Socialization, Interaction, and the Self 4

What Is Human Nature?

  • From a sociological perspective, culture and society define us. These creations shape our identities.
  • Nature vs. nurture debate: ongoing discussion about genetics and socialization in shaping behavior.
  • Example: High testosterone levels and competitiveness. Does the hormone drive competition, or does competition boost hormone production?

Genetics and Sociology

  • In the 1990s, it was hoped that genetics would reveal all answers to human behavior after the human genome was sequenced.
  • Sociobiology: Explains social behavior using biological and evolutionary factors.
  • Evidence suggests social factors regulate genetic action.

The Process of Socialization

  • Socialization: Learning and internalizing values, beliefs, and norms, enabling us to function in society.
  • Socialization is a lifelong process that starts in infancy.
  • It occurs on individual and social levels: absorbing and adopting society's way of life.
  • Socialization provides skills for meeting basic needs, self-defense, and adhering to shared ways of life.

Social Isolation

  • Feral children: rare cases of children with limited human contact, sometimes living in isolation from a young age.
  • Infants lack learned behaviors at birth, even basic survival instincts.
  • Cases of child abuse with severe neglect demonstrate the importance of socialization for normal development.

Theories of the Self

  • Self: Awareness of one's personal identity distinct from others.
  • Our thoughts and feelings are directed both from and toward ourselves, shaping self-knowledge.
  • Sociologists believe that the self is developed and changed through interactions with others throughout life.

Psychoanalytic Theory: Sigmund Freud

  • Psychoanalytic perspective (Sigmund Freud): emphasizes childhood and sexual development as key influences on identity and societal norms.
  • Id, ego, and superego: three parts of the mind:
    • Id: basic, inborn drives.
    • Ego: realistic aspect that balances the id and superego.
    • Superego: internalized societal demands.

Stages of Development and Civilization

  • Psychosexual stages of development: Freud's four stages from birth to adulthood; personality quirks result from fixation at any stage.
  • Initial three stages (ages one to five) are crucial for adult life.
  • Successful community life requires socially acceptable ways to channel instincts.

Looking-Glass Self: Charles Cooley

  • Charles Cooley (Chicago School) introduced the looking-glass self.
  • Looking-glass self: Self develops through our perception of others' evaluations.
  • Three-step process:
    1. Imagining how we appear to others.
    2. Imagining others' judgment of us.
    3. Experiencing feelings based on perceived judgments.

Mind, Self, and Society: George Herbert Mead

  • George Herbert Mead (Chicago School) expanded Cooley’s ideas.
  • Believed self is created through social interaction, starting with language acquisition in childhood.

Mead’s Stage Theory of Development

  1. Preparatory stage: children mimic others.
  2. Play stage: children pretend to play roles of significant others.
    • Particular or significant other: perspectives learned and internalized by a child.
  3. Game stage: children play organized games, understanding the generalized other.
    • Generalized other: understanding broader societal expectations, shaping behavior.
    • Dual nature of the self: experiencing self as both subject ("I") and object ("me").

The Thomas Theorem

  • Thomas theorem: "If people define situations as real, they are real in their consequences."
  • Ambiguous situations lead to multiple interpretations. Our definition shapes reality.
  • Definition of the situation: agreement on the context, allowing coordinated actions and goal realization.

Erving Goffman

  • Erving Goffman: meaning is constructed through interactions, classified by expressions.
  • Expressions of behavior: small actions (eye rolls, nods) projecting our definition of the situation.
  • Expressions given: intentional, verbal utterances.
  • Expressions given off: observable, intended or unintended nonverbal cues.

Impression Management

  • Goffman viewed social life as a game where we manage others’ impressions (impression management).
  • Impression management: controlling impressions to create a desired view of ourselves and the situation.
  • Appearance, mannerisms, and dress influence our performance to others.

