed on the breaks. "Oh sh-- (well every one knows what I had in mind for the fatal next two letters), but in an all out attempt to escape even more of my rather formal father’s wrath, I gave it a desperate try..." Shhhh, sheer nonsense, the way people drive," is all I could muster amid squealing brakes and sliding cars. Well, I have already shared my observation that inept attempts at role taking have their humorous side, but neither of us was laughing despite the undamaged car. The last words about the way people drive, were just meek mumbles as I realized the futility of the whole attempt. I had definitely hit the bull's eye in my instantaneous anticipation of my father’s response. Well, not quite. I had correctly ascertained his disapproval of evoking the son of God, but his specific disapproving response to the obvious four letter word I tried so frantically to disguise, was "Son, what kind of boy are you? This question of the appropriate moral category I belonged in, was just not the immediate emphasis I expected in the middle of the smell of burnt tires and the concern about other traffic. I remember responding, but this time I definitely kept it to myself, "Well what kind of human being would have not deviated from the King’s English in such a situation? Instead, I decided on what was no doubt the best action, to lie through my teeth and say in effect, "I don’t know what happened, I hardly ever talk like that". It may seem preposterous to think my character structure would have been the immediate topic of discussion instead of a voicing of concern about each others health etc., but only if you did not know the inner self of my father. My role taking was not so bad, but my ability to change my on-coming behavior, as we often do, was not up to the demands of that situation.

Role Taking as Simultaneously Self-Control and Social-Control of Behavior

However imperfect it may be in some cases, role taking allows for the flexible self-control of behavior. In this process, self-control is dependent on social concerns in more than several ways. First, it depends on knowing the other's mind to some significant extent. Second, it is frequently motivated by our concern with how we will appear to others, as well as our desire to appropriate their cooperation in our own projects and, finally, it assumes that we share meaning to some significant extent if role taking is to be successful. How many heart aches have resulted from one person using the word love to mean `I want you sexually now' when the other takes it to mean an enduring and exclusive intimacy involving mutual commitment and caring over a life-time. When such misunderstandings occur, the resulting friction can encourage a realignment of meanings. In order to communicate effectively one is pulled into the pool of shared meanings of a culture. The resulting self-control becomes social-control. Granted there are people that seem impervious to learning from such experiences, but although the exceptions may stand out in our minds this is because they are relatively rare.

At this point you may be ready for a more complete definition of this quintessentially social process. Role taking is the capacity to respond to our own on-coming gestures and behaviors, as would the other and to use this imagined response in the control of our own developing social behavior. To respond to our own emerging gestures, as would the other depends on a good dose of self-awareness and the sharing of meanings. The social self then is not to be reified as a fixed and substantial thing, but an active process that comes and goes as we reflect on and off as active subjects about our own selves as objects. This dualistic ability to be simultaneously the observing subject and the observed object in self-awareness is called reflexivity. Along with our extra-sensory symbolic capacities, reflexivity is characteristic of the major human adaptive mechanism. Whatever similar capacities other primates may have in this regard, they do not have them strong enough and common enough to form the major adaptive mechanisms of their species.

Social Control and the Self-Reflexive Emotions

Susan Shott (1997) wrote one of the early classics announcing the importance of emotions for sociological theory. The original intent in George H. Mead’s formulation of role taking was to overcome the reified separation of a self-contained individual and society. When we overdo this separation, society is seen as basically forcing the person into conventions that are contrary to his/her spontaneous needs. Granted, this can happen, but it is not inherently a part of the relationship. Rousseau and Freud are well known thinkers guilty of this over-done contrast. But does Mead's remedy via his purely cognitive theory of role taking really accomplish this goal? Does it reliably draw the person into behaviors that support the social order? Can not self-control be for bad as well as good? The purely cognitive version ignores the fact that many con-artists and socio-paths, even serial killers, seem quite gifted at using their role taking abilities to take advantage of people and flatter, or otherwise manipulate them to their own anti-social ends. What is to stop such a person who knows the fears and needs of a wealthy, lonely widow from using this information to appropriate her affections and con her out of her fortune? Much of role taking has to do with controlling peoples’ positive responses to us. Studies give us ample reason to believe that this is a major control mechanism that subordinates use to equalize the superior control that socially superordinates have over them. People learn not to ask the boss what he wants done, but to know what it is and do it. My mother used to tell me that in the kitchen after dinner. "David Franks", she would say sternly, "you know full well what needs to be done without me having to tell you!" Role taking in these cases is manipulative even if it is just a normal response to the inequalities of power. Manipulation is inherent in role taking and can be perfectly normal. We all need such control. So, seen as a purely cognitive process, role taking is a means to the person’s own ends and these ends can cover the gamut from just trying to gain necessary acceptance of those with higher rank to the purely anti-social manipulations of socio-paths. Shott demonstrates how role taking generally leads to behavior that maintains the social order and mutually supportive actions by bringing in the emotional aspects of self-awareness. She suggests that there are two types of emotions connected with role taking.

