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NPTEL – Humanities and Social Sciences – Introduction to Sociology
Module 4 Socialization and Social Control
Lecture 20
Socialization: Part II
In this lecture, we shall discuss some of the intricacies involved in the processes of
socialization.
Becoming a Social Being
Socialization refers to the ways in which people learn to conform to their society's norms,
values, and roles.
Primary socialization refers to the ways in which the newborn individual is moulded into a
social being.
Secondary socialization occurs in later childhood and adolescence as a child is influenced
by adults and peers outside his or her family.
Adult socialization occurs when a person learns the norms associated with specific adult
statuses.
There are a number of unresolved issues in the study of socialization:
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The relative strength of biological and social influences (nature versus nurture).
How does a person develop a sense of self?
How do social environments affect socialization?
How does gender socialization occur?
Nature and Nurture
Sigmund Freud believed that the personality develops in infancy as the child is forced to
control his or her bodily urges.
Freud‟s model of the personality is divided into three parts: The original, unsocial zed urges
arise out of the id. The norms, values, and feelings taught through socialization belong to the
superego, and the ego is one's conception of oneself in relation to others.
Freud believed that the ego is formed as a result of conflict between the infant's basic
biological urges and society's need for a socialized person.
Behaviourism takes the opposite view from that of sociobiology. Behaviourists believe that
all behaviour is learned.
By training a dog to salivate at the sound of a bell, Ivan Pavlov demonstrated that
conditioned reflexes could be developed.
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John B. Watson showed that emotions such as fear could also be conditioned.
Feral children are children who have been raised in isolation. Studies of such children show
that the absence of parental love and nurturance damages the individual's ability to become a
social person.
The Need for Love
Studies that compare children reared in orphanages with those reared in traditional families
show that the former are more likely to develop emotional problems.
Harry Harlow showed that infant monkeys reared apart from other monkeys grew up to be
aggressive, violent, and incapable of nurturing their own infants.
Today most sociologists agree that while genetic and other biological traits establish broad
boundaries for individual achievement, the environment in which a person is raised can cause
her or his potential to be realized more or less fully within those boundaries.
The Social Construction of the Self
Interactionist theories of personality formation focus on how the self is “constructed” through
social interaction.
Charles Horton Cooley developed the concept of the “looking-glass self”-the reflection of
ourselves that we think we see in the behaviours of others toward us.
George Herbert Mead believed that the self could emerge only through the use of language.
Culture, therefore, is at the centre of the formation of the self.
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Mead believed that role taking, the ability to look at social situations from the
standpoint of another person, develops in three stages: the preparatory, game, and
play stages.
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A significant other is an important person in an individual's environment; the
generalized other is a composite of all the roles of
significant others.
In playing the roles for which they have been socialized, people adhere to the rules of
interaction known as “face work”. They seek to present a positive image of themselves, their
“face”, and to avoid being embarrassed or "losing face."
Jean Piaget studied children‟s notions of morality. Lawrence Kohlberg built on Piaget's
research in devising his theory of stages of moral development in children.
In Kohlberg's theory, preconventional morality is based on the desire for reward and the
fear of punishment; conventional morality is based on an understanding of right and wrong as
embodied in social rules or laws; and postconventional morality is based on a sense of
relativity and moral principles.
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Carol Gilligan has demonstrated the propensity of females to base moral choices on
considerations of caring as well as justice or law.
Social Environments and Early Socialization
The environment in which a person is socialized has a powerful effect on his or her
personality and behaviour.
Urie Bronfenbrenner summarizes the conclusions of numerous studies with these
propositions:
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In order to develop normally, a child needs the enduring involvement of one or more
adults in care of and joint activity with the child.
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This requires public policies that provide opportunity, resources, encouragement, and
time for parenthood.
Agencies of Socialization
As we have already discussed in the last lecture that agencies of socialization are the groups
of people, along with the interactions that occur within those groups, that influence a person's
social development. Within these agencies one finds a great deal of anticipatory socialization,
in which the individual plays at a role that he or she is likely to assume later in life.
The family is the primary agency of socialization.
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Schools are the most important agency of socialization outside the family. Conflicts
may arise between parents and school personnel over what should be taught in
schools.
