CP2: SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF SELF

PETER BERGER AND THOMAS LUCKMANN

PETER BERGER AND THOMAS LUCKMANN

They authored The Social Construction of Reality. In this book, they stressed that society is made through “habitualization”. According to them, society is a habit.

HABITUALIZATION

happens when an action that is repeated often becomes cast into a pattern. This act then is done again in the future in the same manner and with the same economical effort. sees society as something that was already created before us.

Thomas theorem

“If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences”. This means that people can be subjective in their construction of reality despite the objective reality.

A student who is often called or labeled as slow, stupid, or hard-headed might live up to those words even though those are not part of his or her character.

ROBERT K. MERTON

Self-fulfilling Prophecy. This means that even a false idea can become true. Merton used the idea of a “bank run” to explain it. Imagine that, for some reason, depositors of a bank falsely feared that their bank is soon to be bankrupt. Because of that they eventually decided to pull out their money thus fulfilling the false prophecy. This shows that, indeed, the reality is constructed by an idea.

Roles

are patterns of behavior that we identify in others that represent their social status.

Status

is the responsibilities and benefits a person experiences based on their rank and role in society.

ROLE STRAIN

This happens when there is too much required from a single role. An example is being a student. A student is also a son or daughter, a friend, a sibling, etc.

ROLE CONFLICT

This happens when one or more roles are contradictory. An example is a working mom. When she misses a school event of her child, she is deemed as a bad mother. But when she misses a day of work for her child, she is deemed as a bad employee.

ROLE PERFORMANCE

how individuals express their roles.

ERVING GOFFMAN

stated that people are like actors on a stage. His theory, called dramaturgy, states that people use “impression management” to present their selves to others as they hope to be perceived. Each situation is a different scene and people play different roles depending on who is there.

CHARLES COOLEY

Looking-glass Self. Cooley said that we base our image on what we think other people see. He believes that we based our sense of self on the imagined perception of us of others and how they would react to us. He concluded that people’s reaction to us is like a mirror in which we are reflected.

George Herbert Mead THEORIES ON HOW WE SOCIALIZE

the self is a person’s distinct identity and it is developed through social interactions. Mead said that an individual has to be able to view himself or herself through the eyes of others.

The first stage is imitation

During this stage, children

copy the actions of the the people surrounding them.

The last stage is called the generalized other

This is where individuals can imagine how they are viewed by

one or others.

Lawrence Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development

Moral development is crucial for socialization. It refers to the way people distinguish the good and bad in society. Moral development prevents people from doing uncheckedurges. states that people undergothree levels of moral development: pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional

Pre-conventional stage

children experience the world around them through their senses.

Conventional stage

When they grow a bit, they become more aware of others’ feelings and consider those when weighing what’s right or wrong.

Post-conventional stage

people begin to think of morality in abstract terms. They realized that legality does not equate to morality.

Carol Gilligan

Boys tend to highlight rules and laws. They have more of a

justice perspective. While girls have a care and responsibility

perspective. That is why they tend to consider people’s

reasons for their wrong actions.

GROUP AGENT

Under this category are family

and peer groups. These groups are the people’s

first teachers of culture, beliefs, and values of

society.

INSTITUTIONAL AGENTS

These are further divided into two, formal and informal.

Formal social institutions

are schools, workplaces, and the

government. They teach people to behave in a certain way and how

to navigate in society.

Informal social institutions

An example is mass media. Media

contributes to socialization by flooding us with messages about

norms and expectations.