Erving Goffman’s Dramaturgy

  • Dramaturgy: analyzing social life as a theatrical performance.
  • Front: setting or scene that establishes the situation's definition.
  • Region: context of the performance (location, décor, props).

Inside the Context and the Setting

  • Personal front: tactics used to present ourselves, including appearance and manner.
  • Backstage: area for rehearsal and preparation.
  • Frontstage: area where performances are delivered to an audience.

The Self as a Social Construction

  • Goffman: we present different selves in different situations; others' responses shape our definitions of self, thus the self as a social construct.
  • Social construction: a concept or practice created and maintained through collective agreement.
  • Cooling the mark out: behaviors to help others save face (civility or tact).
  • Goffman: presentation of self and impression management are about power and self.

Postmodern Theories of the Self

  • Copresence: face-to-face interaction.
  • Postmodern theorists: technology's role in interaction is key to postmodern life.
  • Revisiting old ideas on face-to-face interaction to understand online interaction and identity.

Agents of Socialization

  • Agents of socialization: groups, institutions, and individuals providing structured socialization.
  • Major agents: family, schools, peers, media.

The Family

  • Family is the most important agent, teaching basic values and norms that shape identity.
  • Parents heavily influence children’s ideas about gender and race.

Schools

  • Schools educate and socialize, teaching punctuality, discipline, competition, and obedience.
  • Hidden curriculum: indirectly learned values/behaviors.
  • Studies: Teachers reinforce heteronormativity from preschool.

Peers

  • Peers offer differing social skills, becoming more significant than family, especially in adolescence.
  • Adolescence is critical for developing attitudes, political values, and prejudicial beliefs.

The Media

  • Mass media is an important agent, often overriding family influence in instilling values and norms.
  • Example: magazines and social media idealize specific body types.

Adult Socialization

  • Adults are never fully socialized; life changes lead to new behaviors.
  • Resocialization: replacing old norms/values with new ones during life transitions.
  • Total institutions: isolating institutions that control individuals to strip away previous roles and create new ones.

Total Institutions

  • Institutions where individuals are isolated and controlled to strip away previous roles and identities to create new ones.

Statuses and Roles

Give examples of the different types of statuses people carry and explain how the roles associated with these statuses can sometimes cause problems in our everyday lives.

Status

  • Status: position in a social hierarchy with specific expectations.
  • We hold multiple statuses across different hierarchies.
    • Ascribed status: inborn, difficult/impossible to change.
    • Embodied status: based on physical characteristics.
    • Achieved status: earned or imposed by others.

Master Status and Stereotyping

  • Master status: a status that always relevant and affects all other statuses we possess
  • Stereotyping: judging others based on preconceived generalizations about groups or categories of people
  • Comfort level with individuals holding stigmatized master statuses (e.g., sex offender, ex-convict)

Roles

  • Role: expected behaviors due to one's status.
  • Role conflict: contradictory expectations from two or more roles.
  • Role strain: contradictory expectations within one role.
  • Role exit: the process of leaving a role.

The Social Construction of Emotions

Explain how our emotions are a social phenomenon.

The Social Construction of Emotions

  • While emotions seem personal, social patterns influence our emotional responses.
  • Role-taking emotions: sympathy, embarrassment, or shame require understanding another’s perspective.
  • Feeling rules: norms about emotional expression; expectations about appropriate feelings.

Global Perspective: Cross-Cultural Perspectives to Grief

  • Cultures express grief differently, though all mourn.
  • Maoris: Death isn't final until funeral rites are complete (one year).
  • Roma: Intense, public mourning with abstaining from eating and grooming for days.

Emotion Work

  • Emotional labor: managing feelings to create a public display of emotion.
  • Arlie Hochschild’s (1983) study: airlines requiring cheerful employees led to displacement of authentic emotions.

On the Job: The Wages of Emotional Labor

  • Flight attendants are prime examples of emotional laborers.
  • Evans (2011): Black crew members managing emotions around race and stereotypes.