Reflexive Social Control Mechanisms

One type is directed toward ourselves; it involves how we feel about us. Among these, guilt, shame and embarrassment are emotions that cause us discomfort when we break certain social rules. From a purely asocial, totally individual point of view they would be seen as bad because they cause psychic pain. One reason it is not negative is that a chaotic, normless society would be very harmful to all members including the one’s feeling these three emotions. Another reason is that, with important exceptions, the individual can generally chose not to engage in the behaviors that will cause this. Role taking, as we have seen, is not only reflexive, but anticipatory. Farberman sees these self-reflexive emotions as "taxes we pay in the currency of our own self-feelings" for membership in the social group (See Hochschield, 1979). In the numerous cases where adherence to the social order (namely the rules of right and wrong of our society) is in our own emotional self-interest, self-control is simultaneously social control and the cybernetic process works. Sociopaths to various degrees lack these three feelings and the process does not work. Then, of course, there are the positive self-reflexive emotions of pride and belongingness referred to as self-esteem. And last, the more complex emotion of vanity.

Empathetic Social Control Emotions

The other role taking emotions inadvertently giving cohesion to the society at large are the empathetic emotions. These emotions are directed toward others and are evoked by emotionally placing ourselves in the other person’s position and vicariously experiencing the feelings of, and our own feelings for, the other. These give rise to what we call altruistic behaviors.

It is often observed that social order can not exist if every member needs an external policeman to constrain behavior against his or her will. We need to want to conform to certain rules for our own reasons and self-interests. The emotions discussed above give these authentic and spontaneous, personal motivations for acting in concert with the publicly shared standards of the members society. The person only inadvertently acts to maintain social order. In this manner, Shott has argued convincingly for adding emotion to Mead’s theory of behavioral control wherein self and society are joined together as merely different sides to the process of role taking.

Distinctions between Reflexive Emotions: Embarrassment

Shott orders embarrassment, shame and guilt according to how "deeply" and profoundly they affect the individuals experiencing such feelings. Embarrassment is the most superficial, even though it can be momentarily quite painful. Embarrassment is caused by some deviation in the desired presentation of self to other people. It is about the figure we cut to others. Being concerned with public appearance more than what we really are, it strikes less deeply than the other two that have to do with our private selves. Most every one has a stock of embarrassing stories that were painful at the moment but make for interesting and humorous stories there after. One of my own stories that my classes seem to enjoy so thoroughly is as follows. One crisp fall morning I was walking down a major city street that runs through our campus. On the other side, a colleague caught my eye and being both sociably extroverted and more than mildly sentient, I looked over at her as she was talking to someone else and gave an enthusiastic wave. I remember at the time thinking, "Well, you don’t really know her that well". I had been on a short-lived committee with her. None the less, I embellished my over done wave with a resounding "hello Mary" and ran straight forth and face first into a parking meter. Faced still across the street my head reverberated with the swaying of the meter at the impact. I struggled to remain upright as I held my stung nose. Mary, of course, was laughing so hard she nearly fell into the busy street. I remember thinking as the pain swelled in my face, "Well, she could have at least said hello", but Mary was laughing too hard to say anything. HOW embarrassing! I tried to gain composure, but got into high gear to get away from the scene as soon as possible. This is a common response to embarrassment, we want to find a hole and escape the social gaze. We say, "I just wished the earth would have swallowed me up" etc. Embarrassment is social in that it is rarely that we embarrass our own selves in private. If we find our fly unzipped in the office blood does not rush to our face as it would if we were in front of a class even though we may quickly act to remedy the problem. Of course, the reddening of the face makes it even more embarrassing as our bodies are agreeing that we have been deficient. But in time embarrassment is forgotten by actor and audience. The episode with Mary has long been made irrelevant to our collegial interactions after the experience and, if I dare say so, the two of us would get a great kick out of telling the story in some amiable social occasion. In class I have little difficulty getting my students to recount embarrassing situations. Still the experience of embarrassment inadvertently upholds the broken code by causing momentary discomfort to the individual. In so doing it implies that the broken rule is important and in some real sense larger than the individual who must now pay penance in the form of distress at not meeting its demands. One such rule is that we should not be so exuberant at seeing some one we barely know that we lose all semblance of countenance and slam into inanimate objects. I think the embarrassment of my own actions was more painful than the physical hurt of the parking meter.

