The sociology of human consciousness or the sociology of consciousness uses the theories and methodology of sociology to explore and examine consciousness.
Overview The foundations of this work may be traced to philosopher and sociologist George Herbert Mead, whose work provided major insights into the formation of mind, concepts of self and other, and the internalization of society in individual social beings, viewing these as emerging out of human interaction and communication. Recent work brings such a sociological and social psychological perspective to bear on several key aspects of consciousness, and in doing so inverts explanation: starting from collective phenomena, one ends up analyzing individual consciousness. In making this inversion, they do not totally reject reductionist approaches—nor deny their value in identifying the "hardware" through which collective and social psychological processes operate. However, they would reject the idea that a complete explanation can be formulated on the basis of either purely sociological mechanisms or underlying physical, chemical, neurological, hormonal, or psychological factors and processes. For a critique of reductionism from the perspective of modern physics and biology see Morowitz (1981). The biological and bio-physical bases of human life are recognized. However, these approaches cannot be relied on entirely. In part, the level of analysis is misdirected when it comes to some classes of consciousness phenomena; most of the natural science approaches focus on the wrong levels and the wrong factors with which to explain some of the most mysterious and paradoxical features of human consciousness.
Theory The sociological approach emphasizes the importance of language, collective representations, self-conceptions, and self-reflectivity. This theoretical approach argues that the shape and feel of human consciousness is heavily social, and this is no less true of our experiences of "collective consciousness" than it is of our experiences of individual consciousness. The theory suggests that the problem of consciousness can be approached fruitfully by beginning with the human group and collective phenomena: community, language, language-based communication, institutional, and cultural arrangements. A collective is a group or population of individuals that possesses or develops through communication collective representations or models of "we" as opposed to "them": a group, community, organization, or nation is contrasted to "other"; its values and goals, its structure and modes of operating, its relation to its environment and other agents, its potentialities and weaknesses, strategies and developments, and so on. A collective has the capacity in its collective representations and communications about what characterizes it, or what (and how) this self perceives, judges, or does, or what it can (and cannot) do, or should do (or should not do). It monitors its activities, its achievements and failures, and also to a greater or lesser extent, analyzes and discusses itself as a defined and developing collective agent. This is what is meant by self-reflectivity. Such reflectivity is encoded in language and developed in conversations about collective selves (as we discuss below, there are also conversations about the selves of individuals, defining, justifying, and stigmatizing them).
Human consciousness as a reflective activity Human consciousness in at least one major sense is a type of reflective activity. It entails the capacity to observe, monitor, judge, and decide about the collective self. This is a basis for maintaining a particular collective as it is understood or represented; it is a basis for re-orienting and re-organizing the collective self in response to performance failings or profound crisis (economic, political, cultural). Collective reflectivity emerges then as a function of a group or organization producing and making use of collective representations of the self in its discussions, critical reflections, planning, and actions.
Individual consciousness Individual consciousness is the normal outcome of processes of collective naming, classifying, monitoring, judging, and reflecting on the individual members of the group or organization. And an individual in a collective context learns to participate in discussions and discourses about "themself", that is, group reflections on themself, their appearance, their orientations and attitudes, their strategies and conduct. Thus, an individual learns (in line with George Herbert Mead's earlier formulations) a naming and classification of themself (self-description and identity) and a characterization of their judgments, actions, and predispositions. In acquiring a language and conceptual framework for this mode of activity along with experience and skills in reflective discussion they develop a capability of inner reflection and inner dialog about themself. These are characteristic features of a particular type of individual "consciousness". This conception points up the socially constructed character of key properties of the human mind, realized through processes of social interaction and social construction. In sum, individual self-representation, self-reference, self-reflectivity, and experiences of consciousness, derive from the collective experience.
Construction of selves through reflectivity Self-reflectivity as a type of consciousness often facilitates critical examination and re-construction of selves, collective as well as individual. This plays an essential role in human communities (as well as individual beings) in the face of systematic or highly risky performance failures or new types of problems. Through self-reflection, agents may manage in the course of directed problem-solving to develop more effective institutional arrangements, for instance, large-scale means of social coordination such as administration, democratic association, or markets.
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