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Scout troops, churches, and leagues of all kinds are among the agencies of
socialization found in many communities.
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Peer groups (interacting groups of people of about the same age) tend to be the
dominant agency of socialization in middle and late adulthood. When children's peer
groups are faced with conflict and social change, they often
organize themselves
in gangs.
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The mass media are also an important agency of socialization. The effect of television
viewing on children and adolescents is a subject of intensive research.
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Socialization through the Life Course
A person‟s core identity, the part of the self formed in early childhood, does not change easily
later in life.
The roles people play during their life course can be influenced by social changes, changes in
a society‟s culture, the impact of new friends, and occupational mobility.
In any new activity the newcomer or recruit must learn a new set of norms associated with
the roles of the organization.
Sometimes people undergo resocialization to correct patterns of social learning that they and
others find detrimental.
Erik Erikson emphasized the role of identification in the formation of the personality.
Identification occurs when individuals choose adult role models and attempt to imitate their
behaviour.
Gender Socialization
Gender socialization refers to the ways in which we learn our gender identity and develop
according to cultural norms of masculinity or femininity.
Gender identity is an individual‟s own feeling of whether she or he is a woman or a man, or a
girl or a boy. It is important to:
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Understand the meaning and implications of socialization as the process of “creating a
social being”, emphasizing differences between "the social construction of the self'
and the biological view of personality.
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Identify socialization as a lifelong process in which the individual continually
changes, but understand that various stages of socialization differ in the extent to
which the family or other institutions act as socializing agencies.
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Understand the ways in which a society‟s culture becomes internalized in the
individual.
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References
Arnett, Jeffrey J. 1995. „Broad and Narrow Socialization: The Family in the Context of a
Cultural Theory‟, Journal of Marriage and the Family, 57 (3): 617-28.
Ellis, Godfrey J., Gary R. Lee, and Larry R. Petersen. 1978. „Supervision and Conformity: A
Cross-Cultural Analysis of Parental Socialization Values‟, American Journal of Sociology, 84
(2): 386-403.
Goffman, Erving. 1961. Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and
Other Inmates.
Holland, David. 1970. „Familization, Socialization, and the Universe of Meaning: An
Extension of the Interactional Approach to the Study of the Family‟, Journal of Marriage and
the Family, 32 (3): 415-27.
Kohn, Melvin L. 1969. Class and Conformity: A Study in Values. Homewood, IL: Dorsey
Press.
Long, Theodore E. and Jeffrey K. Hadden. 1985. „A Reconception of Socialization‟,
Sociological Theory, 3 (1): 39-49.
Marshall, Victor W. 1975. „Socialization for Impending Death in a Retirement Village‟,
American Journal of Sociology, 80 (5): 1124-44.
Mortimer, Jeylan T. and Roberta G. Simmons. 1978. „Adult Socialization‟, Annual Review of
Sociology, 4421-54.
Rosenbaum, James E. 1975. „The Stratification of Socialization Processes‟, American
Sociological Review, 40 (1): 48-54.
Cooley, C. H. 1909. Social Organisation. New York: Scribner‟s.
Freud, Sigmund. 1930. Civilization and Its Discontents. Standard Edition of the Complete
Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Vol. 29. London: Hogarth Press.
Gilligan, Carol. 1982. In a Different Voice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Harrol, Harry F. 1959. Love in Infant Monkeys. Scientific American, Pp.68-74.
Kohlberg, Lawrence. 1969. Stage and Sequence: The Cognitive Developmental Approach to
Socialization. In David A. Goslin (Ed.), Handbook of Socialization Theory and Research.
Chicago: Rand McNally.
Mead, George H.1934. Mind, Self, and Society. C. W. Morris (Ed.). Chicago: University of
Chicago Press
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Pavlov, I. P. 1927. Conditioned Reflexes (G. V. Anrep, Trans.). New York: Oxford
University Press.
Piaget, J and B.Inhelder.1969. The Psychology of Child. New York: Basic Books.
Watson, J.B.1925. Behaviour. New York: Norton.
Questions
1. Describe Freud‟s model of personality.
2. Explain the process of construction of „the self‟.
3. What are the different agencies of socialization?
4. How is socialization through life course achieved?
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