Shame

Few of us would be so willing to tell public accounts of behaviors that shame us. This is because shame has to do with something more serious than our outer comportment; it results from deviations from what we think of ourselves, that is, the real us. A pious minister that rages against sin and lust would be vulnerable to shame if he was found purchasing pornography in the back of a video store. What is shameful to one person may not be to another. It depends on our values and their place in what we expect of ourselves. Thus, shame can be a real clue to one’s distinctive identity (see Helen Merrill Lynd’s, 1968 classic, Shame and the Search for Identity). Granted, there are gray lines where the emotions overlap. To appear in public unclothed is a common dream and thus a common fear that would cause most people shame even though it concerns our appearance in public. Perhaps what makes it shameful is that it is such a violation of custom that to be so extremely careless implies that one does not care. Of course, in many European beaches women feel conformable going topless and in some beaches just nude. But outside of the well-defined social situation of these beaches the same people would be mortified to be publicly undressed. Studies have found this true for nudists who are usually protected from the sexual implications by strict rules that sexual behavior will bring down immediate expulsion on the violator. Young women, comfortably nude when modeling for art classes, would be likewise mortified at someone bringing up her sexual identity by making laudatory remarks about her body. One time a young woman was at my office door telling me she was such a model. We were both totally at ease. Then another student came behind her and said, "Boy I gotta get in that class!" At the very mention of her sexual identity she turned beet-red. I think I did too.

An important point about shame is how dependent it is on whom the shamed person considers significant and grants full status as an equal. If a four-year-old child walked in on our private bathroom endeavors, we may feel irritated, but not fully shamed. It has been commonly observed that women allow themselves to be seen by slaves, but would be mortified if seen by anyone else. There was a movie titled Swept Away where wealthy women on a sailing yacht took off their bras in view of the ship hands. The latter were thoroughly insulted by being treated as such non-entities. The rest of the movie was about how one plotted and finally achieved his revenge, by making himself attractive to her when they were isolated on a deserted island after a shipwreck. But he spurned her affections. Other examples of how shame depends on who has status in the eyes of the shamed person abound. I will mention two. One is the behavior of some men who are conventioneers in large cities far away form home and any one they know. Frequently in these situations of anonymity they act in ways they would not be caught dead acting at home. Another common problem is controlling the behavior of military personnel in foreign lands. This is a problem for all navies, armies and airforces regardless of the country. It seems that shameless behavior coincides with who does not count to us for whatever reason.

The importance of shame to the group is reflected in the commonly heard sanction, "Have you no shame?" To be a part of a cohesive group, even a group of murderers, one has to be capable of shame in the eyes of the group, not because they are murderers. Their shame would consist of "squealing" on another member or not having the nerve to go through with the act. Shame then, is evoked by the fact that, 1) others count to the person, 2) they consider one’s underlying self to be deficient and 3) deficient in those areas that the person considers important about who they are.

Guilt

Guilt strikes deepest in the human psyche. It is evoked when the person has committed what they consider objectively moral transgressions. Persons with little or no feelings of right and wrong have little capacity for guilt whereas morally committed people do. No one has said that these processes are fair! To be riddled by guilt is to feel that one is a moral outcaste from god and society. This can easily become no less than unbearably dreadful to the person. This emotion can occur independently of the observations and evaluations of others; it can be evoked by behaviors that only the person knows. Thus, it is not so affected by the situation as shame and embarrassment and though it stems from the breaking of serious societal mores that have been internalized, it is not so effected by others. Some sources of guilt may be implanted by super rigid parents before the person is cable of judging behavior for himself or herself. In these cases the reason for guilt may be lost to them. Embarrassment and shame are quite different since the reason for these emotions are usually all too evident to their victims who could never forget them, however they may wish to.

