Chapter 4 - Socialization

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Chapter 4 - Socialization

• Michael Loconte
• CollegeNow Sociology

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Introduction

• Sociologists, in general, are interested in the
  patterns of behavior and attitudes that emerge
  throughout the life course, from infancy to old
  age.
• These patterns are part of the lifelong process
  of socialization in which people learn the
  attitudes, values, and behaviors appropriate for
  members of a particular culture.
• This occurs through human interaction.
• Socialization helps us discover how to behave
  properly and what to expect from others if we
  follow (or challenge) society's norms and values

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Discuss

• Has anyone witnessed this in effect? What have
  you learned about certain cultures through
  conversation, or other human interaction?

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Self-Image

• Socialization also helps shape our self-image.
• Experiences help to shape our personalities.
• Personality is a person's typical patterns of
  attitudes, needs, characteristics, and behavior.
• The question always remains How much of a
  person's personality is shaped by culture as
  opposed to inborn traits?

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Nurture

• Nurture is an important part of shaping
  personality.
• Children given minimal attention as children may
  become fearful of human contact and prone to
  unpredictable antisocial behavior.
• Experiments are preformed on primates, testing
  the effect of isolation on behavior.
• Isolated monkeys were fearful and easily
  frightened, did not mate, and when artificially
  impregnated, became abusive parents.
• Another set of monkeys were given artificial
  mothers, which consisted of two sets of
  mothers. One was made of wire, but had food.
  The other was merely a piece of cloth. All of the
  monkeys took food from the wire mother, and spent
  most of their time clinging to the cloth mother.

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Nature

• Both genetic factors and socialization
  experiences are influential in human development.
• Certain factors seem to be hereditary and others
  seem to be learned or gained through social
  contact.
• A pair of identical twins were separated at birth
  and raised in households where they were taught
  completely different ideals. However, when they
  reunited, they learned that they had a lot in
  common. They also learned that there were
  differences, and most of those came about based
  upon the way they were raised.
• These twins similarities and differences were the
  result of nature and nurture, respectively.

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The Self

• The self emerges as we interact with others.
• The self is an identity that sets us apart from
  others. It is not a static phenomenon that sets
  is apart from others.
• The self is shaped by experiences, both good and
  bad.
• The work of Sociologists Charles Horton Cooley
  and George Herbert Mead, both worked to
  understand the formation of the self.

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Discuss

• What events in your life have had a strong
  influence on who you are?

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Cooley Looking-Glass Self

• He used the phrase looking-glass self to
  emphasize that the self is the product of social
  interactions.
• The process of developing a self identity or
  self-concept has three phases
• We imagine how we present ourselves to others.
• We imagine how others evaluate ourselves.
• We develop some sort of feeling about ourselves
  as a result of these impressions.
• A critical point of Cooley's looking-glass self
  is that the self results from an individual's
  imagination of how others view him or her.
• As a result, we can develop self-identities based
  on incorrect perceptions of how others see us.

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Mead Stages of the Self

• George Herbert Mead developed a useful model of
  the process by which the self emerges, defined by
  three stages
• The Preparatory Stage- Children imitate the
  people around them, especially family members
  with whom they continually interact.
• The Play Stage- As children develop skill in
  communicating through symbols, they gradually
  become more and more aware of social
  relationships and begin role taking. Children
  pretend to be other people.
• The Game Stage- Children no longer just plays
  roles, but begins to consider several tasks and
  relationships. Children grasp not only their own
  social positions but also those of others around
  them.

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Mead's Theory of the Self

• He says that the self begins at a privileged,
  central position in a person's world.
• Young children picture themselves as the focus of
  everything around them and find it difficult to
  consider the perspectives of others.
• As maturity is reached, the self changes and
  begins to reflect greater concern about the
  reactions of others.
• The term significant others is used to refer to
  those individuals who are most important in the
  development in the self, whether that be positive
  or negative.

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Goffman's Presentation of the Self

• Erving Goffman suggested that many of our daily
  activities involve attempts to convey impressions
  of who we are.
• Early in life, the individual learns to slant his
  or her presentation of the self in order to
  create distinctive appearances and satisfy
  particular audiences, which he called impression
  management.
• Goffman makes so many explicit parallels to the
  theater that his view has been termed the
  dramaturgical approach.
• According to his perspective, people are like
  performers in action.
• Goffman also made note of another aspect of the
  self- face-work.
• We feel the need to maintain a proper image of
  the self if we are to continue social
  interaction.
• This face is essentially our appearance to
  everyone around them, and more over, to ourselves.

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Discuss

• How far would you go to maintain your
  face-work? Examples?

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Psychological Approaches to the Self

• Psychologists have also shared interest in the
  development of the self.
• These psychologists include Sigmund Freud and
  Jean Piaget.

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Sigmund Freud

• Freud stressed the role of inborn drives in
  channeling human behavior.
• Freud also believed that the self is a social
  product, and that aspects of one's personality
  are influenced by other people.
• He also said that our natural impulsive instincts
  are in constant conflict with societal
  constraints. Part of us seeks limitless pleasure,
  while another part favors rational behavior.
• By interacting with others, we learn the
  expectations of society then select behavior most
  appropriate to our own culture.

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Jean Piaget

• Piaget underscored the importance of social
  interactions in developing a sense of self.
• He developed the Cognitive Theory of Development,
  which identified four stages in the development
  of the thought process
• The sensorimotor stage- Young children use their
  senses to make discoveries
• The preoperational stage- Children begin to use
  words and symbols to distinguish objects and
  ideas.
• The concrete operational stage- Children engage
  in more logical thinking
• The formal operational stage- Adolescents become
  capable of sophisticated abstract thought.

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The Life Course

• Different cultures each have different ways of
  celebrating rites of passage.
• This is a means of dramatizing and validating
  changes in a person's status.
• These specific ceremonies mark stages of
  development in the life course. They indicate
  that the process of socialization continues
  through all stages of the life cycle.
• Sociologists and other social scientists who take
  such a life course approach look closely at the
  social factors that influence people throughout
  their lives, from birth to death, including
  gender and income.

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Discuss

• What Rites of Passage have you undergone
  throughout your life?

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Anticipatory Socialization and Resocialization

• Two types of socialization occur at many points
  throughout the life course anticipatory
  socialization and resocialization.
• Anticipatory Socialization- Refers to processes
  of socialization in which a person prepares for
  future positions, occupations, and social
  relationships.
• Resocialization- Refers to the process of
  discarding former behavior patterns and accepting
  new ones as a part of a transition in one's life.
• This is particularly effective when it occurs
  within a total institution, a term coined by
  Goffman, which refers to an institution that
  governs all aspects of a person's life under a
  single authority, like a prison. People often
  lose their individuality within total
  institutions. People entering them may experience
  a degradation ceremony.

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Agents of Socialization

• There are many agents of socialization.
• The most important of these is family.
• There are also many other agents, such as
  cultural influences, race, gender, school, peer
  groups, mass media, technology, the workplace,
  Religion, and the Government.
• Each one of these things plays a large role in
  the socialization process in their own way and
  influence our lives and alter our self-images.

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End

• By Michael Loconte