Socialization – A lifelong process.

The lifelong social experience by which people develop their human

potential and learn culture.
- Develops our humanity and personality
- Extended periods of social isolation can result in permanent damage
- Has to do with NURTURE, not nature.
o A century ago, people though behavior was biological instinct.
o It is a human beings nature, to nurture.

Personality – A person’s fairly consistent patterns of acting, thinking, and feeling.

Freud
- Id – innate, pleasure principle. Basic drives.
- Superego – demands of society/internalized values and norms
- Ego – Conscious effort to balance

Jean Piaget – Human development involves both biological maturation and gaining social experience.
(4) Stages of Cognitive Development:
1. Sensorimotor – Knowing the world through the senses.
2. Pre-Operational – Starting to use language and symbols.
3. Concrete Operational – Understand causal connections.
4. Formal Operational – Abstract and critical thought.

Lawrence Kohlberg – applied Piaget’s approach to moral development stages

1. Pre-Conventional – Rightness according to our needs.
2. Conventional – Consider parents and cultural norms.
3. Post-Conventional – Reasoning the may criticize society

Carol Gilligan – Gender plays an important part in moral development.

- Males – Rely on abstract standards of rightness.
- Females – Rely on effects of actions on relationships.

George Herbert Mead

- The Self – Part of personality. Includes Self-Awareness & Self-Image.
o Develops ONLY from social experience (exchange of symbols)
- Social interaction depends on understanding the intention of the other, which requires taking on the
role of the other.
- Human Action
o Party spontaneous “the I”
o Partly in response to others “the ME”
- Generalized Other – Term for widespread cultural norms and values we use as references in
evaluating ourselves. We gain social experience through imitation, play, games and understanding
the generalized other.

Charles Horton Cooley

- Looking Glass Self – Self image based on how we think other see us.

Erik Erikson – Challenges from infancy to old age…

Significant Others – People, like parents, who have special importance for socialization.

Agents of Socialization
- Family (first setting of socialization)
 o *Greatest impact on attitudes and behavior
o Social class & race affect personality
o Gender ideas first learned
- Schools (first experience of bureaucracy and impersonal evaluation)
o Teach knowledge/skills
o Exposure to diversity
o Reinforce gender ideas
- Peer Group (HELPS shape attitudes and behavior)
o Free from adult supervision
- Mass Media (Huge impact in high income countries)
o N.A kids (Equal time spent with parents as watching tv)
o Reinforces stereotypes about gender/race
o Exposure to violence

Peer Group – Social group with members that share interests, social position, and age.
Anticipatory Socialization – Learning that helps a person achieve a desired position
Mass Media – Means for delivering impersonal communication to a vast audience

Socialization & the Life Course

- Childhood – A concept grounded in culture, NOT biology. Childhood is extended in high income
countries
- Adolescence – Emotional and social turmoil comes from cultural inconsistency (not children, but not
an adult). Varies by social class
- Old Age – Defined equally by culture and biology.
o Traditional Society – Respect elders
o Industrial Society – Elders are unimportant and out of touch

Death & Dying Socialization

- denial
- anger
- negotiation
- resignation
- acceptance

Cohort – A category of people with something in common (usually their age)

Total Institutions (prisons, psyche hospitals, monasteries) – A setting where people are isolated from
the rest of society and controlled by an administrative staff.
o Staff supervises all aspects of life
o Life is standardizes with rules and routines
- Re-Socialization (2 parts) – Radically changing an inmates personality by carefully controlling the
environment.
o Breakdown inmates existing identity
o Build new ‘self’ through a reward/punishment system