SOCIALIZATION
Prof. Fernando R. Pedrosa, Ph.D.
Professor-in-charge, Socio-Anthro.
SOCIALIZATION

The long and complicated process of
social interaction through which the child
learns the intellectual, physical, and social
skills needed to function as a member of
society.
A process of mutual influence between a
person and his/her fellowmen.
 A process that results in an adaptation to,
the patterns of social behavior. (Fichter)

Personality
Product of socialization
 Ety. –”per” (through); “sonare”
(sound/speak)
 Real – the sum total of the physical,
mental, emotional, and social
characteristics of an individual.
* A well-rounded person has a rich personality and
has varied interests and purposes.

Personality as a product of socialization,
arises from the result of the interplay of
various
variables,
e.g.
heredity,
environment – geographical, social,
economic, and cultural.
 The interplay of these factors immensely
shapes the development of an individual’s
personality.


Factors of Personality Development:
1. Heredity (nature) – a child’s physical build
and its facial appearance are complex
creations of fused genes.
2. Environment (nurture) – constitutes the
aggregate of surrounding things and
conditions, and greatly affects personality
as a result of a long gradual process.
- The “self” is achieved through a long,
slow process of growth and involves the
breaking of undesirable habits and
formation of desirable ones.
- The environment provides formative
influences in the shaping of the foundation
of personality that is the result of the
wonders of the genes.
- The environment, as a determining factor
in personality formation, includes:
geographic, cultural, and social aspects.
- Geographic environment is
characterized by the location, climate,
topography and natural resources.
-Cultural environment includes the mode
of living, the norms of behavior, the
folkways, mores, laws, and customs,
values and ideas and other established
patterned ways of the social group.
- Social environment is characterized by the
various groups of people interacting with one
another in a social situation.
* A child normally joins various groups and each
group improves certain norms and sets of
expectations on every member that influence
personality formation. For every action perceived
by the child from another, he/she gives meaning
and interprets it according to his/her own
experiences.
* The nature of the child’s interpersonal
experiences in relation to the structure
and background of his family will also
influence
the
shaping
of
his/her
personality. For ex. – an only child who
comes from a rich family will have
different experiences from one who comes
from a poor and big family.
* The different social processes, e.g.,
cooperation, competition, conflict, and
differentiation
and
other
social
experiences in the social environment will
certainly exert a tremendous influence
upon the individual.

Personality/Social Self relates appropriately to the poem
“CHILDREN LEARN WHAT THEY LIVE”
If a child lives with criticism, he learns to condemn;
If a child lives with hostility, he learns to fight;
If a child lives with ridicule, he learns to be shy;
If a child lives with shame, he learns to feel guilty;
If a child lives with tolerance, he learns to be patient;
If a child lives with encouragement, he learns confidence;
If a child lives with praise, he learns to appreciate;
If a child lives with fairness, he learns justice;
If a child lives with security, he learns to have faith;
If a child lives with approval, he learns to like himself;
If a child lives with acceptance and friendship, he learns to
find love in the world.

Socialization is described from points:
1. Objective socialization
- refers to the society acting upon the
child.
2. Subjective socialization
- process by which society transmits its
culture from one generation to the next,
and adapts the individual to the accepted
and approved ways of organized social life.
Importance of Socialization

It is vital to:
1. Culture
2. Personality
3. Sex role differentiation

Vital to culture – it is through this
process of socialization that every society
transmits its culture to succeeding
generations.
- through this continuing process, each
generation acquires the elements of its
society’s culture – its knowledge, symbols,
values, norms, beliefs, and others.
- Socialization is the vital link to cultures.
- If this process of cultural transmission is
disrupted, a culture disintegrates or even
dies.

Vital to personality
- The process of socialization also plays a
very vital role in personality formation and
development.
- The training of every child received
through the process of socialization greatly
affects his personality. Human infants
develop social attachments when they
learn to feel others and see that others
care for them.

