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Sociology

The study of human society - how people organize themselves into groups, institutions, and cultures, and how structures shape behavior, beliefs, and relationships.

George Herbert Maed (1863 - 1931)

“The Self is not Innate - It’s Social”

THE “I”

the spontaneous, impulsive, creative part of the self. It's the subjective, in-the-moment response to a situation — unpredictable and not fully governed by social rules.

THE “ME”

the socialized part of the self, made up of the internalized attitudes, expectations, and viewpoints of others. It's how you see yourself as an object, through society's eyes. The "me" is essentially the accumulated sense of "what will others think of this?"

Preparatory Stage

infants imitate the people around them without real understanding of the meaning behind actions (e.g., a toddler pretending to “read” a book).

Play Stage

Children begin role - taking in a limited way, taking on the perspective of one specific other at a time - like playing “mommy” or “doctor”. They can only take one role at a time and switch between them.

Game Stage

Children learn to consider multiple roles simultaneously and understand how those roles relate to one another — like understanding all the positions on a sports team and how their own role fits into the larger whole. This is where the concept of the generalized other emerges.

Generalized other

They are able to imagine how they are viewed by one or many. Maed pointed that the “self” in this stage is being developed

EMILE DURKHEIM (1858 - 1917)

HOMO-DUPLEX (DOUBLE MAN) THEORY

The Individual Being

Our biological, physical existence: our body, our sensory experiences, our private appetites and desires. This part of us is tied purely to our organism and our personal, egoistic drives.

The Social Being

The part of us made up of ideas, morals, beliefs, and sentiments that we didn't invent ourselves but absorbed from society. This includes language, religious beliefs, moral values, logical categories of thought, and a sense of duty — all of which come from the collective, not the individual.

ANOMIE

A state of normlessness that occurs when social regulation breaks down

The Cult of Individual

modern societies increasingly develop a collective moral reverence for individual rights, dignity, and personal autonomy

ALBERT BANDURA

(1925 - 2021)

founder of social cognitive theory (social learning theory). But his work sits right at the boundary between psychology and sociology, since his whole theory is about how the self and behavior are shaped through social processes - observation, modeling, and interaction with others.

Self Efficiency Theory

Mastery experiences, Vicarious experiences, Social persuasion, Physiological/emotional states

Mastery Experience

succeeding at something builds belief you can do it again

Social Persuasion

others encouraging/believing in you

Physiological/emotional states

how your body and emotions signal confidence or anxiety in the moment

Karl Marx(1818 - 1883)

The Self is not Separate from Material Conditions (Alienation or Damaged Self)

Alienation from the product of labor

Workers don't own or control what they produce. A factory worker who builds cars will never own the car they helped make, and has no say in what happens to it. The product becomes something foreign to the person who created it, even though it came from their own labor.

Alienation from the process of labor (the act of production)

Work under capitalism isn't freely chosen or creative; it's forced, repetitive, and controlled by someone else (the employer) for someone else's profit. Instead of work being a fulfilling expression of the self, it becomes something purely instrumental — a means to a paycheck, not an expression of who you are.

Alienation from one’s species - being

Because work is no longer free, creative, and self-directed, workers lose touch with what Marx saw as their essential human nature (the capacity for free creative labor described above). Work stops feeling like a human activity and starts feeling like something closer to what an animal does — laboring purely for survival, not self-realization.

Alienation from other people

Because capitalism puts workers into competition with each other (for jobs, wages, promotions) and divides people into classes with opposing interests (owners vs. workers), it damages genuine human solidarity and connection. Relationships become mediated by economic self-interest rather than authentic human connection.

The Self

The "true self" (the species-being) is something that's actively suppressed by the economic structure of capitalist society, not something naturally expressed within it.

Class in itself

objectively sharing the same economic position (e.g., all wage laborers), without necessarily being aware of it as a shared identity

Class for itself

workers becoming conscious of their shared position and collective interests, forming a group identity and political solidarity around it

MAX WEBER (1864 - 1920)

The Self is not formed in isolation, it is through social action.

IMPORTANCE TO THE SELF

It shapes our identity.

It gives meaning to our actions

It influences how we see ourselves.

It helps us understand our social roles.

INSTRUMENTAL - RATIONAL

ACTION (ZWECKRATIONAL)

TYPES OF SOCIAL ACTION: Action based on calculated, means-end

reasoning. A person decides on a goal and rationally chooses the most efficient

means to achieve it.

VALUE - RATIONAL ACTION (WERTRATIONAL)

TYPES OF SOCIAL ACTION: Action driven by a conscious belief in

the inherent value of the act itself, regardless of outcome.

