CHAPTER 5

Socialization

Chapter Outline

► Becoming a Social Being► Nature and Nurture► The Social Construction of the Self► Social Environments and Early Socialization► Socialization through the Life Course► Gender Socialization

Socialization

Socialization - the ways in which people learn to conform to their society’s norms, values, and roles.

People develop their own unique personalities as a result of the learning they gain from parents, siblings, relatives, peers, teachers, mentors, and all the other people who influence them throughout their lives.

Becoming a Social Being

Phases of Socialization

1. Primary - ways the newborn individual is molded into a social being.

2. Secondary - occurs as a child is influenced by adults and peers outside the family.

3. Adult - when a person learns the norms associated with specific adult statuses.

Issues in Socialization

The strength of biological and social influences (nature versus nurture).

How a person develops a sense of self. How social environments affect socialization. How gender socialization occurs.

Sigmund Freud

► Freud claims the personality develops in infancy as the child is forced to control bodily urges. The original, unsocialized urges arise out of the

id. The norms, values, and feelings taught through

socialization belong to the superego. The ego is one’s conception of oneself in relation

to others.

The Role of the Same-sex Parent

► Freud believed the individual’s major personality traits are formed in the conflict that occurs when parents insist that the infant control biological urges.

► This conflict, Freud believed, is most severe between the child and the same-sex parent.

► To become more attractive to the opposite-sex parent, the infant attempts to imitate the same-sex parent.

Behaviorism

► Behaviorists believe all behavior is learned.► Pavlov demonstrated that conditioned reflexes

could be developed.► Watson showed that emotions such as fear could

also be conditioned.

The Need for Love

► Studies of children reared in extreme isolation suggest that lack of parental attention can result in retardation and early death.

► Primate psychologist Harry Harlow showed that infant monkeys reared apart from other monkeys never learned how to interact with other monkeys.

The Debate over Genetic Influences

► The role of genes in shaping traits such as intelligence and sexual orientation is a subject of continual research and controversy.

► There isn’t any definitive evidence that specific genes determine these aspects of human behavior.

Genes And Intelligence

► In an influential but scientifically flawed study titled The Bell Curve, biologist Richard Herrnstein and social psychologist Charles Murray attempted to show that IQ is an inherited trait that underlies inequality among different groups in the United States.

► Herrnstein and Murray do not believe efforts to address educational inequalities will address growing inequalities among individuals and groups.

Genes and Intelligence

► Most social scientists oppose Herrnstein and Murray’s conclusions, for several reasons: There has been much criticism of IQ as a single

measure of intelligence. There is evidence of cultural and middle-class biases

in the questions used to test IQ. The authors of The Bell Curve have been criticized for

asserting that correlation is the same as causality.

Seven Types of Intelligence

1. Visual/spatial intelligence

2. Musical intelligence

3. Verbal intelligence

4. Logical/mathematical intelligence

Seven Types of Intelligence

5. Interpersonal intelligence

Ability to perceive other people’s emotions and motivations.

6. Intrapersonal intelligence

Ability to understand one’s own emotions and motivations.

7. Bodily/kinesthetic intelligence

Sometimes thought of in popular speech as “physical coordination” or natural athletic ability.

Defining the Cognitive Classes

► Caution: The labels imposed on this IQ curve and the score used as boundaries between “cognitive classes” are those of Herrnstein and Murray and do not represent the thinking of many other social scientists.

Sociological Research

► Most sociological research will focus on the following hypotheses:1. The social environment can unleash or stifle

human potential.

2. The social environment presents an ever-changing array of roles and expectations.

The Looking Glass Self

► Charles Horton Cooley defined the looking glass self as the reflection of our self that we think we see in the behaviors of others around us.

► This insight into the role of others in defining the self was the foundation for the view of the self proposed by George Herbert Mead.

George Herbert Mead

► Mead claims role-taking - the ability to look at social situations from the view of another person develops in three stages:

1. Preparatory2. Game 3. Play

Stages in Mead’s Role Taking

Stage Description Example

PreparatoryThe child mimics

significant people.Toddler wears mom’s shoes.

PlayChildren pretend to

be significant people.

Playing house.

GameSymbolically, each child can become

other participants.

Neighborhood kids play baseball.

Goffman’s “Face Work”

► Sociologist Erving Goffman identified rules of interaction whereby people seek to present a positive image of themselves, their “face.”

► “Face” is the positive social value a person claims for herself or himself by acting out socially approved attributes.

► Once they have established an image, they seek to defend it against any possible threat that might cause them to “lose face.”

Theories of Socialization

Theorist Description

FreudSocialization forces the infant to channel biological urges into socially acceptable behavior.

George Herbert Mead

The self emerges out of interaction with others.

Theories of Socialization

Theorist Theory

Jean Piaget

Children develop awareness of moral issues at an early age but cannot deal

with moral ambiguities until they mature further.

Erik Erikson

Throughout the life course, the individual must resolve a series of

conflicts that shape the person’s sense of self and ability to perform social

roles successfully.

Theories of Socialization

Theorist Theory

Carol Gilligan

Children tend to develop different ways of resolving moral dilemmas. Some rely on strict rules of right and wrong, while others tend to make judgments based on fairness and cooperation.

Early Socialization

► In the early decades of the 20th century, when children worked in textile mills and coal mines, the environment in which they were socialized forced them to take on adult roles at an early age.

Agents of Socialization

► Family - primary agent of socialization.

► Schools - most important agent outside the family.

► Religion - involved in socialization in different ways throughout an individual’s lifetime.

► Peer groups - the dominant agent in middle and late adulthood.

► Mass Media - most controversial agent in American society.

Socialization Through the Life Course

► A person’s core identity does not change easily later in life.

► The roles people play during their life can be influenced by: Social change Changes in a society’s culture Impact of new friends Occupational mobility

Erikson’s View of Lifelong Socialization

Stage of Life Conflict

Infancy Trust vs. mistrust

Early Childhood

Autonomy vs. shame

Play Age Initiative vs. guilt

School Age Industry vs. inferiority

Erikson’s View of Lifelong Socialization

Stage of Life Conflict

AdolescenceIdentity vs. confusion; struggle over fidelity to parents or friends

Early Adulthood

Intimacy vs. isolation in the quest for love

AdulthoodGenerativity vs. stagnation in interpersonal relationships

Old Age Integrity vs. despair

Gender Socialization

► The ways we learn our gender identity and develop according to cultural norms of masculinity or femininity.

► Gender identity is an individual’s own feeling of whether she or he is a woman or a man, a girl or a boy.

QUICK QUIZ

1. Which statement about the socialization process is not true?

a. It is continuous throughout life.

b. It enables us to function within groups.

c. Socialization helps to construct our identities.

d. Variations in how people are socialized are largely due to heredity.

Answer: d

The following statement about the socialization process is not true: Variations in how people are socialized are

largely due to heredity.

2. According to Freud, the aspect of the self first to emerge is the

a. id

b. ego

c. superego

d. significant other

Answer: a

According to Freud, the aspect of the self first to emerge is the id.

3. Although Donny does not have a handicap, he parked his car in a handicapped slot very close to the building he was to visit because he knew he would not be ticketed—the meter patrol shift had already left for home for the day. According to Kohlberg, Donny is in which stage of moral development?

a. conventional

b. preconventional

c. nonconventional

d. postconventional

Answer: b

Although Donny does not have a handicap, he parked his car in a handicapped slot very close to the building he was to visit because he knew he would not be ticketed—the meter patrol shift had already left for home for the day. According to Kohlberg, Donny is in the preconventional stage of moral development.