Unit 5
Socializing the Individual
Warm Up
1. Complete your Student Notebook work
and turn it in. DUE TODAY!
2. Complete your
Nature v. Nurture PowerPoint
and email it to Mrs. Bradley.
3. Work on your Field Study.
4. Study for your vocabulary test.
Unit 5
Socializing the Individual
Warm Up
1. Pick up a Sociology
book and the Unit 5
illustrated dictionary
definitions handout.
2. Begin defining the
words listed using the
glossary and creating
your drawings.
Personality Development
What is personality?
You probably think of someone’s social skills
or social appeal.
Personality = sum total of behaviors,
beliefs, and values that are characteristic of
an individual.
Factors that Shape Individual
Personality Development
1. Heredity
•
•
•
•
Everyone has characteristics
that are present from birth.
Physical Traits
Inherited Characteristics
such as strong muscles,
good eyesight, etc
Aptitudes – ability to acquire
skills such as: music, art,
mathematics, sports,
speaking, etc.
Biological Drives
Factors that Shape Individual
Personality Development
2. Birth Order
Our personalities are also influenced
by whether we have brothers, sisters,
both or neither and whether they
are older or younger than we are.
• First Born Children – achievement
oriented, responsible, conservative
• Younger Children - Risk takers,
affectionate, social
• Middle Children – peace makers,
creative
Factors that Shape Individual
Personality Development
3. Parental Characteristics
The characteristics of your
parents can have a large effect
on your personality.
• Age of Parents – Older parents
often raise children differently
than younger ones.
• Level of education
• Religious orientation
• Economic status
• Occupational background
Factors that Shape Individual
Personality Development
4. Cultural Environment
Each culture gives rise to a
series of personality traits –
model personalities – that
are typical of that society.
U.S. – competitiveness,
assertiveness, individualism
China – respect for elders,
deference to authority, family
obligations
Gender differences
Survival patterns
Nature versus Nurture
Nature
• Heredity
• Birth Order
• Mental abilities
• Physical abilities
• Aptitudes and
talents
• Brain chemistry
Nurture
• Cultural
Environment
• Parental
Characteristics
• Parental modeling
and nurturing
• Economic status
• Education
• Training and practice
• Experiences
Nature! versus Nurture
Twins
* Identical twins are
genetically identical.
* For this reason, twins
separated at birth and later
reunited have been subjects
for scientific researchers
investigating the influence
of heredity and environment
on human personality.
Nature! versus Nurture
Twins Raised Apart from Birth
Tom Patterson and Steve Tazumi
are twin brothers separated 40
years ago as infants in an
orphanage in Japan and only
recently reunited.
Although raised in different kinds of families in
different parts of the U.S., the twins found that they
walked alike, talked alike, and even had scars from
injuries they suffered on the same place on their
body. They are both weight-lifters and have both
owned a gym; they both married American women
and they both gave their first child a Japanese name
and their second an American name.
Nature! versus Nurture
Twins Raised Apart from Birth
The woman seated alone onstage at
the opening of the Maury Povich
show was already famous in the
twin literature: Barbara Herbert,
a plump 58-year-old with a broad,
pretty face and short, silver hair,
found her lost twin, Daphne
Goodship, 18 years ago. Both had
been adopted as babies into
separate British families after
their Finnish single mother killed
herself.
Nature! versus Nurture
Twins Raised Apart from Birth
Both women grew up in towns outside of
London, left school at 14, fell down stairs
at 15 and weakened their ankles, went to
work in local government, met their
future husbands at age 16 at the Town Hall dance, miscarried in
the same month, then gave birth to two boys and a girl. Both
tinted their hair auburn when young, were squeamish about
blood and heights, and drank their coffee cold. When they met,
both were wearing cream-colored dresses and brown velvet
jackets. Both had the same crooked little fingers, a habit of
pushing up their nose with the palm of their hand--which both
nicknamed "squidging"--and a way of bursting into laughter
that soon had people referring to them as the Giggle Twins.
(Psychology Today, August, 1997)
Nature versus Nurture
• JUDITH HARRIS, Author, "The Nurture
Assumption:" It's the assumption that what
makes children turn out the way they do,
aside from their genes, the environmental
part of child development, is the
experiences they have at home, and in
particular the experiences they have with
their parents.
Nature versus Nurture!
