Transcript Sociology – Chapter 3

Sociology – Chapter 3 Socialization
Miss Hickey
Hilliard Davidson High School
Sociology
What is Human Nature?
• social environment: entire human environment,
including direct contact with others
• socialization: process by which people learn the
characteristics of their croup
• self: unique human capacity of being able to se
ourselves “from the outside”
• significant other: an individual who influences
someone else’s life
• generalized other: norms, values, attitudes, and
expectations of people in general
What is Human Nature?
• People have always wondered how much of
peoples characteristics come for “nature”
(heredity) and “nurture” (contact with others).
– Best way to find out is to examine those who have
had not social contact: feral children
Feral Children
• Feral children: raised by animals; can’t speak
or do any normal human behavior; raised in
the wilderness (language and human bonding
= needed)
– Isolated children: have no natural language  no
shared way of life  no connection to others:
culture is key to what people become
• without language there is no culture
• without interaction/shared ideas… no image of self
Feral Children: Textbook Example
• In 1798 in France in a forest, they found a boy
that walked on all fours and pounced on
animals devouring them uncooked.
– Most social scientists have take the position that
children can not be raised by animals, and that the
reason they were abandoned was because of
mental disability
• In 1991, Oxana was found at age
eight, in Ukraine, living among
dogs.
– unable to speak a language
– had many dog-like traits (bark,
howl, scratch, and dig)
– tightly knit with the dogs
– was hard to learn language and
behavior (was able to do it with
time)
Oxana Malaya
Institutionalized Children
• Institutionalized children: intelligence and
ability to establish close bonds with others
depends on early interaction; period of time
where intelligence and bonds must occur in
order for humans to develop
– 1930s – shorter lifespan, children that lived in
orphanages had less than a third grade education
• difficulty establishing relationships
• lower IQs
Deprived Animals
• Harry and Margaret Harlow perform
experiment to show how important
early interaction is
• In 1962 they raised baby monkey’s
with artificial mothers
– wire mother (food)
– terry cloth mother (comfort) – clung to
when frightened “intimate human
contact”
• Deprived animals: monkeys in isolation
never able to adjust to normal monkey life;
could not enjoy or engage in normal
monkey play
• infant-mother bonding is due not to
feeding, but cuddling
Cooley and the
Looking Glass Self
• Charles Horton Cooley (18641929)
– symbolic interactionist
– self is socially created: “our
sense of self develops form
interaction with others”
1. We imagine how we appear to
those around us
2. We interpret others reaction
3. We develop self concept
Looking-Glass Self
George Herbert Mead (1863-1931)
• George Mead: thought that play was crucial to
the development of self
– Take the role of other: putting self in other person's
shoes
1. imitation – acting like someone else/significant others
with gestures
2. play – pretend to take roles of specific peple
3. games – learn to take multiple roles
– Initially significant others (parents, police officers) 
eventually “generalized other” (role of a whole group)
Piaget and the Development of
Reasoning
• How do we come to answers? How do we reason?
• Believed the mind was a social product
• Piaget and the States of Reasoning:
1. The sensorimotor stage (infants; understanding is limited)
2. The preoperational stage (develop the ability to use
symbols)
3. Concrete operational stage (remain concrete
4. Formal operational stage (capable of abstract thinking)
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•
reasoning moves from concrete and moves to more abstract
can talk about concepts and come to conclusions
A SHORT Time to Ponder
• How do you think you appear to those who
are around you?
• Which stage in “taking the role” do you think
is the most important? Why?
Learning Personality, Morality and
Emotions
• Sigmund Freud: physician who founded
psychoanalysis
– believed that your personality consists of three
elements:
• id: term for inborn basic drives
• ego: term for balancing force between the id and the
demands of society
• superego: term of the conscience, the internalized
norms and values of our societal groups
Lawrence Kohlberg’s Theory
• Lawrence Kohlberg: concluded that we go through a
sequence of stages as we develop morality
1. amoral stage: no right or wrong, personal needs need to
be satisfied
2. preconventional stage: learned rules and follow them to
stay out of trouble
3. conventional stage: morality means to follow norms and
values they have learned
4. postconventional stage: most people don’t reach,
people reflect on abstract principles of right and wrong
and judge a behavior according to these principles
Carol Gilligan
• Didn’t agree with Kohlbergs conclusions because
he only used males in his studies
• Interviewed 200 men and women to conduct her
own research
• Conclusions:
– women evaluate morality of personal relationships
and want to know how and action affects others
– Men evaluate morality of abstract principles and see
whether an act matches or violets a code of ethics
Paul Ekman
• everyone experiences six basic emotions:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
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anger
disgust
fear
happiness
sadness
surprise
expressing emotions is different between
genders, cultures, social class and relationships
what people feel also changes between different
cultures
Socializing Emotions
• global emotions
– existence of universal facial expressions for 6 basic
emotions does NOT mean socialization has no
effect on how express them
• people in one culture may learn to experience
feelings that are unknown in another culture
Gender Messages
• gender role: behaviors and attitudes considered
appropriate because one if female or male
– Social inequality – a social condition in which privileges
and obligations are given to some but denied to others
• gender = primary basis
• gender socialization: the ways in which society sets
children into different courses of life because they are
male or female
– family: unconsciously send gender messages through toys
and color choices for various things
• Goldberg and Lewis introduced the idea that mothers
subconsciously reward daughters for being passive and dependent
and sons for being active and independent
Gender Messages, cont.
