Socialization

Chapter 5, Macionis
 Socialization
• The lifelong
social
experience by
which people
develop their
human
potential and
learn culture
 Social Experience

• Personality
– A person’s fairly consistent patterns of thinking,
feeling, and acting
• Personality is the product of social interaction
 Nature and Nurture
• Biological sciences–The role of nature
• Elements of society have a naturalistic root.
• People are biologically disposed towards personality types
– technologically simple societies were biologically less evolved
and therefore “less human.”This ethnocentric view helped
justify colonialism
• 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

– Years of isolation left both children 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
• Eros: Life instinct; Thanatos: Death Instinct
• Developing personality
– The id: Basic drives that are unconscious and demand immediate
satisfaction (Hunger and other bodily needs)
– The ego: which is a person’s conscious efforts to balance innate
pleasure-seeking drives with the demands (I am hungry but must
wait till dinner time so that I can eat with family) (one’s desire
superseded by other’s desire)
– The superego: Culture within or internalized. superego operates
as our conscience, telling us why we cannot have everything we
want. The superego (What cultural value is forcing me to wait)
 Sigmund Freud
• Managed conflict
– Id and superego are in constant states of conflict, with the
ego balancing the two.
• Sublimation
– Culture, in the form of the superego, represses selfish
demands, forcing people to look beyond their own
desires. Often the competing demands of self and society
result in a compromise that Freud called sublimation.
Sublimation redirects selfish drives into socially
acceptable behavior. For example, marriage makes the
satisfaction of sexual urges socially acceptable, and
competitive sports are an outlet for aggression:
Contribution of Freud in Sociology

• Sociologists note Freud’s contributions.

– Internalization of social norms
– Childhood experiences have lasting effect.
 Sigmund Freud (Video Clips)
• Please watch the following clips
– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFVbZGKFgc8
– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRtItnRRV1
M
 Jean Paget
• Cognitive Development
– How people think and understand
• Stages of development
– Sensorimotor stage: Sensory contact understanding
– Preoperational stage: Use of language and other symbols
(meaning relationship base Senses) [I like clay dough]
– Concrete operational stage: Perception of causal connections
in surroundings (I like playing with clay dough because I can
make different shapes with it)
– Formal operational stage: Abstract thought and critical thought
• (I like working with my hands and shaping thing. I want to be a
sculptor)
• Please watch the following clip
 Jean Paget (Video Clip)
• Please watch the following clip
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhcgYgx7
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 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, internalize cultural/social values and considers
abstract ethical principles (freedom, justice)
 Lawrence 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
• 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–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
• Looking glass self

– As we interact with others, the

people around us become a
mirror (an object that people
used to call a “looking glass”) in
which we can see ourselves.
What we think of ourselves,
then, depends on how we think
others see us.
 Mead
• The self has 2 parts
– One part of the self operates as the subject, being
active and spontaneous. Mead called the active
side of the self the “I” (the subjective)
– The other part of the self works as an object, that
is, the way we imagine others see us. Mead called
the objective side of the self the “me” (the
objective
 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
• Complex Games
– Take on a specific role at a specific time in a game in which others are also
involved
• Generalized other (internalizing the cultural norms)
– Widespread cultural norms and values we use as a reference in evaluating
ourselves
 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
• Cultural Capital and race/class/SES
 The School
• Experience diversity
– Racial and gender clustering
• Curriculum and Hidden curriculum
– Informal, covert lessons
• First bureaucracy
– Rules and schedule
• Gender socialization begins
– From grade school through college, gender-linked
activities are encountered.
 The Peer Group
• 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.
• Socialization and Anticipatory socialization
– Practice working toward gaining desired positions
 The Mass Media
• Impersonal communications aimed at a vast audience
• Almost all lower middle class households and above
have television and cable is very cheap and affordable
(what is its effect)
– Politics and infotainment
– Dramas and life style
– Children TV and consumerism
– Mass media and violence
• Internet and another form of media called the
“SOCIAL MEDIA”
 Socialization and the life course
• Each stage of life is linked to the biological
process.
• Societies organize the life course by age (Social
expectations when one reached a certain age
group).
• Other factors shape lives: race, class, ethnicity,
and gender.
• Stages present problems and transitions that
involve learning.
 Socialization and the life course
• Stages in life course (and roles and
expectations)
– Childhood
– Adolescence
– Early Adulthood
– Adulthood
– Old age