Unit 4 Socialization

Nature vs Nurture

• one of the greatest controversies in the study of human behavior

• Nature Argument/Innate Behavior - behavior is determined by our inherited, genetic structure

• Nurture Argument/Learned Behavior - behavior is the result of learning and experiences from outside factors such as parents, media, peers, and religion

Socialization of the Individual

• Social Experience - the foundation for the personality, a person’s fairly consistent patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting

• Personality - the sum total of behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, and values that are characteristic of an individual

  • determines how we adjust/react

  • unique to us

  • develop over time

  • development is more obvious in childhood

    • rapid physical, emotional, and intellectual growth

Main Factors that Affect Personality

• Heredity - present at birth: body build, hair, eye color, skin pigmentation

  • provides biological needs (heredity)

  • determines how needs are met (culture)

  • shape human personality by setting limits on the individuals

• Birth Order - the order in which we are born influences our personalities

  • personality is influenced by brothers and sisters

  • early-born siblings have different traits than later-born siblings

  • only/first-born - confident, perfectionist, scholars

  • middle - flexible, independent, balanced

  • last-born - risk-takers, outgoing, rebellious

• Parental Characteristics

  • parenting styles - permissive or indulgent, authoritative, and authoritarian

  • Permissive - don’t care, laid back

  • Authoritative - ask questions together, guiding

  • Authoritarian - control everything

Agents of Socialization

• Social Institutions

  • established or standardized

  • patterns of rule-governed behavior

  • provide basic needs

  • family and education

• Total Institutions

  • not all socialization is voluntary

  • nor is all socialization successful

  • prison, jail, involuntary hospitalization

• Resocialization

  • setting in which people are isolated from the rest of society for a set period

  • break from past experiences

  • learning of new values and norms

  • voluntary (college)

  • involuntary (prison)

    • subject in tight control

    • concerned with resocialization

    • personality/social behavior change

Types of Socialization

• Gender Socialization - specific messages and practices concerning the nature of being female or male in a specific group of society

• Racial Socialization - concerning the nature of one’s racial or ethnic status as it relates to identity, interpersonal relationships, and location in social hierarchy

• Anticipatory Socialization - the process by which knowledge and skills are learned for future roles

• Workplace Socialization - occurs when a person makes the transition from school to work

Agents of Socialization

• Specific individuals, groups, and institutions that enable socialization to take place

• Primary → closest to the individual (family and friends)

• Secondary → institutions (school and church)

• Family

  • most important

  • determines one’s attitude towards religion, career goals, etc

  • cannot be overestimated

  • primary

• School

  • secondary

  • teach the values and customs of the larger society

  • transmit cultural values such as patriotism and responsibility

  • regularly reinforces what society expects from children

    • the hidden curriculum

• Peer Groups

  • primary takeover

  • increasingly assume the role of Mead’s significant rule

  • ease the transition to adulthood

  • peer pressure

  • harassment or support

• Mass Media and Technology

  • multitasking is the norm

• Religion

  • guidelines on how to live

  • moral aid

Socialization Theories

• Socialization - the lifelong social experience by which individuals develop their human potential and learn culture

• The Self - a nonstatic phenomenon in which a distinct identity that sets up apart from others develops and changes over time

• John Locke → Blank Slate Theory

  • English philosopher in the 1600s

  • insisted that each newborn is a Tabula Rosa

    • clear slate on which anything can be written

  • believed human beings could be molded into any character

• Charles Cooley → Looking Glass Self Theory

  • the self is a product of social interactions with other people

  • mimic behavior

• George Herbert Mead → Stages of Child Socialization

  • in the early months of life, children do not realize they are separate from others

  • gradually infants start to notice faces around them and distinguish themselves from their caregivers

Three Stages of Child Socialization

• Significant Others - persons who are of significant importance to the individual’s emotions, behavior, and sense of self

• Stages; preparatory, play, and game

Psychological Approach to the Self

• Freud

  • self is a social product however natural impulsive instincts in constant conflict with societal constraints

  • ID - urges and desires

  • Superego - what society says is right

  • Ego - natural self that makes a decision on how to act