SOCIALIZING
THE INDIVIDUAL
Personality
Development
PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
 What comes to mind when you hear the word personality?
 Personality – the sum total of behaviors, attitudes, beliefs,
and values that are characteristic of an individual
 Our personality determines how we adjust to our
environment and how we react in specific situations
 No two individuals have the same personality
PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
 People’s personalities continue to develop throughout their lifetime
 Personality development is more obvious during childhood…why?
 Rapid physical, emotional, and intellectual growth
 During adulthood, personality traits change at a slower pace
 Personality development varies from person to person
NATURE VERSUS NURTURE
 For many years, sociologists have debated what determines
personality and social behavior…heredity or environment?
 Heredity – the transmission of genetic characteristics from parents
to children
 Social Environment – contact with other people
 This debate is usually referred to as “Nature vs. Nurture”
 Inherited genetic characteristics vs. environment and social learning
NATURE VERSUS NURTURE
What do you think?
Nature
Nurture
NATURE VERSUS NURTURE
 The nature viewpoint states that behavior is instinctual in origin
 Instinct – an unchanging, biologically inherited behavior pattern
 The nurture viewpoint states that a person’s behavior and
personality are the result of their social environment and learning
 Pavlov’s Dogs
 Psychologist John B. Watson believed that he could take a dozen
healthy babies and train them to become anything he wanted…
FACTOR #1 – HEREDITY
 Everyone has certain characteristics that are present at
birth:
 Body build
 Hair type
 Eye color
 Skin pigmentation
 Hereditary characteristics also include certain aptitudes
 Aptitude – a capacity to learn a particular skill or acquire a
particular body of knowledge
 Example – Natural talent for music, art, or athletics
FACTOR #2 – BIRTH ORDER
 Our personalities are influenced by whether we have
brothers, sisters, or neither
 The order in which we are born into our families also
influence our personalities
 How might the order in which you were born impact your
personality?
BIRTH ORDER
 Firstborn Children:
 Later-born Children:
 Achievement-oriented
 Better social relationships
 Responsible
 More affectionate
 Conservative
 More friendly
 Defend the status quo
 Risk-takers
FACTOR #3 – PARENTAL CHARACTERISTICS
 Personality development in children is also influenced by the
characteristics of their parents
 The age of parents can impact their children’s development
 Parents in their 20’s >>>>>>>>>> Parents in their 40’s
 Other parental characteristics that can influence a child’s
personality development
 Level of education / occupation
 Religious orientation
 Economic status
 Cultural heritage
FACTOR #4 – CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT
The cultural environment can determine basic types of
personalities that will be found in a society
Each culture gives rise to a series of personality traits that
are typical of members of that society…model
personalities
 United States = Competitiveness, Assertiveness, and Individualism
CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT
 How we experience our culture also influences our
personality
 Experiences differ depending on whether you are male or
female
 Subcultures affect personality:
 Growing up in an Italian family
 Growing up in an Irish family
 Having a family with no heritage
 Different regions of the country
 Different types of neighborhoods
ISOLATION IN CHILDHOOD
 Several instances exist in which children have been raised
without the influence of a cultural environment
 Feral children – Wild or untamed children
 Sometimes found living with animal
 Sometimes found isolated in their own homes
 Other than appearance, they have few human characteristics:
 No ability to control their bodily functions
 No reasoning ability
 No manners
EXAMPLES OF CHILDHOOD ISOLATION
 Anna and Isabelle
 Anna was born to an unmarried woman (enraged her father)
 Forced to live in isolation in the attic
 She was not spoken to, held, bathed, or loved
 Discovered by a social worker at the age of 6
 She could not walk, talk, or feed herself
 Over time she learned simple tasks
 Anna died at the age of 10
EXAMPLES OF CHILDHOOD ISOLATION
 Isabelle’s grandfather kept her and her deaf mother
confined to a dark room
 Isabelle did have the advantage of her mother’s company
 Mom and daughter only communicated through gestures
 Isabelle was found at the age of 6
 Crawled on her hands and knees
 Made grunting, animal – like sounds
 Ate with her hands
ISABELLE’S STORY…CONTINUED
Isabelle was originally thought to be incapable of
speech
Began speaking after several months of intensive
training
After two years, she reached a level of social and
mental development consistent with her age group
Experts believed Isabelle’s constant contact with her
mother allowed her to overcome her early social
deprivation
ISOLATION IN CHILDHOOD…GENIE
 Genie was discovered in 1970 at the age of 13
 Confined to a small bedroom from the age of 20 months
 Spent her days tied to a potty-chair
 She was beaten if she made noise
 When Genie’s father interacted with her, he would behave
like an angry dog (barking, growling, baring his teeth)
 When Genie was found she had the social and
psychological skills of a one-year-old
 Genie did learn basic social norms
 Never able to function as a social being
INSTITUTIONALIZATION
 Sociologists have studied the human development of children
living in institutions
 Institutions include hospitals and orphanages
 These children show some of the same characteristics as
isolated children
 Children received food and shelter but little or no contact