Vital to sex role differentiation
- Socialization provides every individual
the expected role he/she is to play in the
society according to their sexes.
- In the early years, it was believed that
differences in behavior between boys and
girls, men and women, were “inborn” and
“natural.”
- Biological factors determine the abilities,
interests, and traits of the sexes.
Some of the numerous subprocesses of social learning
Imitation
- the human action by which one tends to
duplicate more or less, or exactly, the
behavior of others.
 Suggestion
- is found in the works and actions of those who
are attempting to change the behavior of the
learner.


Competition
- a stimulative process in which two or
more individuals vie with one another in
achieving knowledge.

Components of Socialization:
1. Goals/Motivations
- the state of affairs one wishes to
achieve.
2. Contexts
- where a social interaction takes place
makes a difference.(place, environment,
activities surrounding the interaction)
3. Norms
- refer to the rules that regulate the
process of social interaction.
- it is patterned; quite predictable.
Types of social interaction
Focused
- when two or more individuals agree (explicitly
or implicitly) to sustain an interaction with one
or more particular goals in mind.
 Unfocused
- this happen simply because two or more
persons happen to be in each other’s presence.
(impressions of individuals for another)


Four basic types of focused
interaction:
1. Exchange
2. Cooperation
3. Conflict
4. Competition

Exchange
- when people do something for another
with the expressed purpose of receiving a
reward or return.

Cooperation
- people act together to promote common
interests or achieve shared goals.
Types of cooperation:
1. Spontaneous - instantaneous
2. Traditional – cultural (customary
practice)
3. Directed – planned/organized
4. Contractual – obligatory due to contract

Conflict
- people struggle with one another for
some commonly prized object or value.

Coercion
- a kind of conflict that can occur when
one of the parties in a conflict is much
stronger than the other.

Competition
- individuals or groups confine their
conflict within agreed upon rules.
Dynamics of Socialization

Functionalism (Functional Approach)
- We gain the image of people adapting to
the attitudes of others, conforming to the
role expectations, and internalizing the
norms and values of the community.
- We develop our “social self” that reflects
the society in which we live.
- People are passive beings who are
programmed in the ways of their society.

Symbolic Interaction
- People employ symbols to convey
meanings to one another.
- They define situations, negotiate
interaction and order, and construct
reality.
- We not only attribute meanings to other
people and the world about us, but we
also attribute meanings to ourselves.
- Looking-glass-self
* We mentally assume the stance of other
people and look at ourselves as we believe
these others see us.
* We acquire our sense of self by seeing
ourselves reflected in the behavior of
others and their attitudes toward us, and
by imagining others think about us.
*According to Cooley, the looking-glassself involves three processes:
1. presentation
2. identification
3. subjective interpretation
*We start the way we appear to others,
then we identify with how we imagine
others judge that appearance, and we
finally interpret those judgments for our
self-image.

Conflict Theory and Socialization
- This takes note of how social customs and
institutions are arranged to perpetuate class
distinctions.
- This theory argues that child rearing practices
vary by social class and affect the life chances of
those being socialized.
- Children are treated differently form different
social classes, thereby perpetuating the
domination of one social class over another in a
subtle and powerful way.
- For Karl Marx, capitalist society is torn by
a fundamental conflict of interest between
capitalists and workers.
- He contends that institutions such as the
educational system and other forms of
communication are employed by the
capitalist class to foster a false
consciousness among the masses.

Social and Biological Conflict
- According to Sigmund Freud, conflict is
not so much among classes but between
society and the primal biological drives of
sex and aggression.
- He believed that every society has to
repress and channel the primitive drives of
people, otherwise – civilization will be
destroyed.
-
-
Freud formulated a comprehensive theory
of socialization and personality and
explained its development.
His theory states that socialization, as a
process, is characterized by the internal
struggle
between
the
biological
components
and
social-cultural
environment of the individual.
-
Freud stressed that personality consisted
of three major systems:
1. Id – biological component of the self
which is the source of a number of
drives and urges.
- it is unconscious, illogical and
unintegrated.
2. Ego – the component of the self that
represents reason and sanity.
- mediates between the needs of the
individual and the world of reality and
strives to delay tensions by way of waiting
for a suitable environment to exist.
3. Superego – the carrier of the ideals,
customs, traditions, and mores of
society.
Stages of Development

Oral stage (from birth to one year)
- Eating is the major source of
satisfaction.
Frustration
and
overindulgence at this stage may lead to overeating or alcoholism during adulthood.

