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Socialization and the Life Course - Coggle Diagram
Socialization and the Life Course
A Look Ahead
Socialization: the lifelong process in which people learn the attitudes, values, and behaviors appropriate for members of a particular culture.
Occurs through human interactions that begin in infancy and continue through retirement.
Personality: a person's typical patterns of attitudes, needs, characteristics, and behavior.
The Role of Socialization
The nature versus nurture debate is over the relative importance of biological inheritance and environmental factors in human development. Most social scientists have now moved beyond this debate. Instead, they now acknowledge the interaction of heredity and environmental factors in socialization.
The Self and Socialization
Our concepts of our emerges as we interact with others.
Self: a distinct identity that sets us apart from others.
It is not a static phenomenon; it continues to develop and change throughout our lives.
Sociologists and psychologists alike are interested in how the individual develops and modifies the sense of self as a result of social interaction.
Sociological Approaches to the self
Looking-Glass Self: a concept used by Charles Horton Cooley that emphasizes the self as the product of our social interactions.
Three phases of developing self-identiy
We imagine how we present ourselves to others.
We imagine how others evaluate us.
We develop feelings about ourselves as a result of those impressions.
The looking-glass self is a broader view of double consciousness: the divison of an individuals identity into two or more social realities.
A critical aspect is that the self results from an individuals "imagination" of how others view him or her.
We can develop self-identities based on incorrect perceptions.
State of the Self: George Herbert Mead said there are three stages in the development of the self.
Preparatory stage: children imitate people around them, and children begin to understand symbols.
Play stage: children become more aware of social relationships, children can pretend to be other people, and role talking: the process of mentally assuming the perspective of another and responding from the imagined viewpoint.
Game stage: childern around age eight to nine no longer just play roles, children grasp their social positions and the social positions of others, and generalized other: the attitudes, viewpoints, and expectations of society as a whole a child takes into account in his or her behavior.
Theory of the Self: according to Mead, the self begins as a privileged, central position in a person's world.
Young children think they are focus of everything around them.
As a person matures, the self changes and begins to reflect greater concern about the reactions of others.
Significant others: an individual who is the most important in the development of the self; such as a parent, friend, or teacher.
Presentation of the Self: Erving Goffman suggested that many of our daily activities involve attempts to convey impressions of who we are.
Impression management: the altering of the presentation of the self in order to create distinctive appearances and satisfy particular audiences.
Dramaturgical approach: a view of social interaction in which people are seen as theatrical performers.
Face-work: the efforts people make to maintain the proper image and avoid public embarrassment.
Sigmund Freud's early work in psychology stressed the role of inborn drives.
The self is a social product, the self has components that work in oppositions to each other, our natural impulsive instincts are in constant conflicts with societal constraints, and by interacting with others, we learn the expectations of society and select the behavior that is most appropriate.
Jean Piaget stressed the importance of social interactions.
He found that newborns have no self in the sense of a looking glass image, they are quite self-centered, demanding all attention be directed towards them, and as children mature, they are gradually socialized into social relationships.
Cognitive theory of development: children's thought progresses through four stages of development.
Sensorimotor stage: young children use their senses to make discoveries.
Preoperational stage: children begin to use words and symbols to distinguish objects and ideas.
Conrete operational stage: children engage in more logical thinking.
Formal operational stage: adolescents become capable of sophisticated abstract thought and can deal logically with ideas and values.
Agents of Socialization
Family: In the United States, social development also includes exposure to cultural assumptions regarding gender and race.
Gender role: exceptions regarding the proper behavior, attitudes, and activities of males and females.
In some societies, girls are socialized mainly by their mothers and boys by their fathers.
Peer group: as children grow older, peer groups increasingly assume the role of Mead's significant others.
Young people associate with others who are approximately their age, and who often enjoy a similar social status.
Schools in United States foster competition through rewards and punishments, such as grades and evaluations.
Functionalists argue that schools fulfill the function of teaching children the values and customs of the larger society.
Conflict theorists add that schools can reinforce the divisive aspects of society, especially those of social class.
Mass media and technology
Media innovations such as radio, motion pictures, recorded music, and television have been important agents of socialization.
Both in industrialized nations and in developing areas, people have been socialized into relying on new communications technologies. Still, technologies as cell phones are expensive and not as readily available in low-income nations.
Workplace
more and more young people work today, teenager employment in the United States is the highest among industrialized countries.
Socialization in the workplace changes with the shift from after-school job to full-time employment. Between the ages of 18 and 52, the typical person has held 12 jobs, nearly half of them at ages 18-24.
Religion and the State
Religious organizations stipulate certain traditional rites that may bring together all members of an extended family.
Government regulations stipulate the age one can drink, drive, vote, marry, and retire.