1. Socialization
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2. What is Socialization?
 Socialization is the term sociologists use to
describe the ways in which people learn to
conform to their society’s norms, values, and
roles.
 How people learn to behave according to
cultural norms—the way they learn their culture,
makes possible the transmission of culture from
one generation to the next.
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3. When does Socialization Occur?
 Socialization occurs throughout the lifetime as
individuals learn new norms and new groups
and situations. Socialization can be divided into
three major phases.
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4. Primary Socialization
 Occurs within the family and other intimate
groups in a child’s social environment.
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5. Adult Socialization
 Person learns the norms associated with new
statuses such as wife, husband, researcher,
teacher.
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6. Secondary Socialization
 occurs in late childhood and adolescence,
when the child enters school and comes under
the influence of adults and peers outside the
household and family environment
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7. Controversial Issues in the Study of
Socialization
Nature vs. Nurture
 What is the relative strength of biological (i.e.,
genetic) vs. social influences on the individual?
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8. How do we come to be who we are?
Nature vs Nurture
 The nature position holds that human behavior is the
product of a person’s heredity, which is determined at
birth and is thus beyond human control. According to
this view, many of our characteristics, abilities, and
personality traits are dictated by our biological
equipment, innate intelligence, and hormonal make-up.
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9. Nurture
 The nurture position argues that human beings are
flexible and adoptable and that human behavior is
determined by the learning and social contact that people
experience as they mature.
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10. Sigmund Freud
 Theory of personality is
based on the assumption
that human beings are born
with certain biological
drives, such as the desire to
seek pleasure, that must be
controlled by society and
channeled into socially
productive activities.
 The relationship between
the individual and society is
one of conflict and tension.
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11. Sigmund Freud
 (human qualities innate; biologically determined) was
the social scientist to develop a theory that
addressed both the nature & nurture aspects of
human existence. Freud believed that the social self
develops primarily in the family, where the infant is
gradually forced to control its biological functions and
needs: sucking, eating, defecation, genital stimulation,
etc.
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12. Freud
 Freud believed that infants have sexual urges and by
showing that these aspects of the self are the primary
targets of early socialization—that the infant is taught in
many ways to delay physical gratification and to channel
its biological urges into socially accepted forms of
behavior.
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13. Freud divided personality into three
functional areas:
 ID
 Superego
 Ego
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14. The id. . . .
 The id is the unconscious biological fund of primitive
energies with which every person is born.
 In the newborn child, the id is the only part of the
personality that exists.
 Through interaction with others, child learns that
unrestricted satisfaction of id is impossible. This leads
to emergence of the . . .
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15. Superego
 The superego is the “conscience,” consisting of
internalized rules that guide behavior. It represents
the morality of society and usually reflects the beliefs,
values, and norms of the child’s parents.
 The superego constrains the impulses of the id, while
the ego conciliates the id and the superego by
searching for ways of satisfying the id that are
acceptable to the superego.
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16. Ego (the moral component of the
personality)
 The ego exists at a conscious level and seeks socially
approved ways of gratifying the desires of the id.
 The ego serves as mediator between the impulses of the
id and the constraints of society.
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17. Importance of Socialization
 Socialization is vital to culture
– transmission of culture from one generation to the
next.
- if disrupted, a culture disintegrates or even dies
 Socialization is vital to personality
- training is important for every child
- it greatly affects his personality
- consider the example : The Case of Isabelle
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18. Importance of Socialization
 Socialization is vital to sex differentiation
- it provides every individual the expected role he or
she play in the society according to their sexes
- difference between boys and girls (biological factors
determine abilities and interest of the sexes; i.e. bigger and
stronger than women but also instinct for hunting, fighting and
organizing. Women, to bear children and instinct to
complement them ---gentleness and domesticity)
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19. Humans without Social Contact
 Other cases of humans who grew up without social
contact have appeared in the news occasionally. What
emerges is a consistent picture of beings:
 who do not use language
 who react to others with fear and hostility
 who exhibit a general apathy
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20. Conclusion
 Intelligence, and the ability to establish close bonds with others
depends on early interaction.
 The self concept begins in childhood
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21. Behaviorism
 viewed individuals as a tabula rasa, or a blank slate, that
could be written upon by socialization
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22. Criticisms of behaviorism
Sociologists argue that while behaviorists may show us
how some types of social learning take place,
psychological research often does not deal with real
social environments.
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23. The Social Construction of Self
 in sociology, the self is viewed as a social construct: It is
produced or constructed through interaction with other
people over a lifetime. How the self emerges usually take
an interactionist perspective (symbolic interactionism)
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24. Charles Horton Cooley. The Looking-Glass
Self
 One of the founders of the
interactionist perspective
 The self is a social product;
developed through
interactions with other
people.
 The term looking-glass self
refers to the process through
which we develop our sense of
self based upon the reactions
of other people to ourselves or
our actions.
