CHAPTER 5 Socialization
➔ Years of isolation left both children
What Is Socialization?
Socialization
➔ lifelong social experience by which
people develop their human
potential and learn culture.
Social Experience
Socialization
➔ The lifelong social experience by
which individuals develop their
human potential and learn patterns
of their culture
Personality
● A person’s fairly consistent patterns
of thinking, feeling, and acting
➔ Could a person’s personality
develop without social
interaction?
Nature and Nurture
• Biological sciences
➔ The role of nature
➔ Elements of society have a
naturalistic root.
• Social sciences- ​The role of nurture
➔ Most of who and what we are as a
species is learned, or social in
nature.
➔ Behaviorism
• Nature or nurture?
➔ It is both, but from a sociological
perspective, nurture matters more.
Social Isolation
Effect on nonhuman primates: Harlows’
experiments
➔ Six months of complete isolation
was enough to disturb development.
Effect on children: Anna and Isabelle
damaged and only capable of
approximating a normal life after
intensive rehabilitation.
➔ Genie
➔ Somewhat less isolated, but suffered
permanent disabilities
Sigmund Freud
Elements of Personality
● Basic human needs: Eros and
thanatos as opposing forces
● Developing personality
◆ The id:​ Basic drives
◆ The ego: ​Efforts to achieve
balance
◆ The superego:​ Culture
within
● Managed conflict
➔ Id and superego are in
constant states of conflict,
with the ego balancing the
two.
Critical Evaluation of Freud
● Studies reflect gender bias.
● Influences the study of personality
● Sociologists note Freud’s
contributions.
➔ Internalization of social
norms
➔ Childhood experiences have
lasting affect.
Jean Piaget
Cognitive Development
Cognition
➔ How people think and understand
Stages of development
● Sensorimotor stage:​ Sensory
contact understanding
● Preoperational stage:​ Use of
language and other symbols
● Concrete operational stage:
Perception of causal connections
in surroundings
● Formal operational stage:
Abstract, critical thinking
Critical Evaluation of Piaget
● Differed from Freud, viewing the
mind as active and creative.
● Cognitive stages are the result of
biological maturation and social
experience.
● Do people in all societies pass
through Piaget’s four stages?
Lawrence Kohlberg
Moral Development
● Moral reasoning​ – The ways in
which individuals judge situations as
right or wrong
● Preconventional ​– Young children
experience the world as pain or
● pleasure
● Conventional ​– Teens lose
selfishness as they learn to define
right and wrong in terms of what
pleases parents and conforms to
cultural norms.
● Postconventional ​– Final stage,
considers abstract ethical principles
Critical Evaluation of
Kohlberg
● Like Piaget, viewed moral
development as stages
● Many people don ’t reach the final
stage.
● Research limited to boys,
generalized to population
Carol Gilligan Gender Factor
➔ Compared moral reasoning of girls
and boys
Carol Gilligan Gender Factor
➔ Compared moral reasoning of girls
and boys
• ​Boys develop a justice perspective.
➔ Formal rules define right and wrong.
•​ Girls develop a care-and-responsibility
perspective.
➔ Personal relationships define
reasoning.
•​ Critical evaluation
➔ Cultural conditioning accounted for
the differences.
➔ Male and female morals will
probably become more similar as
more women enter the workplace.
George Herbert Mead
Social Self
Self–​The part of an individual’s personality
composed of self-awareness and self-image
1. Self develops only from social
interaction.
2. Social experience is the exchange of
symbols
3. Understanding intention requires
imagining the situation from the
other’s point of view.
4. By taking the role of the other, we
become self- aware.
Mead
• Cooley’s looking-glass self
➔ A self- image based on how we think
others see us
• The I and Me: ​The self has two parts.
 ➔ Active side of the self is “I”
➔ Objective side of the self is “me”
Mead Development of Self
• Imitation
➔ Infants mimic behavior without
understanding intentions.
• Play
➔ Taking the roles of significant others
• Games
➔ Taking the roles of several others at
once
• Generalized other
– Widespread cultural norms and values we
use as a reference in evaluating ourselves
Critical Evaluation of Mead
● Mead found the root of both self and
society in symbolic interaction.
● Critics: Mead doesn’t allow biological
elements.
