Socialization
Genie
• A girl named Genie was found in the United States in 1970. Genie's father
had kept her locked in a room from the age of 20 months until age 13.
Genie was harnessed naked to an infant's potty seat and left alone for hours
and days through the years. When she was remembered at night, she was
put to bed in a homemade straitjacket. There were no radios or televisions
in the house, people spoke in hushed tones, and the only language Genie
heard was an occasional obscenity from her father. He hated noise, and if
Genie made any sound her father would growl at her like a dog or beat her
with a stick. As a result of her confinement, Genie could not walk and her
eyes could not focus beyond the boundaries of her room. She was
malnourished, incontinent, and salivated constantly [Curtiss, 1977].
• Despite all this, when the psychologist Susan Curtiss first met her, Genie was
alert, curious, and intensely eager for human contact. When frightened or
frustrated she would erupt into silent frenzies of rage--flailing about,
scratching, spitting, throwing objects, but never uttering a sound. Aside
from not speaking, her lack of socialization was apparent in her behavior:
She would urinate in unacceptable places, go up to someone in a store and
take whatever she liked of theirs, and peer intently into the faces of
strangers at close range. Although Curtiss worked with her for several years,
Genie never developed language abilities beyond those of a 4-year-old, and
she ended up being placed in an institution.
Anna
• Anna was born in Pennsylvania to an unwed mother. The
mother’s father was so enraged at Anna’s illegitimacy
that the mother kept Anna in a storage room and fed her
barely enough to stay alive. She never left the storage
room or had anything but minimal contact with another
human for five years. When authorities found her in
1938, she was physically wasted and unable to smile or
speak. After intensive therapy, Anna did make some
progress. She eventually learned to use some words and
feed herself.
Isabelle
• Isabelle was discovered in Ohio in the 1930s at the age
of six. She had lived her entire life in a dark attic with
her deaf-mute mother, after her grandfather decided he
couldn’t bear the embarrassment of having a daughter
with an illegitimate child. He had banished both of them
to the attic, where they lived in darkness and isolation.
When Isabelle was discovered, she couldn’t speak. After
about two years of intensive work with language
specialists, Isabelle acquired a vocabulary of about 2,000
words and went on to have a relatively normal life.
The Importance of Socialization
• Socialization: the process of learning to
participate in a group
– Human social behavior we consider normal is
learned
• Ex. In the U.S. couples walk side by side, in India
women will walk slightly behind the men.
– Socialization begins at birth and continues
throughout life
• Without prolonged socialization children do not learn
basics like walking, talking, and loving.
Harry Harlow
• Designed an experiment to see the effects of
social isolation on rhesus monkeys
– In one experiment Harlow separated infants from
their mothers and exposed them to two artificial
mothers (made of wire but comparable in size)
• One of the substitutes had exposed wire on her body
but was a source of food
• The other mother was warm and soft
• The infants consistently chose the warm mother over
the wire mother even thought the wire was the source
of food
Harry Harlow
• Harlow showed that infant monkeys need
intimacy, warmth, physical contact and comfort
– Monkeys raised in isolation became distressed,
apathetic, withdrawn, hostile adult animals
• Never exhibited normal sexual patterns
• As mothers they either rejected or ignored their babies
• Experts believe that human infants have similar
needs to that of the monkeys (emotional needs
for affection, intimacy, and warmth)
– Infants denied these needs have difficulty forming
emotional ties with others
Mom and Grandfather Charged with
Torturing Girl Found Chained to a Bed
Sept. 1999
• RIVERSIDE, California CNN The mother and grandfather of a 6yearold girl
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who was found chained to a brass bed in a house littered with feces and
trash pleaded not guilty to three felony charges of child endangerment.
Cindi Topper, mother of victim Betty Topper, and Loren Bess, the
grandfather, were arraigned Thursday in criminal court on charges of
torture, the infliction of great bodily injury and false imprisonment of a child.
They were represented by a court appointed public defender, bail for each of
them was set at 250,000 and they remain in custody.
Betty Topper was taken to Loma Linda University Children's Hospital after
authorities found her Tuesday chained to a bed post by what appeared to be
a dog leash.
According to police, the girls mother said Betty was tied to the bed for five
years.
The girl remains in fair condition and doctors continue to assess her
developmental level.
Cont…
• Authorities were tipped by an anonymous caller who described the house
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but gave no address. The caller said the child had not been seen for years.
Deputies from the Riverside County Sheriffs department searched door to
door until, they said, the child's grandfather let them in.
There was trash floor to ceiling. There was human and animal feces
everywhere, said Sgt. Perri Feinstein Portales. They made their way to a
back bedroom where they see a little girl, chained by a dog leash to a brass
bed with a harness around her waist. She had nothing but a diaper on. She
had waist length hair and was covered with feces and filth.
She was extremely malnourished and pale, as if she had never seen the
light of day. She cowered in a fetal position when officers tried to talk to her.
Eventually she was smiling and stroking an officers hair when we
transported her.
