Behavior
Vocabulary
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Social environment
Feral children
Socialization
Self
Looking-glass self
Taking the role of the other
Significant other
Generalized other
Id
Ego
Superego
Degradation ceremony
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Gender socialization
Mass media
Gender role
Peer group
Social inequality
Agents of socialization
Manifest functions
Latent functions
Anticipatory socializations
Resocialization
Total institution
Life course
Socialization
• Process by which people learn the characteristics of
their group
– Knowledge
– Skills
– Attitudes
– Values
– Actions thought appropriate by the group
Socialization
• From birth through death, humans use interactions
in order to participate in its culture
– Learning how to speak
– Learning certain skills in order to contribute to
your group/society
– Developing/critiquing certain values and
attitudes that you identify with in your group or
society
• Without these interactions, babies become more
like big animals rather than human
Read the story assigned to your group
• “Feral Children”, pg.
64
• “Institutionalized
Children”, pg. 65
• “Isolated Children”,
pg. 65
• “Deprived Animals”,
pg. 67
Cooley – Looking-Glass Self
• Our self develops through our internalizing others’
reactions to us
• Looking-glass Self
– We imagine how we appear to those around us
– We interpret others’ reactions
– We develop a self-concept
• This doesn’t depend on accurate evaluations
• Part of an ongoing, lifelong process
Cooley – Looking-Glass Self
• Write down how you think you appear to others in
class
• Why do you think you appear that way?
• Do your friends, family, teachers, or others agree
with your assessment? Why or why not?
Mead – Role Taking
• “Play” is crucial to the development of a self
– Allows children to put themselves in someone
else’s shoes, i.e., understanding how someone
else feels and anticipating how that person will
act
Mead – Role Taking
• 2 people volunteer to be blindfolded
• 2 people volunteer to not be blindfolded
• 4 people volunteer to help instruct others on how
to play checkers
Mead – Role Taking
• Study by John Flavel
– 8- and 14-year olds told to explain a board game
to some children that were blindfolded, and
some that were not
– 8-year olds gave the same instructions to
everyone, regardless if they were blindfolded
– 14-year olds gave more detailed instructions to
those that were blindfolded
• Study results were that the older children were
more able/ready to take the role of the other
Mead – Role Taking
• Taking role of others requires 3 stages:
– Imitation (age 3 and under): Children can only mimic
others, imitate people’s gestures and words
– Play (ages 3-6): Children pretend to take roles of specific
people, and also enjoy costumes or dressing up in their
parents’ clothes
• Firefighters, Lone Ranger, Xena, Batman
– Games (ages 6+): Organized play/team games coincides
w/early school years
• In baseball, kids must know how to play multiple
roles, and anticipate what to do when the ball is
hit/thrown
Mead
• We are active in our socialization process
– Do not just sit there and absorb the responses of
others
• Our self and our human mind is a social product
– Can’t think w/o symbols
– Symbols only come from society
Piaget – Development of
Reasoning
(1) Sensorimotor stage (Birth – 2 yrs. old)
– Understanding is limited to direct contact
w/environment (sucking, touching, listening, looking)
– Don’t think in any sense that we understand
– Can’t recognize cause and effect
(2) Pre-operational stage (2 – 7 yrs. old)
– Develop ability to use symbols
– Don’t understand common concepts (speed, size,
causation)
– Have no ability take role of the other
Piaget – Development of
Reasoning
(3) Concrete operational stage (7 – 12 yrs. old)
– Reasoning abilities are more developed, but remain
concrete
– Understand speed, size, causation; don’t understand
truth, honesty, justice w/o concrete examples
(4) Formal operational stage (12+ yrs. old)
– Capable of abstract thinking
Socialization into Gender
Choosing a Gender?
• Gender socialization
– Ways in which society sets children onto different
courses in life b/c they are male or female
• All societies expect different attitudes from boys
and girls, and thus, we/they put them in separate
directions in life
Gender Attitudes/Behaviors
Males
Females
(1) Family Influence
• Parents are first to teach this symbolic division
– Choosing pink and blue
– Genderless children?
• Study by Goldberg and Lewis (1969) found that
mothers subconsciously reward:
– Daughters for being passive/dependent
– Sons for being active/independent
Attitudes/Behaviors
Males
Females
• Get guns/action figures
• Get dolls/jewelry
• Encouraged to
participate in more
rough-and-tumble play
• Encouraged to play
house, or activities that
keep them cleaner
and/or more compliant
• Less ok by parents to
roam out further than
boys
• More ok by parents to
roam out further than
girls
(2) Peer Influence
• Aside from family, peers are most powerful group in
“sorting out” process of gender roles
– Friends, classmates, community kids
• Both boys/girls make conversation about others in
terms of how one looks
Gender Conversations
Males
• “Dude, check her out…”
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• “Oh the things I’d like to do to
her…”
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• “Good thing I have sunglasses
on so that she can’t see me
checking her out…”
• “I don’t care about her
personality, but her
looks…mmm…”
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Females
“The only thing that makes her
look anything is all the
makeup…”
“She had a picture, and she’s
standing like this.” (Poses
w/one hand on her hip and one
by her head
“Her face is probably this
skinny, but it looks that big
‘cause of all the make up she
has on it.”