AFFECTIVE/ EMOTIONAL ACTION

TYPES OF SOCIAL ACTION: Action driven by emotions and feelings

in the moment

TRADITIONAL ACTION

TYPES OF SOCIAL ACTION: Action driven by ingrained habit or

custom, done simply because "this is how it's always been done"

LEWIS MORGAN

He is often called the father of anthropology. He is best known for his

theory of “social evolution”

SAVAGERY

Three Stages of Social Evolution: It is characterized by people living as hunter-gatherers, with very

simple technology and subsistence based on foraging, fishing, and hunting — no agriculture, no domesticated animals (beyond perhaps early use of fire).

Lower Savagery

Began with the earliest humans, relying on a subsistence of fruits and nuts in tropical or subtropical forests.

Middle Savagery

Began with the acquisition of a fish diet and the discovery of controlled fire.

Upper Savagery

Began with the invention of the bow and arrow, which made hunting a regular source of food

BARBARISM

Three Stages of Social Evolution: This stage is marked by the emergence of agriculture, pottery, and

animal domestication — humans begin actively producing food rather than just gathering or hunting it, allowing for more stable, larger communities.

Lower Barbarism

Pottery

Middle Barbarism

Agriculture and domestication

Upper Barbarism

Iron tools

CIVILIZATION

Three Stages of Social Evolution: Civilization is the stage where human society becomes highly developed and organized, especially through the invention of writing and the growth of complex institutions.

MARCEL MAUSS

THE SELF AND CULTURE: He said that every self has two faces: personne and

moi.

MOI

is refer to a person’s sense of who he is.

PERSONNE

has much to do with what it means to live in a particular institution, a particular family, particular

region, particular nationality, and how to behave given expectations and influences from others.

CHARLES COOLEY

He pioneered one of the most prominent Sociological perspectives of the self. He asserted

that individuals develop their concept of self by looking at how others perceive them, hence,

coined his theory as “The Looking Glass Self” (1902).

Imagination of our appearance to others

We imagine how we appear to another person — our behavior, mannerism, appearance, character, etc.

Imagination of their judgement

We imagine how that person judges out appearance— whether they see us intelligent, awkward, attractive, foolish, kind, and so on.

Self-feeling based on that imagined judgement

Based on this imagined judgement, we develop an emotional response about ourselves — pride, shame, embarrassment, confidence etc.

Alfred Adler

viewed the self as a creative, goal-oriented, and whole system rather than a product of past trauma

ROHRER, EGLOFF AND SCHMUKLE (2020)

Birth - order position seems to have only a small impact

on who we become.

B.F. SKINNER

The Self is an organized system of responses— OPERANT

CONDITIONING

REINFORCEMENT

anything that increases behavior

POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT

adding something pleasant to increase a behavior (e.g., praising a

student for participating, so they participate more).

NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT

removing something unpleasant to increase a behavior (e.g., turning off

an annoying alarm when you put on your seatbelt, making you more

likely to buckle up next time).

PUNISHMENT

anything that decreases behavior

POSITIVE PUNISHMENT

adding something unpleasant to decrease a behavior (e.g., a scolding

after misbehavior).

NEGATIVE PUNISHMENT

removing something pleasant to decrease a behavior (e.g., taking away phone privileges).

DIANA BAUMRIND

The self is a product of parenting style

THE PARENTING STYLES: Demandingness

the degree to which parents set rules, expectations, and

control behavior.

THE PARENTING STYLES: Responsiveness

the degree to which parents are warm, supportive, and

attuned to their child's needs.

AUTHORITATIVE PARENTING

High demandingness + high responsiveness— The result of this style - considered the “ideal” outcome - well-adjusted, competent, confident children.

Parents set clear rules and expectations but are also warm, explain

their reasoning, and listen to their child's input.

AUTHORITARIAN PARENTING

High demandingness + low responsiveness— Children tend to be well-behaved on the surface but emotionally suppressed or insecure underneath.

Parents enforce strict rules with little explanation, expecting

obedience without question ("Because I said so").

PERMISSIVE PARENTING

Low demandingness + high responsiveness—Children are often happy and confident, but lack discipline, responsibility, and the ability to handle

frustration.

Parents are warm and loving but set few rules or consequences,

often acting more like a friend than an authority figure.

UNINVOLVED PARENTING

Low demandingness + low responsiveness— Considered the most harmful style — children often feel unimportant, unsupported, and struggle across nearly every developmental domain.

Parents are emotionally detached, provide little guidance, and may

be neglectful of the child's needs.