The Development of Self Comparison Essay by Peter Pen

This paper explains that, while Sigmund Freud and George Herbert Mead created distinct theories on how humans develop a sense of self-identity, they shared some common ideas about how personality is formed. The author points out that Freud and Mead both stressed the importance of self-development through relationships: Freud felt that the relationship with siblings and parents were most important; whereas, Mead felt that the sense of self slowly evolved throughout a lifetime with diverse social interactions being integrated into the self. The paper relates that, like Freud, Mead developed stages of self-development; however, unlike Fraud, these stages did not create conflict within oneself.