“She’s ugly, ugly, ugly…”
(2) Peer Influence
• How many girls feel most guys think this or talk this
way? Why?
• How many guys feel most girls think this or talk this
way? Why?
• How many of you reject the previous
conversations? Why?
(3) Mass Media Influence
• Advertising (Guys, Girls)
– Avg. American watches 20,000+ commercials/yr.
– Commercials aimed at children more likely to
show girls as cooperative/at home and boys as
aggressive/at other locations
– Commercials aimed at adults tend to show men
as dominant/rugged and women as
sexy/submissive  perpetuating stereotypes
about both
(3) Mass Media Influence
• TV/Movies
– Movies/primetime TV – Male characters outnumber
female characters; males more likely to have higherstatus positions
– Comedies – Female characters are more verbally
aggressive than males
• Video Games
– College students, especially men, relieve stress by
playing video games
– No actual data on how video games portray gender
roles
Socialization Agents
Agents of socialization
• People/groups that affect our self-concept,
attitudes, behaviors, or other orientations toward
life
The Family
The Neighborhood
Religion
Day Care
The School
Peer groups
Sports & Competitive
Success
The Workplace
Others?
The Family – Subtle Socialization
• Child is in stroller  Father more likely to push
stroller
• Child isn’t in stroller  Mother more likely to push
stroller & father is carrying child
• What kinds of gender messages are being pushed in
the above observations?
The Family – Social Class
Working-Class Parents
• Mainly concerned w/keeping
their kids out of trouble
• Tend to use more physical
punishment
• Tend to believe children
develop naturally
– Job is to provide food,
shelter, comfort
– Tend to set limits in areas
Middle-Class Parents
• Focus more on developing
children’s curiosity, selfexpression, self-control
• More likely to reason w/their
children than use physical
punishment
• Tend to believe children need a
lot guidance to develop
correctly
– Children’s play develops
knowledge/social skills
The Family – Social Class
• Why do working-class and middle-class parents rear
their children so differently?
– Bosses tell blue-collar workers exactly what to do
 blue-collar parents stress obedience
– Bosses tell white-collar workers things to get
done, workers take more initiative in completing
work  white-collar parents stress getting things
done
• Some parents will act opposite of their
socioeconomic status…why?
The Family – Social Class
• Type of job for parents has a greater effect on childrearing styles
– Middle-class office workers are closely supervised
 tend to follow working-class child-rearing
styles
– Working-class workers doing home repair have a
lot more freedome  tend to follow middle-class
child-rearing styles
The Neighborhood
• Religion is extremely important in U.S.
– 68% belong to a church congregation
– During a typical week, 2/5 Americans attend a
church service
• Day Care (any care other than the mother)
– Children spending more hrs. in day care than
w/mothers have weaker bonds w/their mothers
– Children are also more likely to fight, be cruel/mean
– Reverse for children that spend more time w/their
mothers
The School
• Home – kids learn attitudes/values that match their
family situation in life
• School – kids learn a broader perspective that helps
them take a role in life outside of home
– Learn universality  rules apply to everyone,
regardless of background
The School
• Schools’ hidden curriculum – patriotism,
democracy, justice, honesty
• Students’ corridor curriculum – racism, sexism, illicit
ways of making money, coolness
Peer Groups
• When children come into contact w/more
socialization agents (typically as you get older),
influence of the family tends to lessen
• In school, children are exposed to peer groups that
can help resist efforts of parents/schools to socialize
them
Peer Groups
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Boys peer group norms
Athletic ability
Coolness
Toughness
High grades lowered popularity
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Girls peer group norms
Family background
Physical appearance
Ability to attract popular boys
High grades increased
popularity
• Individuals in peer groups tend to listen to same kind of music, dress
similarly, and even behave similarly (regardless if that behavior follows
rules or not
Sports/Competitive Success
• Sports teach physical skills and values
– Being team players
– Setting goals and working to achieve them
– Physical exercise
• Boys tend to learn to achieve in sports is to gain
stature in masculinity
– More success  more masculine a boy is
perceived to be  more prestige in peer groups
Sports/Competitive Success
• Sports help boys develop instrumental relationships
– Based on what you can get out of each person
• Girls tend to construct their identities on
meaningful relationships, not on competitive
success
– With the rise of female participation in sports,
studies will need to be held to see its impacts on
female relationships and behaviors
The Workplace
• When working a job, we don’t just earn $$$; we
also come into contact different perspectives from
totally different people
• Often try out several jobs before being committed
to a particular line of work
– Anticipatory socialization is when you try to learn
about a job before you accept a role in it
– Reading books, talking to others in the job helps
get an idea of what the job will be like