Socialization Unit 3

Terms Personality Heredity Instinct Sociobiology Aptitude Feral children

Personality …is the sum of total behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, and values that are characteristic of an individual. Determine how we adjust to our environment and how we react in specific situations. Personality traits will continue to develop throughout your life.

Heredity The transmission of genetic characteristics from parents to children.

Sociobiology …is the systematic study of the biological basis of all social behavior. Sociobiologists argue that varied cultural characteristics and behavioral traits as religion, cooperation, competition, slavery, territoriality, and envy are rooted in the genetic makeup of humans.

Aptitude Is the capacity to learn a particular skill or acquire a particular body of knowledge. example: natural talent for music or art (inherited capability) Hunger drive Does not tell you when to eat, what to eat, or how to eat – you learn such things through interaction with other human beings [Heredity provides you with certain biological needs, but culture determines how you meet those needs.]

Feral Children Children raised without the influence of a cultural environment. Examples: “wild” or “untamed” children – were found living with animals. They had acquired no reasoning ability, no manners, and no ability to control their bodily functions or move about like other human beings.

Nature vs Nurture The debate by social scientists What determines personality and social behavior? Nature (Heredity) Nurture (Environment/Social Learning)

Nature Human behavior is instinctual in origin. Instinctual drives are responsible for practically everything. Laughing, motherhood, warfare, religion, capitalism, even the creation of society itself. The emergence of sociobiology in the 1970s emphasized the nature viewpoint.

Nurture Ivan Pavlov – a person’s behavior and personality are the result of his or her social learning environment. Conducted experiments with dogs to find the relationship between the nervous system and digestion. Dogs salivate when fed because saliva aids in digestion. Pavlov rang a bell every time he fed the dogs. Eventually he rang the bell but did not feed the dogs. They still salivated. They had to learned to salivate at the sound of the bell.

Factors That Influence Personality Development Heredity Birth Order Parents Cultural Environment

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