sociology

Chapter 4

Chapter Outline

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Copyright © 2017 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.

THE ROLE OF SOCIALIZATION

Social Environment: The Impact of Isolation

The Influence of Heredity

THE SELF AND SOCIALIZATION

Sociological Approaches to the Self

Psychological Approaches to the Self

AGENTS OF SOCIALIZATION

Family

School

Peer Group

Mass Media and Technology

Workplace

Religion and the State

SOCIALIZATION THROUGHOUT THE LIFE COURSE

The Life Course

Anticipatory Socialization and Resocialization

ROLE TRANSITIONS THROUGHOUT THE LIFE COURSE

The Sandwich Generation

Adjusting to Retirement

SOCIAL POLICY AND SOCIALIZATION: CHILD CARE AROUND THE WORLD

Boxes

Sociology on Campus: Impression Management by Students

Research Today: Rum Springa: Raising Children Amish Style

Taking Sociology to Work: Rakefet Avramovitz, Program Administrator, Child Care Law Center

Sociology on Campus: Unplugging the Media: What Happens?

Chapter Summary

Socialization is the process whereby people learn the attitudes, values, and behaviors appropriate to individuals as members of a particular culture. Socialization occurs through human interaction and helps us to discover how to behave properly. It provides for the transmission of culture from one generation to the next, to ensure the long-term continuance of a society. Socialization experiences help to shape personality—a person’s typical patterns of attitudes, needs, characteristics, and behavior.

Under normal circumstances, environmental factors interact with hereditary factors in influencing the socialization process. Case studies—such as those of Isabelle and the Romanian orphans—and primate studies support the necessity of socialization in development. Conversely, twin studies have addressed the influence of hereditary factors on personality development.

The self is a distinct identity that sets us apart from others. It continues to develop and change throughout our lives. Sociologists Charles Horton Cooley, George Herbert Mead (pioneers of the interactionist approach), and Erving Goffman have all furthered our understanding about development of the self. Cooley’s looking-glass self suggests that our sense of self results from how we present ourselves to others, how others evaluate us, and how we internalize or assess those evaluations. Mead outlined a process by which the self emerges in early childhood: the preparatory stage, in which children merely imitate those around them; the play stage, in which children become aware of symbols and begin to act out the roles of other people; and the game stage, in which children become involved in complex social situations involving multiple positions or roles. Instrumental to Mead’s view are the concepts of the generalized other (attitudes, viewpoints, and expectations of society) and significant others (individuals most important in development of the self). Goffman suggested that many of our daily activities involve attempts to convey impressions (impression management) of who we are. His view has been termed the dramaturgical approach. Goffman also drew attention to face-work, the efforts people make to maintain the proper image and avoid public embarrassment.

Psychologists, such as Sigmund Freud, have stressed the role of inborn drives in the development of the self. Child psychologist Jean Piaget identified four stages of personality development in his cognitive theory of development (sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational). Piaget viewed social interaction as key to development.

Lifelong socialization involves many different social forces and agents of socialization. Family is considered the most important of the socialization agents. Schools are another agent of socialization concerned with teaching students the values and customs of the larger society. Peer groups often serve as a transitional source to adulthood. The mass media have an impact on the socialization process that sociologists have also begun to consider. Workplaces can serve as socialization agents by teaching appropriate behavior within an occupational environment. Additionally, social scientists have increasingly recognized the importance of religion and the state as agents of socialization, because of their impact on the life course.

Sociologists use the life course approach in recognizing that biological changes mold but do not dictate human behavior. Over the course of our lives, we may encounter points at which certain stages are dramatized or validated outwardly; these stages are known as rites of passage. Two types of socialization occur: anticipatory socialization (refers to the process of rehearsing for future roles), and resocialization (refers to discarding former behavior patterns and accepting new ones). Resocialization is particularly intense when it occurs within a total institution, an institution that regulates all aspects of a person’s life under a single authority. Goffman identified four common traits of total institutions. He suggested people often lose their individuality within total institutions and may undergo what is known as a degradation ceremony.