The person's responses to feelings of guilt are seeking atonement through painful self-sacrifice and difficult acts to balance the score. This amounts to self-punishment beyond the guilty experience proper. We seek reparation. Often the wronged person only can give this.

The Self-Reflective Emotions as Necessary for Social Theory

Our original discussion of role taking was essentially cognitive. Without taking emotions into account there would be no reason why self-control would accomplish significant social control. Role taking could be used to con and deceive as well as to accommodate. Remember that self-control is a means to the actor’s end. The ends are ours and can be anything for good or bad. Role taking does not necessarily mean empathy! This is a good example of why social theory needed to become sensitive to emotion. Mead originally meant to formulate a theory wherein self-control was at one and the same time social control. For this to happen we need the role taking emotions directed to the self and others. This adds the necessary refinement that the original theory needed.

Conclusion and Implications

Society depends on our own self-oriented emotional investment in acting in certain ways toward each other. Without at least somewhat stable relationships with others we do not develop strong capacities for guilt, shame and embarrassment. These emotions are intentional and relational. They are about our standing with others. To learn them, these others must somehow count to us. Then, if we do happen to transgress grievously against humanity in some way, we will have a self-inflicted guilt and overwhelming, voluntary desire for atonement. The anticipation of guilt keeps us from such a crime in the first place and if we do commit it we are compelled to make up for it some way within the community. No one forces us to seek private atonement – we, by our selves, must be atoned by our own actions.

Likewise, the thought of being forced externally to be embarrassed misses the whole subjective reality of embarrassment. Embarrassment comes uncontrolled and unwanted from within – some times despite our fervent prayers. The blood floods our blushing faces because our bodies, in form our circularity system, dictate it. Trembling, clammy hands, goose bumps, flushed face, startle – this is the speech of our bodies, compelling our own actions and sending heeded signals to others.

Through these emotions we have a very private stake in our public behavior. In embarrassment and shame the dualistic separation of the public and private, individual and society is collapsed. Because we care about others and only if we do, our actions to avoid these painful emotions are done for our own selves – to avoid these feelings inflicted by our bodies. Intentions to serve some external public unattached to our selves are the last thing we have on our minds. But the fact is that these emotions make societal interests into our own interests – at least they are the same in enough cases to avoid widespread anomie.

Abstract, general rules of what is right or wrong become, through the sensed body, your very own body’s right or wrong - not just god’s or the community’s - but our own personally dictated rules. These rules are authenticated, so to speak, by your emotional body. That is how deeply society penetrates, but it only does so if some other people matter to the person. We are creating wholesale armies of children that do not matter to anyone. And in return, no one matters to them, not even themselves. To different degrees they know embarrassment because it is more superficial. They can feel the embarrassment and then anger of being "dissed". Many are shameless except in some instances, and many harbor only the slightest trace of the capacity for guilt. To them the only clue they did something wrong is that they are in prison. To them wrong is very abstract. It is not felt. It is primarily just getting caught. This is a failure of socialization which, to be effective, must be embodied. Let’s reword Aristotle’s remark about the weakness of mere understanding: Cognition by it's self moves nothing.

We must socialize the body.

This is also a good example of how the enlightenment contrasts can be seen as really just different phases of the same common system. We have shown how the voluntary efforts of individuals are in the interest of the social even if this is not at all the individual’s necessary intent or conscious goal. At the same time there is plenty of room for tension as the rules of society can produce contradictions that compel persons to war against them in order to "live with themselves".

A student of mine once interviewed some young men in a detention home. They were there for hideous murders and torture. When asked if they now realized that they had done wrong, they answered, "Well, we must have done sumpthin’ or we wouldn’t be here". This response was strangely to miss the point of what they had done. It was to miss the emotional side of knowing right and wrong. The horror of what they did was missing. The realization was not there. Such is the distanced nature of cognition alone. They "must have done wrong because they were incarcerated?" The "must have" means "I guess so". This is like saying, "I guess I hate", "I guess I love". It is not to embrace emotional realization. What will happen then, when they serve their time? I’m glad my spouse doesn’t "guess" she loves me!