MEAD FREUD
I and Me Id and superego
Eric H. Erickson
Eight stages of development
Challenges throughout the life course
Stage 1 - Infancy: trust
➔ (Versus mistrust)
Stage 2 - Toddlerhood: autonomy
➔ (versus doubt and shame)
Stage 3 - Preschool: Initiative
➔ (versus guilt)
Stage 4 -
Preadolescence:​Industriousness
➔ (versus inferiority)
Stage 5 - Adolescence: Gaining identity
➔ (versus confusion)
Stage 6 - Young adulthood: Intimacy
➔ (versus isolation)
Stage 7 - Middle adulthood: Making a
difference
➔ (versus self-absorption)
Stage 8 - Old age: Integrity
➔ (versus despair)
Critical Evaluation of Erickson
➔ This theory views personality as a
lifelong process and success at one
stage prepares us for the next
challenge.
• Critics: ​Not everyone confronts the
challenges in the same order.
• ​Not clear if failure to meet one challenge
predicts failure in other stages
• ​Do other cultures share Erickson’s
definition of successful life?
Agents of Socialization
● The Family
● The School
● The Peer Group
● The Mass Media
The Family
• Most important agent
➔ A loving family produces a happy
well-adjusted child.
• Parental attention is very important
➔ Bonding and encouragement
• Household environment
➔ Stimulates development
• Social position
➔ – Race, religion, ethnicity, class
The School
• Experience diversity
➔ Racial and gender clustering
• Hidden curriculum
➔ Informal, covert lessons
• First bureaucracy
➔ Rules and schedule
• Gender socialization begins
➔ From grade school through college,
gender- linked activities are
encountered.
Peer Groups
➔ A social group whose members
have interests, social position and
age in common
• Developing sense of self that goes beyond
the family
• Young and old attitudes and the
“generation gap”
• Peers often govern short-term goals while
parents influence long-term plans.
• Anticipatory socialization
➔ Practice working toward gaining
desired positions
The Mass Media
➔ Impersonal communications aimed
at a vast audience
• Televisions in the United States
– 98% of households have at least one TV.
– Two-thirds of households have cable or
satellite.
• Hours of viewing television
– Average household = 7 hours per day
– Almost half of individuals’ free time
– Children average 5 1⁄2 hours per day.
➔ Television, videotapes, video games
Criticisms About Programming
•​ Some concerns about race and gender
inequality in representation
•​ Some conservative concerns about
advancing liberal causes–“politically
correct”
•​ Violence in mass media
➔ A 1998 survey: Two-thirds of TV
programming contains violence;
characters show no remorse and
aren’t punished.
➔ In 1997, the television industry
adopted a rating system.
Socialization and Life Course
•​ Each stage of life is linked to the biological
process.
• ​Societies organize the life course by age.
• ​Other factors shape lives: race, class,
ethnicity, and gender.
• ​Stages present problems and transitions
that involve learning.
The Life Course
• Childhood (birth through 12)
➔ The “hurried child”
• Adolescence (the teenage years)
➔ Turmoil attributed to cultural
inconsistencies.
• Adulthood
➔ Early: 20-40, conflicting priorities
➔ Middle: 40-60, concerns over health,
career and family
• Old age (mid-60s and older)
➔ More seniors than teenagers
➔ Less anti-elderly bias
➔ Role exiting
Dying
• ​85% of Americans die after age 55.
• ​Elisabeth Kübler-Ross stages of dying
➔ Denial
➔ Anger
➔ Negotiation
➔ Resignation
➔ Acceptance
Total Institutions
➔ A setting in which people are
isolated from the rest of society and
manipulated by an administrative
staff.
Erving Goffman
● Staff supervises all daily life
activities
● Environment is standardized.
● Formal rules and daily schedules
Resocialization
➔ Efforts to radically change an
inmate’s personality by carefully
controlling the environment
• ​Staff breaks down identity.
➔ Goffman: “Abasements,
degradations, humiliations, and
profanations of self”
➔ Staff rebuilds personality using
rewards and punishments.
•​ Total institutions affect people in different
ways.
➔ Some develop an institutionalized
personality.
Are We Free Within Society?
• Society shapes how we think, feel and
act.
• If this is so, then in what sense are we
free?
• ​Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a
small group of thoughtful, committed
citizens can change the world, indeed, it
is the only thing that ever has.”
Social Interaction In Everyday Life
➔ The process by which people act
and react in relation to others
Social Interaction
● The symbolic interaction paradigm
● Humans rely on social structure to
make sense out of everyday
situations.
