CHAPTER 5 SOCIALIZING THE INDIVIDUAL

 How might culture shape an individual’s personality?  Consider:  Cultural values and beliefs  The internalization of cultural norms SOCIALIZING THE INDIVIDUAL

 How might status and role expectations shape personality?  Consider:  Economic and educational status  Parental status and personal status SOCIALIZING THE INDIVIDUAL

 It has been proven that people’s personalities are not shaped by their environment  TRUE: An individual’s personality is based on his or her genetic makeup  FALSE: An individual’s personality is the result of both his or her genetic makeup and experiences TRUTH OR FICTION

 As long as a child’s basic physical requirements, such as food and clothing, are being met, he or she has no need of human contact to develop basic skills  TRUE: Children develop basic skills as a natural part of physical development  FALSE: Children need contact with other people to learn to model and develop basic skills TRUTH OR FICTION

 People’s personalities are rarely shaped by their families and environments  TRUE: People’s personalities are shaped by their genetic makeup, intelligence, and knowledge  FALSE: People’s families, experiences, and interactions with others play a large role in shaping personality TRUTH OR FICTION

 What comes to mind when you hear personality?  Personality: the total behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, and values that are characteristics of an individual  How we adjust to our environment and react to specific situations  No two same personalities  Personalities change throughout our lifetime  Slower when you reach adulthood PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT

 Personality, heavily debated between:  Heredity: transmission of genetic characteristics from parents to children  The other is social environment  Nature viewpoint strong through 1800s  Human behavior instinct: unchanging, biological, inherited behavior pattern  Instinctual behavior drives almost everything  Nurture: result of a person’s social environment and learning NATURE VS. NURTURE

 Stuff you’re born with  Body type, hair type, eye color, skin tone  Aptitude: capacity to learn a skill or knowledge  Natural talent in music/art/sports  Learned or inherited  Develop because of environmental factors: parents  Heredity: provides biological needs, culture: how we meet them  Limits on individuals HEREDITY

 Personality influenced by siblings  Also the order in which we are born  First borns: achievement oriented and responsible, conservative in their thinking and defenders of status quo  Later borns: better in social relationships, more affectionate and friendly, risk takers and social/intellectual rebels BIRTH ORDER

 Just like siblings, parents have a major impact on our personality  Age of parents is a big factor  Also their; education, religious orientation, economic status, cultural heritage, and occupational background PARENTAL CHARACTERISTICS

 Strong influences on personality development  Model personalities  US: competitiveness and individualism  Ik people  Pre WWII: hunters/gatherers, one large family, brothers and sisters, villager parents  Post WWII: Ugandan gov’t turned village into Nat’l Park, moved to barren land, Ik turn on each other  Children out of home by age 3, age bands, parents don’t help kids, strongest and clever survive CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT

 Feral children: wild or untamed  Anna:  Mother unmarried  Attic room  Minimum care  Discovered at 6 yo.  Isabelle:  Unmarried mother  Had contact with mother  2 years, reached age level of social/mental dev. ISOLATION IN CHILDHOOD

 Institutions and orphanages  1940s-50s  Children received medical and nutritional attention  W/2 years of the study 1/3 of the children died  Withered away from lack of love/attention  < 25% could walk, dress, or hold a spoon themselves  Importance of human interaction INSTITUTIONALIZATION

 Dr. Harry Harlow’s experiments on rhesus monkeys demonstrated that being raised in isolation produces a kind of psychosis. Such monkeys exhibited fear, hostility, unsociability, and a lack of feeling. Harlow also offered young rhesus monkeys the choice of two substitute mothers—one made of soft materials with no bottle and one made of wire with a bottle. The monkeys invariably clung to the soft, cuddly dummy and went to the colder, wire dummy only for the bottle attached to it.  Can this study be applied to humans? ISOLATION’S EFFECTS ON RHESUS MONKEYS