In Harry Harlow's initial experiments
infant monkeys were separated from
their mothers at six to twelve hours
after birth and were raised instead
with substitute or 'surrogate'
mothers made either of heavy wire
or of wood covered with soft terry
cloth. In one experiment both types
of surrogates were present in the
cage, but only one was equipped
with a nipple from which the infant
could nurse. Some infants received
nourishment from the wire mother,
and others were fed from the cloth
mother. Even when the wire mother
was the source of nourishment, the
infant monkey spent a greater
amount of time clinging to the cloth
surrogate."
Nature versus Nurture!
Unfortunately:
"...the actions of surrogateraised monkeys became
bizarre later in life. They
engaged in stereotyped
behavior patterns such as
clutching themselves and
rocking constantly back and
forth; they exhibited
excessive and misdirected
aggression..."
They were unable to raise
babies of their own or
socialize with other monkeys.
Nature versus Nurture!
Feral Children
Genie spent 13 years of her life locked
in her bedroom. During the day,
she was tied to a potty chair in
diapers; and most nights, she was then bound in a
sleeping bag and placed in an enclosed crib with
a metal lid to keep her shut inside. Her father
would beat her every time she vocalized and he
barked and growled at her like a dog in order to
keep her quiet; he also forbade his wife and son to
ever speak to her. She became almost entirely
mute, and knew only a few short words and
phrases, such as "stopit" and "nomore."
Nature
versus
Nurture!
Rescue
•
• Genie was discovered at the age of 13, when her
mother ran away from her husband and took Genie
with her. They came into a welfare office in Temple
City, California to seek benefits for the blind. A social
worker discovered them and thought that Genie was
six or seven years old and possibly autistic. When it
was revealed that she was actually 13 years old, the
social worker immediately called her supervisor, who
called the police. Her parents were charged with child
abuse, and Genie was taken to a children's hospital in
Los Angeles. Genie's mother, weak and almost blind,
claimed she was herself a victim of abuse by Genie's
father. The father committed suicide shortly after
Genie's discovery.
The Social Self
A number of theories exist to explain
how people become socialized
and develop a sense of self.
1. Tabula Rasa – The Clean
Slate:
John Locke believed that
human beings could be
molded into any type of
character.
He believed that given an
infant he could shape that
child’s personality, giving it
any characteristic he chose.
Most sociologists think of
socialization as a process, by
which individuals absorb the
aspects of their culture with
which they come in contact.
The Social Self
A number of theories exist to explain
how people become socialized
and develop a sense of self.
2. The 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 a mirror,
reflecting back the image we
Social psychologist Charles
project through their
Horton Cooley – interactionist
reactions to our behavior.
perspective.
The Social Self
A number of theories exist to
explain how people become
socialized and develop a sense
of self.
3. Role-Taking
We see ourselves not only
as others see us, but
actually take on or pretend
to take on the roles of
others.
Significant others –
special people who have a
direct influence on our
socialization. In
adolescence this is most
often our peer group.
Social psychologist George
Herbert Mead – interactionist
perspective.
Agents of Socialization
The Family
• Has the greatest
effect on the
socialization of
young children.
• Varies from family
to family
• Varies from culture
to culture
Agents of Socialization
The Peer Group
• Particularly influential
in the pre teenage and
teenage years.
• Peer pressure is a
powerful force
• Adolescents shape
themselves into the
kind of person they
think their group
wants them to be.
Agents of Socialization
The School
• Between the ages of 5
and 18 people spend
about 30 weeks a year in
school
• Most socialization is
deliberate. (Think: ES
grade!)
• Other socialization is
unintentional: After all,
where DID you meet your
Agents of Socialization
The Mass Media
• Movies, television, music,
newspapers, internet,
magazines and radio.
• Reaches vast audiences
• Has impersonal contact
• Has the goal of enriching
the producers of the
shows, not benefiting
society.
Field Study: Socializing the
Individual
• Mass Media and Behavior
•
Mass media includes books, films, the internet,
magazines, newspapers, radio and television. These have
powerful influence as socialization agents in American society.
• 1. Access the internet: go.hrw.com Keyword: SL3 SC5
Click on Television and Behavior.
•
Read the articles listed under "The Lion and the Lamb
Project" and
"Children and Television Violence."
2. Interview at least three members of your peer group
regarding the positive and negative influences of television on
children. Summarize your research and interview findings.
Include your opinion and supporting facts concerning how
television influences children in a brochure (Use Publisher or
Word) aimed at educating young parents about the influence
that television has on their child's developing personality.