 These cases show the importance of human interaction for
social and psychological development
THE SOCIAL SELF
At birth…babies cannot talk, walk, feed themselves, or
protect themselves
People are transformed into participating members of
society through:
Interactions with their social environment
Interactions with their cultural environment
Socialization – Interactive process through which
people learn the skills, values, beliefs, and behavior
patterns of a society
THE SOCIAL SELF
Many theories exist to explain how people become
socialized and develop a sense of self
Self – Conscious awareness of possessing a distinct
identity that separates your and your environment
from other members of society
We will look at three theories of socialization:
John Locke
Charles Horton Cooley
George Herbert Mead
LOCKE: THE TABULA RASA
English philosopher from the 1600s
Thought that each newborn was a tabula rasa…or clean
slate
Locke felt we were born without personalities
We acquire our personalities from social experiences
Believed he could shape a newborn’s personality (Watson)
Most sociologists believe socialization is a process
Through socialization, we develop a sense of society
COOLEY: THE LOOKING-GLASS SELF
 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
project through their reactions to our behavior
 The looking – glass self is a three-step process:
 First, we imagine how others see us
 Second, we imagine how others are judging us
 Finally, we use perceptions of how others judge us to develop
feelings about ourselves
COOLEY: THE LOOKING – GLASS SELF
 The process of identity development begins very early in childhood
 Newborn babies have no sense of person or place
 Members of the child’s primary group interact with the infant
 They provide the child with a mirror that reflects his or her
image…they talk to the child, they reward or punish behavior
 This theory puts a lot of responsibility on parents:
 Parents who think little of a child’s ability = inferiority in the child
 Parents who treat their child as capable and competent = capable
and competent children
MEAD: ROLE – TAKING
 Seeing ourselves as others see us is only the beginning
 Mead visualized role – taking as a three step process:
 Imitation, play, and games
 Children under three lack a sense of self…therefore, they can
only imitate the actions of others
 At around three, children begin to play and act out roles
 This is the first time children see the world through someone
else’s eyes
ROLE – TAKING CONTINUED
 By the time children reach school age, they play organized games
 Organized games require children to take on roles
 The game stage of role-taking most closely resembles real life
 Through role-taking, an individual develops a sense of self
 I = The unsocialized, spontaneous, self-interested component of
personality and self-identity
 Me = The part of ourselves that is aware of the expectations
and attitudes of society
ROLE – TAKING CONTINUED
 In childhood, the I component is stronger than the me component
 Through socialization, “me” acts together with “I”
 This socialization brings a person’s actions in line with the
expectations of society
 “Me” never dominates “I”
 A well-rounded member of society is a person with both aspects
of self
AGENTS OF SOCIALIZATION
Agents of socialization – Specific individuals, groups,
and institutions that enable socialization to take place
Agents of socialization:
Family
Peer Group
School
Media
FAMILY
 Most important agent of socialization
 Children learn the values, norms, and beliefs of society through
their families
 Socialization in a family can be both deliberate and unintended
 Deliberate = Importance of telling the truth, How to save money
 Unintended = Important to be polite…parents not always polite
 Socialization process differs from family to family
PEER GROUP
 As children get older, they relate more and more to peer groups
 Peer group – A primary group composed of individuals or
roughly equal age and similar social characteristics
 Extremely influential during pre-teen and teenage years
 Parents become worried that the norms and values of the peer
group are more important than those of the family or society
SCHOOL
 School occupies large amounts of time and attention
 The majority of socialization in school is deliberate
 Schools transmit cultural values, patriotism, and responsibility
 Unintentional socialization can occur
MASS MEDIA
 Mass media involves no face-to-face interaction
 Mass media – Instruments of communication that reach larger
audiences with no personal contact between those sending and
receiving the information
 Mass media includes books, television, movies, and the Internet
 Which form of mass media do you feel has the most influence?
 Television probably has the most influence (98% of homes)
NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF MEDIA
 What are some negative socialization effects of mass media?
 Research indicates:
 By the age of 18, most children have witnessed 200,000
fictional act of violence
 This includes 16,000 murders
 Can fictional violence create aggressive individuals?
 Media can include positive socialization:
 Introduces viewers to new subjects and places
 Informs the viewers
RESOCIALIZATION
 Total Institution – A setting in which people are isolated from
the rest of society for a set period of time and are subject to
tight control
 Examples of total institutions:
 Prisons
 Military Boot Camp
 Monasteries
 Psychiatric Hospitals
RESOCIALIZATION
 Total institutions are concerned with resocializing their members
 Resocialization – A break with past experiences and the learning
of new values and norms
 Most total institutions are concerned with changing an individual's
personality and behavior
 People in total institutions are denied freedoms enjoyed by the
outside world