Socialization
Nature VS Nurture
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Feral children
Social experience is crucial in
forming personality
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Anna & Isabelle
– Effect of minimal human contact
– Without social experience, a child is incapable
of thought or meaningful action
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Institutionalized patient
Harlow monkey studies
– Isolation produced permanent developmental
damage in both humans and monkeys
Results of socialization
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Personality
Thought
The social self
Personality

Sigmund Freud
– Id = Basic drives
– Ego = Balance
– Superego = Conscience
• Culture

Humans internalize social norms
Thought (Cognitive
development)

Jean Piaget
– Cognition (thinking)
Piaget’s stages of cognitive
development

Sensorimotor stage (0-2)
– