Chapter III

Soci al iza tion

an d
Per so na li ty
 Nature of Socialization
Everyone is a unique individual with his or her own characteristic
patterns of thought and behavior.
 Personality – Patterns
which tend to determine
our day to day actions
 Development
Personality – involves the
interaction of many
biological and cultural
factors.
 Socialization – process by
which we learn to survive as
individuals and as members
of society.
 Socialization helps explain the
differences among a society’s
members as well as the
similarities, it also allows for
social change.
 Socialization and Stages of
Development
Piaget Mead
Stage 1: Sensorimotor Stage 1: Pre-Verbal
- Sensorimotor perceptions and
motor activity dominate the
infant’s life; infant cannot
distinguish between itself and
others.
Stage 2: Preoperational Stage 2: Play (Verbal)
- Child begins to distinguish - Child learns to take the role
between his/her own body and “the other” by seeing the world
other people and objects; gains from the perspective of other
primitive notion of cause and people.
effect; believes everything has an
end or a purpose. Age: 2-7 years
Stage 3: Concrete Operational
- child begins to be able to take the
role of “the other”, can understand
abstract concepts through concrete
references to the material world.
Age 7-12 years
Stage 4: Formal Operational
- child is able to think abstractly
without reference to the material
world. Age after 12 years.
Stage 3: Game (Verbal)
- child learns to integrate his/her
actions into a network of organized
activity; understands the notion of
community or generalized other;
comes to view his/her behavior in
relation to abstract rules and
regulations.
 Looking-Glass Self
Cooley perceived the individual and society as parts of a whole, not
as separate beings.
He links every person to the social world through the looking glass
self.
Who we are to ourselves, according to Cooley.
The social product or a result of a “feedback” from the way others
see us.
Three Principal elements
2. The mental image of our appearance to the other person.
3. The mental image of his judgment of that appearance
4. Form of self feeling such pride or shame.
 Personality Development
Charles Horton Cooley – suggested that a child’s first awareness of his own
personality is a reflection of how he thinks others see him. Someone who is very
intelligent may consider herself stupid if others treat her as if she was stupid.
Children tend to be affected by the opinions of anyone with whom they come in
contact. With maturity, comes the ability to judge the which opinion ought to be
accepted and which should be rejected.
George Herbert Mead – described the process as one whereby we learn to
judge our behavior according to our perceptions of social expectations. He
referred to this growth of an awareness of the generalized others.
Sigmund Freud – believed that biological drives are in constant conflict with
social demands. We begin life as infant interested only in self gratification.
Id or Biological Urgencies – to find acceptable ways to satisfy demands.
Super ego or conscience – internalizes ideas of right and wrong.
Erik Erikson – envisioned eight stages of human development. A child must
develop a basic trust or mistrust in others depending upon his experience with his
parents.

Lawrence Kohlberg – proposes that morality develops in stages.

• At first, children follow particular patterns of behavior both from fear of

punishment and desire for rewards.
• Gradually, they learn to think in terms of rigid moral rules. They discover
that there are several sides to every issue.
• They begin to make decisions not to please others but to satisfy their
own emerging sense of right and wrong.
 The Socialization Process and its
Agents

The personal aspect of socialization has been viewed by social and

behavioral scientists from at least three complimentary perspectives.

1. Socialization as preparing individuals for participation in group life.

2. Socialization is viewed as enculturation. Similarities among the
personalities of people who have been raised within a given cultural
setting are the focus of study.
3. Socialization is looked at as a process geared to controlling disruptive
drives

One of the most remarkable features of any society is that it can be survive as
an organized, viable system despite the constant change of its membership
through birth and death.
Socialization – accomplished through many different agents – family,
school, peer group, church, occupation, and mass media. No two individuals
are exposed to precisely the same pattern pf experiencing, thus none of us is
shaped into exactly the same mold.

Family – The first socializing agent with which most of us come in contact is the
family. Parents provide the answer to the child’s questions in the way they treat their
baby in the first few years of his life. Most parents make a conscious effort to pass on
their values and ideas to their children.

School – a rationally organized bureaucracy. A social machine designed to

“process” batches of human beings who are fed into the system at the bottom
and who are expected to emerge some years later with useful and socially
approved modifications in their knowledge, skills, values, attitudes, and general
orientations to society.
Peer group – interaction is essential for children are to become fully
developed morally. Its major purpose is to provide enjoyment . As children
grow older, the influence of their peers becomes increasingly significant.
Adolescents have their own ways of speaking. Dressing and behaving and
they may refuse to believe that every adult went through the same experience
during his/her own youth.

Mass media – Media may create a distorted impression of societal realities.

Through media children are exposed of an adult world of which they are not
yet a part. They acquire conceptions of people’s values, numerous social
roles, and other kinds of social knowledge without seeking it. This is
incidental learning, an unplanned by-product of entertainment.