Although how we move through the life course varies dramatically according to our personal preferences and circumstances, certain common transitional stages have been identified, including entering the adult world, the midlife transition, and retirement. The midlife crisis is a stressful period of self-evaluation that commonly begins at about age 40. The sandwich generation consists of adults who must simultaneously try to meet the competing needs of their parents and their children. Gerontologist Robert Atchley has identified several distinct phases of the retirement experience, which suggests retirement is not a single transition but rather a series of adjustments. Recent improvements in health care have given older Americans new choices in where to live, and many now congregate in naturally occurring retirement communities (NORCs).

Introduction

• Excerpt from an interview with Crystal Moselle, director of The Wolf Pack

I. The Role of Socialization

• The nature vs. nurture debate has evolved to a general acceptance of interaction between the variables of heredity, environment, and socialization.

A. Social Environment: The Impact of Isolation

• The need for human interaction is evident in actual case studies.

1. Extreme Isolation: Isabelle

• Isabelle lived in seclusion for six years. She could not speak and did not display reactions or emotions typical of humans. After a period of intense language and behavioral therapy, Isabelle became well adjusted.

2. Extreme Neglect: Romanian Orphans

• Babies in orphanages lay in cribs for 18 to 20 hours a day, with little care from adults. The children grew up fearful of human contact and prone to antisocial behavior. They have made progress with supervision from attentive caregivers and specialists.

3. Primate Studies

• Harry Harlow tested rhesus monkeys for the effects of isolation and concluded that isolation had a damaging effect on the monkeys.

B. The Influence of Heredity

• Twin studies reveal that both genetic factors and socialization experiences are influential in human development. Example : Oskar Stohr and Jack Yufe

• The validity of twin studies has been questioned because of the small sample sizes.

II. The Self and Socialization

• The self is a distinct identity that sets each of us apart from others. The interactionist perspective is useful in understanding development of the self.

A. Sociological Approaches to the Self

1. Cooley: Looking-Glass Self

• According to Cooley, the self is a product of social interactions with others. There are three phases in the looking-glass self: (1) We imagine how we present ourselves to others; (2) we imagine how others evaluate us; and (3) we develop a feeling about ourselves. Example : A student’s sense of self is changed after receiving criticism from a teacher.

2. Mead: Stages of the Self

• The preparatory stage consists of children imitating people around them. Gradually, children begin to understand the use of symbols.

• The play stage consists of children pretending to be other people, like an actor “becoming” a character. Role-taking is the process of mentally assuming the perspective of another and responding from that imagined viewpoint. Through role-taking, children learn to see the world from the perspectives of other people.

• During the game stage, children grasp their own social positions, as well as everyone else’s position around them. Games serve as a microcosm of society. Through this process, children learn to assume their position (or status) relative to the positions of others.

• The term generalized other refers to the attitudes, viewpoints, and expectations of others in society that an individual takes into account before acting in particular way.

3. Mead: Theory of the Self

• Children picture themselves as the focus of everything around them. As people mature, the self changes and begins to consider the reactions of others.

• Mead used the term significant others to refer to those individuals who are most important in the person’s development.

4. Goffman: Presentation of the Self

• Impression management involves an individual slanting his or her presentation of the self to create a distinctive appearance and to satisfy particular audiences.

• The dramaturgical approach is based on people behaving as actors by putting forth an image believed to be pleasing to others.

• Goffman’s face-work involves people trying to maintain or save an image or face. Example : An individual may feign employment to avoid embarrassment.

B. Psychological Approaches to the Self

• Freud stressed the role of inborn drives. The self has components that work in opposition to each other. Part of us seeks limitless pleasure, while another part seeks rational behavior.

• Piaget found that although newborns have no sense of self in the sense of a looking-glass image, they are self-centered, understanding only “me.” As they mature, they are gradually socialized into social relationships.

• In his cognitive theory of development, Piaget identified four stages of child development: (1) sensorimotor stage (child uses senses to make discoveries), (2) preoperational stage (child begins to use words and symbols), (3) concrete operational stage (child engages in more logical thinking), and (4) formal operational stage (adolescent is capable of sophisticated abstract thought, and can deal with ideas and values in a logical manner).

• Social interaction is the key to development.

III. Agents of Socialization

A. Family

• Family is the most important socializing agent. Parents minister to the baby’s needs by feeding, cleansing, carrying, and comforting.

• In the U.S., social development includes exposure to cultural assumptions regarding gender and race.

• Parents guide children into gender roles deemed appropriate by society.

