Socialization & Life Course – Quick Review

Socialization Basics

• Lifelong process where individuals develop human potential & internalize culture
• Key terms:
  • Personality: consistent patterns of thinking, feeling, acting
  • Self: personal dimension emerging through social experience
  • Enculturation / Cultural transmission: passing culture across generations
  • Hardwiring vs. social influence: heredity interacts with environment (e.g., Isabelle, Genie, primate studies)

Looking-Glass Self (Cooley)

• We imagine our appearance to others
• We imagine their judgment of that appearance
• Self-image forms from these perceived judgments

Stages of Self (Mead)

• 1 Preparatory: imitation only
• 2 Play: role-taking of significant others
• 3 Game: understand multiple roles & generalized other

Dramaturgy (Goffman)

• Impression management: control cues to shape audience perception
• Face-work: repair & maintain desired self-image

Personality Structure (Freud)

• Id: innate, pleasure-seeking drives
• Ego: rational mediator between id & society
• Superego: internalized cultural norms & morals

Cognitive Development (Piaget)

• 1 Sensorimotor: knowledge via senses & movement
• 2 Preoperational: use of language & symbols; limited logic
• 3 Concrete Operational: grasp causality & concrete logic
• 4 Formal Operational: abstract, critical thinking

Psychosocial Development (Erikson)

• 1 Infancy: trust vs. mistrust
• 2 Toddlerhood: autonomy vs. shame/doubt
• 3 Preschool: initiative vs. guilt
• 4 Pre-adolescence: industry vs. inferiority
• 5 Adolescence: identity vs. role confusion
• 6 Young adulthood: intimacy vs. isolation
• 7 Middle adulthood: generativity vs. self-absorption
• 8 Old age: integrity vs. despair

Agents of Socialization

• Family
• School
• Peer groups
• Mass media & technology

Targeted Socialization

• Anticipatory socialization: rehearse for desired roles
• Resocialization: deliberate change via controlled setting
  • Total institution: regulates all life aspects under single authority