Status
➔ A social position that a person holds
• Status set
➔ All the statuses held at one time
● Dance partner
● Boss
● Friend
● Harley club member
● Sports participant
● Business manager
Type of Status
• ​Ascribed: Involuntary positions
• Achieved: Voluntary positions
Often the two types work together. What
we’re ascribed often helps us achieve other
statuses.
•​ Master status​:​ Has special
importance for social identity, often
shaping a person’s entire life.
Role
➔ The behavior expected of someone
who holds a particular status
• Role set
– ​A number of roles attached to a single
status
– Example: status of mother
• Disciplinarian
• Sports authority
• Dietitian
• Dr. Mom
• Pretty mom
Role Conflict and Role Strain
• Role conflict
– ​Involves two or more statuses
• Example: Conflict between role
expectations of a police officer who
catches her own son using drugs at
home–mother and police officer
• Role strain
– ​Involves a single status
• Example: Manager who tries to
balance concern for workers with
task requirements– office manager
Role Exit
•​ Role exit: Becoming an “ex”
➔ Disengaging from social roles can
be very traumatic without proper
preparation.
• The process of becoming an “ex”
➔ Doubts form about ability to continue
with a certain role.
➔ Examination of new roles leads to a
turning point at which time one
decides to pursue a new direction.
➔ Learning new expectations
associated with new role.
➔ Past role might influence new self.
The Social Construction of Reality
➔ The process by which people
creatively shape reality through
social interaction.
➔ “Street smarts”
• The Thomas theorem –
➔ Situations that are defined as real
are real in their consequences
• Ethnomethodology
➔ The study of the way people make
sense of their everyday
surroundings
➔ Explores the process of making
sense of social encounters
Reality Building: Class and Culture
● How we act or what we see in our
surroundings depends on our
interests.
● Social background also affects what
we see.
● People build reality from the
surrounding culture.
Goffman’s Dramaturgical Analysis
➔ Examining social interaction in
terms of theatrical performances
• Presentation of self ​or impression
management
➔ Efforts to create specific impressions
in the minds of others.
• Role performance includes
➔ Stage setting
➔ Use of props: costume, tone of
voice, gesture
➔ Example: Going to the doctor and
playing the expected patient role.
Nonverbal Communication
➔ Communication using body
movements, gestures, and facial
expressions rather than speech
• Words
• Voice
• Body language
• Facial expressions
• Demeanor
• Personal space
Goffman and idealization: We try to
convince others that what we do reflects
ideal cultural standards rather than
selfish motives.
Gender and Performances
● Gender is a central element in
personal performances.
• ​Demeanor
➔ The way we act and carry ourselves
•​ Use of space
➔ Power plays a key role.
•​ Staring, smiling, touching
➔ Eye contact encourages interaction.
➔ Smiling: Trying to please or
submission?
➔ Touching: Intimacy and caring
Idealization
• We construct performances to
idealize our intentions.
•​ Professionals typically idealize their
motives for entering their chosen
careers.
• ​We all use idealization to some
degree.
Embarrassment and Tact
➔ Embarrassment: Discomfort
following a spoiled performance.
● Goffman: Embarrassment is "losing
face."
● Tact is helping someone "save
face."
● An audience often overlooks flaws in
a performance, allowing the actor to
avoid embarrassment.
● Goffman: Although behavior is often
● spontaneous, it is more patterned
than we think.
Emotions: The Social Construction of
Feeling
• ​The biological side of emotions
– Ekman: Some emotional responses are
“wired” into humans.
• The cultural side of emotions
– Ekman: Culture defines what triggers an
emotion.
• Emotions on the job
– Hochschild: The typical company tries to
regulate not only its employees’ behavior,
but also their emotions.
Gender and Language
➔ Language communicates not only
surface reality, but also deeper
levels of meaning.
• Power and Value
➔ ​Female pronouns and ownership
➔ Women often adopt the husband’s
➔ surname.
➔ Traditionally feminine terms are
more likely to change to negative
meanings than masculine terms.
Humor
• Humor is unconventional.
➔ It’s a violation of cultural norms.
• ​Humor is tied to a common culture and
doesn’t translate easily.
➔ “Not getting it” means a person
doesn’t understand a joke’s
conventional and unconventional
realities.
• ​Humor acts as a safety valve by
expressing opinions on a sensitive topic.
• ​Humor and conflict
➔ “Put down” with jokes about race,
sex, gender, and the disabled