B. School

• Schools have an explicit mandate to socialize children to societal norms.

• Functionalists indicate schools fulfill a function by socializing children, whereas conflict theorists suggest schools reinforce divisive aspects of society, especially social class. Example : A teacher praising boys may reinforce sexist attitudes.

C. Peer Group

• As a child grows older, family becomes somewhat less important in social development, while peer groups increasingly assume the role of Mead’s significant others.

D. Mass Media and Technology

• Media innovations have become important agents of socialization. Ninety-five percent of those aged 12 to 17 are on the Internet.

• Television can be both a negative and a positive influence on children.

• Cell phones are a particularly significant communications technology for people in low-income nations; but most of those same people cannot afford broadband access to the Internet.

E. Workplace

• We learn to behave appropriately within an occupation.

• The U.S. has the highest level of teenage employment of all industrialized nations, with growing concern regarding adverse effects of work on schooling.

• Workplace socialization changes when a person shifts to full-time employment.

F. Religion and the State

• State-run agencies are increasingly influential in life course.

• Government and organized religion have reinstituted some of the rites of passage once observed in earlier societies.

IV. Socialization throughout the Life Course

A. The Life Course

• Celebrating rites of passage is a means of dramatizing and validating changes in a person’s status.

• The life course approach looks closely at the social factors that influence people throughout their lives, from birth to death, including gender and income. Certain life events like marriage, completion of schooling, and birth of one’s first child mark the passage into adulthood.

B. Anticipatory Socialization and Resocialization

• Anticipatory socialization refers to a person rehearsing for a role they will likely assume in the future. Example : High school students preparing for college by looking at college websites

• Resocialization refers to discarding the former sense of self and behavior patterns and accepting new behavior patterns. Examples : Prisons, indoctrination camps, and religious conversions

• Goffman suggested resocialization is particularly effective in a total institutional environment (prisons, mental hospitals, and military organizations).

• Individuality is often lost in total institutions, as the individual becomes secondary in the environment and experiences the humiliations of degradation ceremonies.

V. Role Transitions throughout the Life Course

• Role transitions are transitional stages during the life course, i.e. entering adulthood, midlife crisis.

A. The Sandwich Generation

• This refers to adults who are trying to meet the competing needs of their parents and children.

B. Adjusting to Retirement

• The retirement stage today is complicated by economic deterioration.

1. Phases of Retirement

• Robert Atchley’s phases of retirement include preretirement, the near phase, the honeymoon phase, the disenchantment phase, the reorientation phase, the stability phase, and the termination phase. Retirement, then, is a series of adjustments.

• The experience of retirement varies according to gender, race, and ethnicity.

2. Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities

• These involve the congregation of older Americans in areas that have gradually become informal centers for senior citizens.

VI. (Box) Social Policy and Socialization: Child Care around the World

A. Looking at the Issue

• Day-care centers have become the functional equivalent of the nuclear family. Eighty-eight percent of employed mothers in the United States depend on others to care for their children, and 30 percent of mothers who aren’t employed have regular care arrangements.

• Research suggests good day care benefits children.

• There are no significant differences between infants who receive extensive non-maternal care vs. those who are cared for solely by their mothers.

B. Applying Sociology

• Conflict theorists raise concerns about the cost of day care, especially for lower-class families.

• Feminist theorists suggest that funded child care is opposed because it is seen as “merely a way to let women work.” Child care workers’ average annual salary in the U.S. is currently right at the poverty level for a family of three.

C. Initiating Policy

• When policymakers decide that child care is desirable, they must determine the degree to which taxpayers should subsidize it.

• Policies regarding child care outside the home vary throughout the world. In Sweden and Denmark, one-half to two-thirds of preschoolers are in government-subsidized child care. In Japan, the availability of day care has not kept pace with the growing number of mothers remaining in the labor force.

Key Terms

Anticipatory socialization Processes of socialization in which a person rehearses for future positions, occupations, and social relationships.

Cognitive theory of development The theory that children’s thought progresses through four stages of development.

Degradation ceremony An aspect of the socialization process within some total institutions, in which people are subjected to humiliating rituals.

Dramaturgical approach A view of social interaction in which people are seen as theatrical performers.

Face-work The efforts people make to maintain the proper image and avoid public embarrassment.

Gender role Expectations regarding the proper behavior, attitudes, and activities of males and females.