Anal stage (one-three years)
- toilet training at this stage constitutes an
influencing
factor
in
personality
development.

Phallic stage (three-six years)
- the greatest source of pleasure of the
child comes from the sex organs.

Latency stage (six years-adolescence)
- in this stage, children turn their attention
to people outside their families; e.g.
friends, teachers, and neighbors.

Genital stage (adolescence and beyond)
- the sexual impulses become active again
and the individual focuses on the opposite
sex, looks around for a future partner, and
prepares
for
marriage
and
adult
responsibilities.
Stages of Socialization
Several authorities have been noted in
their
contributions as far as social
development is concerned. Some of them
are the following:
1. Erik Erikson
2. Sigmund Freud
3. Jean Piaget
4. George H. Mead
5. Lawrence Kohlberg

1.
Erik Erikson (Psychological development)
-His major concern is twith the feelings
people toward themselves and the world
around them.
-In his book “Childhood and Society,” he
described eight stages of human
development which he referred to as
crises – periods when one confronts
major issues of life.
- Growth and successful resolution at each
stage depend on the growth and degree
of resolution at each stage.
- The eight periods are the following:
1) Infancy – trust vs. mistrust;
2) Early childhood – autonomy vs. shame
and doubt;
3) Play stage – initiative vs. guilt;
4) School age – industry vs. inferiority;
5) Adolescence – identity vs. role confusion;
6) Young adulthood – intimacy vs. isolation;
7) Middle adulthood – generativity vs.
stagnation;
8) Old age – integrity vs. despair.
2. Sigmund Freud (Austrian MD.)
- noted for his theory of psychoanalysis;
- concluded that what happens to people
during childhood affects them later as
adults.
- according to him, if problems during
early stages (oral and anal) are not
satisfactorily resolved, a person could
become arrested (fixed) at that stage.
3. Jean Piaget
- focused on thinking or cognitive
development stages;
- according to him, through interaction
with their environment, children acquire
new ways of thinking and new schemes;
- all children move through stages of
cognitive development that involve
increasingly greater complexity of
thought and shift from egocentric
perspective to perspective which take
others into account.
- he was one of the first to recognize that
cognitive development – the process of
learning to talk, to think, and to reason is a social as well as psychological
phenomenon;
- he outlined the process and stages into
the following:
1. sensorimotor
2. language acquisition
3. concrete operations
4. abstract thinking
4. George H. Mead
- founder of symbolic interaction
perspective in sociology;
- argues that early in life children appear
to be unable to understand anyone else
perspective except their own;
- after acquiring some mastery of
language, they learn their names and
some of the expectations other people
have about how they should behave.
- further, he said that children recognize
that they are distinct from other people,
and it is generally easy to recognize
that they have difficulty distinguishing
their own perspectives.
- points out the stages (play and game)
involved in being able to maintain a
personal perspective and at the same
time to take others’ perspectives into
account.
- children go through a play stage during
which they act as if they were other
people;
- play therefore, is a stage of social
development when a child can imitate
or play at being another person;
- hence, it is that stage when they are
able to understand multiple
perspectives.
5. Lawrence Kohlberg
- noted for his theory of moral
development;
- formulated six stages of moral
development;
Stages:
1. A child first judges the morality of an act
by its physical consequences; if doing
something leads to punishment, then it
should not be done.
2. The child begins to realize that
conforming to rules can bring rewards,
not just the avoidance of punishment.
3. The child progresses to a level known as
“good child morality’ – when they judge
the morality of an act according to how
much it conforms to the standards of
other individuals, thereby gaining their
approval and good will; ideas about right
and wrong behavior develop.
4. The stage that emphasizes law and order,
strict compliance and conformity to the
social order is accepted as right and any
deviation as wrong; emphasis is on one’s
doing his/her duty.
5. The person recognizes that while it is
important to adhere to social rules, it is
also possible to change those rules if such
a change would benefit greater number of
people.
- here, morality is seen as rooted in basic
human rights such as life and liberty.
5. A person internalizes ideals of justice,
compassion, and equality and conforms
both to these ideals and to social
standards.