What is the generalized other? What is its purpose?
I’ve heard it used a few other ways, but here’s what I know as the first usage and meaning: In the 1930s, a man named Mead defined the term “generalized other” as a person’s expectations and beliefs about how he/she, certain actions, choices about physical appearance, etc.–would appear to his/her society in general. So the generalized other is the idea about what society thinks that the person has developed in his/her mind. Mead felt this generalized other linked each person to his/her society because it made a construct of society’s perceived reactions to whatever the person did, forcing him/her to think about what the “generalized other,” his/her image of others in general would do in response to practically everything that went through his mind. He also pointed out that even if an act is totally private, the reason we still worry about what our peers would think even though they will never know is that the generalized other is a part of our whole thought process in terms of judging
