Socialization: The Self Unit 3

The Big Q : How does society shape who we become? In Your Notebooks: How are we shaped by society? Who do we base our idea of self on?

 Step 1: Draw a picture of yourself as other people view you – be honest!  Step 2: Answer this question - Do others view you in the same way you view yourself?  Step 3: Answer this question - How does this make you feel about yourself?

The Looking-Glass Self  Developed by Charles Horton Cooley  one of the founders of the interactionist perspective!  LGS theory explains how individuals develop a sense of self  LGS refers to the interactive process by which we develop an image of ourselves based on how we imagine we appear to others

LGS Theory: 3 Step Process  First, we imagine how we appear to others  Second, based on their reactions to us, we attempt to determine whether others view us as we view ourselves  Third, we use our perceptions of how other judge us to develop feelings about ourselves

Mirrors Throughout Life  Who is our mirror as a child?  As a teenager?  As an adult?

Notebook Response Explain a personal example about a time in your life where you experienced the Looking-Glass Self. What was your imagined appearance? What were people’s reactions? How did the perceived reactions make you feel about yourself?

George Herbert Mead: Role-Taking  Through play, we learn to take the role of the other  put ourselves in someone else’s shoes

Mead: Role-Taking  At first kids can take only the role of significant others  Parents  Siblings  As kids grow older they can take on more roles  Mead calls this the generalized other  Taking the role of “the group as a whole”

Three Stages  1. Imitation  Children under 3  They don’t have a separate sense of self so they mimic others  Prepares the child for role-taking  2. Play  Ages 3-6  Children pretend to take the roles of specific people

Three Stages  3. Games  Ages 6+ (early school years)  Organized play or team games  In order to play these games the individual must be able to take on multiple roles!  Must know their role in the game as well as anticipate their opponent

Two Parts to the Self  “I” and “me”  “I” is the self as a subject  the active, creative, spontaneous part of the self  “Me” is the self as object  made up of the attitudes we internalize from interactions with others

Examples  “I”  I shoved him  “I” is doing the action  “Me”  He shoved me  “Me” is the the object of the action

Mead  Mead concluded that: Not only the self but also the human mind is a social product  We cannot think without symbols  society gives us symbols by giving us language  without society we would be unable to think and we would not have what we call “the mind”

Functionalist and Conflict  Functionalist:  Stresses the ways in which groups work together to create a stable society  Conflict Perspective  Views socialization as perpetuating the status quo

FOCUS ON THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES Theoretical PerspectiveView of SocializationHow the Media Influence Socialization FunctionalismStresses how socializationNetwork television contributes to a stableprograms encourage social society.integation by exposing the entire society to shared beliefs, values and norms. Conflict TheoryView socialization as a wayNewspaper owners and for the powerful to keepeditors exercise power by things the same.setting the political agenda for a community Symbolic Interactionism Holds that socialization is the major determinant of human nature Through words and pictures, children’s books expose the young to the meaning of love, manners, and motherhood.

Agents of Socialization  Family  Peer Groups  Institutions (School)  Mass Media

Family  Most important  principal socializer  Give us our first values, norms and beliefs  Deliberate and unintended socialization  Differs from family to family  Racial or ethnic group  Social class  Religion  Geographic region

Peer Groups  Primary group composed of individuals of roughly equal age and similar social characteristics  Pre-teen and teen years  adopt values and standards of peers

Institutions (Schools)  Ages 5-18 (30 weeks a year at school)  Deliberate  Class activities  Extracurricular activities  Cultural values (patriotism, responsibility and good citizenship)

Mass Media  No face-to-face interaction  Instruments of communication that reach large audiences with no personal contact between those sending the information and those receiving it  Books, films, Internet, magazines, newspapers, radio, TV  Connection between aggression and violence on TV  White-middle class values