In 1983, Topper was severely beaten by her former boyfriend, Ivan Von
Staich, after he killed her husband, beating him with a hammer and
shooting him three times. Cindi Topper was critically injured in the attack
and underwent two cranial surgeries.
What do you think?
• Do you think Betty Topper will ever be
able to overcome her experiences?
• What do you feel the punishment should
be for her mother and grandfather?
Evaluating yourself…
• Write a paragraph describing what you
believe others think of you. Be honest!
Socialization and the Self
• Symbolic Interactionism and Socialization
– Charles Horton Cooley and George Herbert
Mead
• Human nature is a product of society
• Use 5 concepts to explain:
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The self concept
The looking glass self
Significant others
Role taking
The generalized other
Socialization and the Self
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Self Concept: image of yourself as having an identity
separate from other people
Looking Glass Self: self concept based on our idea of
others’ judgments of us
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It’s the product of a 3-stage process and can be distorted
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We imagine how we appear to others
We imagine the reactions of others to our imagined appearance
We evaluate ourselves according to how we imagine others have
judged us.
Some people are more important than others to our
looking glass self significant others
Socialization and the Self
• Role Taking: assuming the viewpoint of another
person and using that viewpoint to shape the
self concept
– Seeing ourselves through the eyes of others
– Develops the ability through a process:
• Imitation stage: 18 months of age to 2 years old
– Imitation of the physical and verbal behavior of a significant
other
• Play stage: age 3-4
– Child acts and thinks as they think the significant adult would
• Game stage: children anticipate the actions of others
based on social rules
– During this you develop your self concept, attitudes, beliefs, and
values
Role Taking Cont…
• In the game stage a person stops acting the
way the significant adult does but acts out of
principle
– Ex. Being a honest person not because Mom is
honest but rather because it is wrong to be
dishonest
• Generalized other: result of the stages
– Integrated conception of the norms, values, and
beliefs of one’s community or society
Socialization and the Self: The Self
• Self= the “me” plus the “I”
– “me” is the part of the self created through
socialization
• Predictability and conformity
– “I” is the part of the self that accounts for the
unpredictable, unlearned acts
– The “me” usually takes the “I” into
consideration when making decisions
Open response…
• If not for rules and expectations, would
you dress differently than you do? Would
you be different than you are?
How is this an example of the looking glass self?
“No one can make you feel
inferior without your consent.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
Agents of Socialization
• The Family and Socialization
– Within the family a child learns to:
• Think and speak
• Internalize norms, beliefs and values
• Form basic attitudes
• Develop a capacity for intimate and personal
relationships
• Acquire a self image
Agents of Socialization
• Socialization in Schools
– Supervision by non-relatives
• 1st impersonal relationship
• Rewards and punishments based on performance not
affection
• Taught to be independent
– Hidden Curriculum: informal and unofficial
aspects of culture that children are taught in
schools
• Discipline, order, cooperation, and conformity
Agents of Socialization
• Peer Group Socialization
– Peer group: set of individuals of roughly the
same age and interests
• Establish give and take relationships
• Self-direction, decision making, thinking, feeling,
and behaving on their own
• Social flexibility
Agents of Socialization
• Mass Media and Socialization
– Mass Media: TV, radio, newspaper, magazines,
movies, books, the Internet, tapes, and discs
– 1st introduction to culture for most children
– Acts as a role model and offers ideas on values
– Negatives: violence (a 1998 study showed that by
age 16 a child will have seen 20,000 homicides on
TV)
• Studies also show that viewing aggressive behavior
increasing aggressive behavior
Questions:
1. List all the avenues of media that have played
2.
3.
a part in your socialization.
Some psychologists believe that peer groups
have more influence on later socialization than
the family group. Give reasons why you agree
or disagree.
Self Reflection: Which group do you feel is the
most influential in the present stage of you
socialization?
Do Now…
• Do prisons rehabilitate or punish?
Processes of Socialization
• How does desocialization prepare people for new
learning?
– Total institutions: Mental hospitals, cults, and
prisons
• Separated from society
• Controlled and manipulated by those in charge
• Purpose is to change the resident
– Desocialization: people give up old norms, values,
attitudes and behavior
• Destruction of old self concepts of personal identity
Processes of Socialization
• How does desocialization prepare people
for new learning?
– Replace personal possessions to promote
sameness
• Serial numbers to identify people
Processes of Socialization
• How does resocialization begin?
– Once the self concept has been broken
– Resocialization: people adopt new norms, values,
attitudes and behaviors
– Use a system of rewards and punishment to establish
new concepts
• Rewards like extra food, special responsibilities,
periods of privacy
• Punishments: shaming, loss of special privileges,
physical punishments, isolation
Processes of Socialization
• Anticipatory Socialization
– Preparing for new norms, values, attitudes, and
behaviors
• Doesn’t usually occur in prisons or mental hospitals b/c
it is a voluntary change
• Can happen with changes in one stage of your life to
another
– Ex. Teenagers: may abandon norms, values, attitudes, and
behaviors and become new reference group
 The group used to evaluate themselves and from which
they acquire attitudes, values, beliefs and norms
Pick a side…
• Do prisons rehabilitate or punish?