Generalized other The attitudes, viewpoints, and expectations of society as a whole that a child takes into account in his or her behavior.

Impression management The altering of the presentation of the self in order to create distinctive appearances and satisfy particular audiences.

Life course approach A research orientation in which sociologists and other social scientists look closely at the social factors that influence people throughout their lives, from birth to death.

Looking-glass self A concept that emphasizes the self as the product of our social interactions.

Midlife crisis A stressful period of self-evaluation that begins at about age 40.

Naturally occurring retirement community (NORC) An area that has gradually become an informal center for senior citizens.

Personality A person’s typical patterns of attitudes, needs, characteristics, and behavior.

Resocialization The process of discarding former behavior patterns and accepting new ones as part of a transition in one’s life.

Rite of passage A ritual marking the symbolic transition from one social position to another.

Role taking The process of mentally assuming the perspective of another and responding from that imagined viewpoint.

Sandwich generation The generation of adults who simultaneously try to meet the competing needs of their parents and their children.

Self A distinct identity that sets us apart from others.

Significant other An individual who is most important in the development of the self, such as a parent, friend, or teacher.

Socialization The lifelong process in which people learn the attitudes, values, and behaviors appropriate for members of a particular culture.

Total institution An institution that regulates all aspects of a person’s life under a single authority, such as a prison, the military, a mental hospital, or a convent.

Essay Questions

1. What does the case history of Isabelle tell us about the importance of socialization?

2. What do the Romanian orphanage studies tell us about the importance of social interaction in the socialization process?

3. How do the studies of animals raised in isolation support the importance of socialization on development?

4. What do twin studies tell us about the nature versus nurture argument?

5. How did Charles Horton Cooley approach the socialization process?

6. How did George Herbert Mead approach the socialization process?

7. Identify and explain George Herbert Mead’s three distinct stages in childhood socialization.

8. Distinguish between significant and generalized others, and note their importance to George Herbert Mead.

9. How can Erving Goffman’s conceptualization of impression management be used to understand social behavior?

10. Define and offer an example you have observed of impression management and face-work.

11. How do college students use impression management after examinations?

12. What do psychological approaches tell us about the self?

13. Explain the role played by rites of passage and give examples of such rites in different cultures.

14. What is the difference between anticipatory socialization and resocialization?

15. What is meant by degradation ceremony, and how does it relate to socialization?

16. What are the significant forces in childhood socialization?

17. What part do gender roles play in socialization?

18. What is the significance of television in the socialization process of children?

19. What impact, if any, has access to new technology (the Internet, cell phones) had on the socialization process?

20. In what way does the workplace play a role in socialization?

21. How does religion play a role in socialization?

22. In what way does the state or the government play a role in socialization?

23. What is the “sandwich generation”?

24. What are the phases in the retirement experience identified by Robert Atchley?

25. How does retirement vary by gender, race, and social class?

26. What affect does high-quality child care have on the development of children?

27. How might functionalists and conflict theorists analyze the controversy over child care/day care differently?

28. Examine child care outside the home using a micro-level analysis.

29. What concerns do feminists have with high-quality childcare?

30. How does out-of-home childcare differ in other countries?

Critical Thinking Questions

1. Discuss the influence of heredity in explaining the process of one’s personality development. Give examples to support your discussion. Have students identify similarities and differences between themselves and their siblings and discuss possible explanations for the differences, both from a “nature” and a “nurture” perspective (i.e., Did their mother and/or father interact differently with the siblings? Is one sibling more like the mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, etc.?)

2. Define Goffman’s dramaturgical approach in the development of the self. Give examples in which you may have used impression management to portray your image as favorable to others around you.

3. Discuss Jean Piaget’s cognitive theory of development and offer any strengths or criticisms of his approach in viewing personality development. Give examples from your own observations that either support or fail to support Piaget’s theory.

4. Identify Goffman’s four traits of total institutions and discuss how a degradation ceremony is used to erode one’s sense of self. Discuss why elimination of the former sense of self is necessary to fully resocialize a person.

5. Discuss the various ways socializing agents may contribute to an institutionalized system of social inequality. Give some examples to support your answer.

6. Describe why adjustment to retirement may or may not be easier for a person in a modern society compared to a person in an earlier society.

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Copyright © 2015 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.