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25. Three elements of looking-glass self. . .
 We imagine how ourselves or our behavior appear to
other people (presentation)
 We imagine how these people evaluate us or our
behavior (identification)
 We experience some feeling because of this judgment;
develop a self-concept (subjective interpretation)
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26. So….how is the “self” developed?
 You should be able to describe the contributions made
by Cooley, Mead, and Freud to our understanding of the
socialization process.
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27. George Herbert Mead
 Credited with having expanded
Cooley’s ideas
 People not only react to each
other, but they also interpret each
other’s actions. That is, they learn
to take the role of the other. That
is, to put themselves in someone
else’s shoes.
 Learned in play
 Significant others
 As children internalize
expectations, develop sense of
“generalized other”—our
perception of how people in
general think of us
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28. The Generalized Other. . .
 Mead maintained that the experience of role-play and
pretence in early childhood were vital for the
formation of a mature sense of self, which may only
be achieved by the child learning to take on the role
of the other, i.e., seeing things from another person’s
perspective.
 Able to see self not just from another’s point of view,
but from groups of others.
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29. Three Stages
 Imitation—mimic others
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30. Stage 2: Play
 Play—children act out
roles of others. Even if
only pretending,
children behave as
though they were the
other person and
thereby learn to view
world from different
perspective.
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31. Stage 3: Games
 Games—children
perform roles that
require them to
coordinate their actions
with real people.
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32. Two Parts to Self; “I” and “Me”
 “self” – it has development.
- not initially there at birth
- it is develop as a result of relations to the social
process and to other individuals within that process
-children begin to take the on the social roles they
observe around them.
 “me” is the part of the self that reflects our perceptions
of what people think of us. It is the part that permits
evaluation and enables us to control our behavior.
 It is objective, a product of socialization
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33. “I”
 The “I” is the active, independent, spontaneous,
idiosyncratic self (what makes you different from others) and
unpredictable side of the self.
 It is subjective – product of individual distinctiveness
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34.  Without the “me” orderly social interaction could not
occur; without the “I”, social interaction could be
mechanical and monotonous.
 With these two complimentary parts, we are able to
reflect on our own behavior and develop a sense of inner
continuity or identity.
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35. Ervin Goffman: The Presentation of Self
 Impression management
 Altering of the presentation of self—ways we learn to present
ourselves socially.
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36. Situations:
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37. Effects of Childhood Socialization
Children raised in childhood isolation.
 The case of Anna (1932-1938): 5 years in near total
isolation. Raised in a storage room in a Pennsylvania farm
house by an unstable mother from a strict family where
illegitimate children were taboo.
 When rescued by a social worker, she was a zombie –
unresponsive to the social world. Re-socialization helped
her a little – she learned to smile - but she was permanently
retarded in virtually every way: cognitive, affective and
behavioral.
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38. Conclusion
 Children raised in near total isolation suffer retardation
along all three dimensions of personality.
 Long term isolation – the duration of the primary
socialization period - seems to produce permanent or
irreversible retardation.
 Short term isolation – perhaps a few years during
primary socialization – produces initial retardation,
but these effects may be reversible with effective re-
socialization.
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39. Children Raised in Total
Institutions
 Total Institution: residence where inmates are cut off
from society, under the control of a hierarchy of official.
 Examples: prison, boarding school, asylum, boot camp,
bureaucratic orphanage.
 Many orphanages in the 1950s were total institutions.
Personality studies revealed that some of these children did
not have a chance to establish close emotional ties with
specific others.
 The result was slight physical, social, and emotional
retardation for some, particularly in emotional empathy
skills. They were a bit more emotionally aloof or “cold” than
other children.
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40. Monkeys raised in total
isolationrhesus monkey experiments revealed that
Harry Harlow’s
even in monkeys, social behavior is largely learned, not
inherited.
 Isolated monkeys didn’t know how to mate.
 Female mothers who are artificially impregnated treat
their offspring in an unloving and abusive manner, or
simply ignore them.
 This suggests there may not be a “maternal instinct.”
 Infant monkeys, if given a choice, prefer a “cuddly” cloth
doll with no feeder bottle to a wire doll that has a feeder
bottle attached, suggesting an instinct for
emotional/physical contact.
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41. The Harlow Research -
Conclusions
 1. Isolated monkeys become asocial.
 2. Infant monkeys seem to derive emotional benefits
with physical contact/hugs.
 3. Social contact – not necessarily with the mother – is
the key.
 4. Short periods of isolation (3 months or less) produce
damages which can be reversed, but long term isolation
produces irreversible damage to the monkeys.
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42. Implications for Humans
 Humans, lacking the complex instincts that
guide behavior in most other species, can
become fully human only by learning in social
interaction with other people.
 Intimate contact appears to be a critical need,
especially during primary socialization.
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43. Maraming Salamat
po…! 
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