– peers: teen girls talk to their girlfriends different than they
talk to their guy friends and vice versa
• girls: shopping, boys, clothing
• boys: sex and violence
• peer group: group of individuals of roughly the same age who are
linked by common interests
– mass media: forms of communication such as radio,
newspapers, television that are directed at a mass
audience
• advertising, television, movies and video games are all directed to
a certain gender (and reinforce stereotypes of sexes)
• advertising: bombards people with things a certain gender would
want
• TV/movies: boys and girls watch certain shows and movies
• videogames: directed at boys – use action and violence
– reflect cutting edge changes in sex roles
A SHORT Time to Ponder
• How does mass media impact your life
indirectly?
• How have your parents or guardians socialized
you towards characteristics associated with
one gender or another?
Agents of Socialization
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family
neighborhood
religion
day care
school
peer groups
sports and competitive success
workplace
Agent of Socialization: Family
• lay down our basic sense of self
• establish our initial motivations values and beliefs
• subtle socialization (study families in public)
– The stroller effect (gender roles/gender messages)
– Social Class (diff. classes raise children differently)
• ways of discipline
– middle class: instill values
– working class: keep out of trouble
• curiosity
• self-control
Agent of Socialization: Neighborhood
• poor neighborhoods vs. wealthy
neighborhoods
– poor neighborhoods: crime, less opportunity
• more likely to be around negative influences
– wealthy neighborhoods: more opportunity
• neighbors more likely to keep an eye on children
(children more likely to develop sense of community)
• children socialize with immediate peers
• disadvantage vs. advantages to both
Agent of Socialization: Religion
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ideas of right and wrong
dress, speech, manners, etc.
morals of religious people effect everyone
influences extend to many areas of our lives
Agent of Socialization: Day Care
• Pro: language skills, low income families
• Con: increased hours in day care make
children more likely to be mean and cruel, bad
relationship with mother
Agent of Socialization: School
• Manifest and latent functions
– manifest functions (intended): transmit skills such as
reading, writing, arithmetic
– latent functions (unintended): social system, hidden
and corridor curriculum
• hidden curriculum: teach patriotism, democracy, justice,
honesty
– dysfunction: racism, sexism, coolness, reinforce social and
economic and political standing
• Kids born in higher class families attend better
schools and therefore end up better off in life.
The opposite holds true for the poor.
Agent of Socialization: Peer Groups
• friends become more influential than family
• conformity or rejection
• influential (dominate one’s actions and
thoughts)
– male traits: athletic ability, coolness and
toughness
– female traits: family background, personal
appearance and ability to attract boys
Agent of Socialization: Sport and
Competitive Success
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physical skills
team players
self image
gender roles
– boys (what they get from sports): sports lead to a
positive “masculine” identity for boys and
facilitates their self-esteem
– girls (relationships): sports construct meaningful
relationships and positive identity
Agent of Socialization: Workplace
• anticipatory socialization
– Anticipating future role and learning parts of it
now
• helps self-concept
– more you work in a certain line of work, the more
it becomes a part of your self-concept
• new perspective on world
A SHORT Time to Ponder
• Which of these groups do you think have the
greatest effect on people? You?
• Do you think there is really a hidden
curriculum in schools?
• How do peer groups change allegiance from
family to friends?
• Do you think that there are other agents of
socialization that should be added?
Resocialization
• resocialization – the process of learning new
norms, values, attitudes and behaviors
– most resocialization is mild
• total institutions – people are cut off from the
rest of society
– degradation ceremony – an attempt to remake
the self by stripping away in individuals selfidentity
Socialization Through Life Course
life course: stages of life as we go from birth to death
• childhood (birth-12)
• adolescence (13-17)
• young adulthood (18-29)
• early middle (30-49)
• later middle (50-65)
• early older (65-75)
• later Older (75-death)
Stages of Life
• childhood (birth-12)
– varies from culture to culture
– very dependent (need others)
• children go to school to become socialized
• parents = major agent of socialization
• increasing importance of technology
– Ex. changed from middle ages to be more nurturing
• adolescence* (13-17)
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education becomes important for success
start to build an identity (partially socialize themselves)
leave younger world and move into the older world (transition)
Didn’t exist until after industrialization: unnatural stage*
• young adulthood (18-29)
– finish school, full-time job, develop serious relationships
– some societies require rituals to become an adult
Stages of Life
• Middle Years (30-65)
– early middle (30-49)
• starting families and working toward life goals
• more sure of self (formed own opinions, but still experiences events
that can change life)
– later middle (50-65)
• life is no longer stressful
• start to feel mortality and start anticipations for next stage of life
• Older Years (65-death) – people feel that time is closing in
on them
– early older (65-75)
• could keep working or retirement
• continue to do things they enjoy
• less sexually active
– later Older (75-death)
• growing frailty and illness… death
Sociological Significance of Life Course
• does not represent biology
• social factors influence life course
– social location
– social class
– gender
– Race
• major events can change life course
– war
– depression
A SHORT Time to Ponder
• Which life stage do you find most desirable?
Why?
• Do you think that we are prisoners of
socialization? Why?
• Do you think degradation ceremonies are
affective? Why?