 In the 1200s Emperor Frederick II conducted an experiment in which he isolated a number of very young children from physical communication and physical contact with their foster mothers and nurses. The emperor was curious to see what languages the children would speak if they were never exposed to one. When the children all died, the emperor found out instead the importance of close emotional contact for young children.  How does this experiment compare to the cases studies of feral children that we’ve gone over? THEN AND NOW

 When we’re born can we walk, talk, feed or defend ourselves?  How do we learn these things?  Social and cultural interaction  Socialization: people learning the basic skills, values, beliefs, and behavior patterns  How become socialized  Self: conscious awareness of possessing a distinct identity that separates you and your environment from other members of society  3 Theories of Socialization 5.2 THE SOCIAL SELF

 English philosopher (1600s)  Each child born with tabula rasa (clean slate)  Anything can be written on the slate  No personality, moldable  Claimed he could shape any newborn to have a personality he chose JOHN LOCKE: THE TABULA RASA

 Part founder of interactionist perspective  Looking-glass self: the interactive process by which we develop an image of ourselves based on how we imagine we appear to others  other people act as mirrors, reflecting back the image we project through their reactions to our behavior CHARLES HORTON COOLEY: LOOKING GLASS SELF

 3 step process  1. we imagine how we appear to others  2. based on their reactions to us we determine whether others view us as we view ourselves  3. we use our perceptions of how others judge us to develop feelings about ourselves  Primary group has important roles  Redefine self-image throughout life LOOKING GLASS SELF

 Another interactionist founder  Builds off Cooley but we eventually take on roles of others  Role-taking: allowing us to anticipate what others expect of us. Thus we learn to see ourselves through the eyes of others  People closest to us (significant others)  Internalized attitudes, expectations, and viewpoints of society are generalized others. GEORGE HERBERT MEAD: ROLE-TAKING

 Children aren’t capable of role-taking, need skills  3 Step process:  1. Imitation: children lack sense of self  2. Play: act out roles of specific people (dress up)  Attempting to see the world through someone else’s eyes  3. Games: children take on own roles, also anticipate the actions and expectations of others  Closely resembles real life ROLE-TAKING

 Through role taking, we develop a sense of self  Self consists of 2 related parts:  I: unsocialized, spontaneous, self-interested  Me: aware of expectations and attitudes of soc.  Childhood: I is stronger  Me never dominates the I  Well-rounded member needs to develop both ROLE-TAKING

 Our 3 gentlemen gave us theories  Agents of socialization: describe specific ppl, groups, & institutions that enable socialization to take place  4 primary agents in the U.S.  1. Family  2. Peer Group  3. School  4. Mass Media 5.3 AGENTS OF SOCIALIZATION

 Most important agent  Principle socializer for children  Learning values, norms, beliefs  Intended:  Things we deliberately teach our children  Unintended:  Things we unintentionally teach our children  Possibly more influential then intended  Varies family to family  Members and subgroups THE FAMILY

 As we grow, outside influences begin to shape us  Peer group: group of individuals of roughly = age & similar social characteristics  Pre-teen/Teen years  Peer acceptance  Family focus = larger culture  Peer group focus = subculture of group PEER GROUP

 Between 5-18 you spend roughly 7.5 years in school  Intentional socialization:  Class activities; reading, writing, math  Extracurriculars; dances, clubs, sports  Unintentional socialization:  Teachers as role models; speech, style, dress, etc  Peer groups SCHOOL

 Involves no face-to-face contact  mass media: instruments of comm. That reach large audiences with no personal contact  Book, film, internet, magazine, newspaper, radio, TV  TV=most influential  Aggression in media  Expands the viewers world MASS MEDIA

 Prison, boot camps, monasteries, psych hospitals all have what similarities in common?  Total institution: setting in which people are totally isolated from society and under tight control  Socialization differs in total institutions  Resocialization: breaking past experiences and learning new values and norms  Stripping all semblance of an individual  Denied freedoms  Weakened self = easier to conform RESOCIALIZATION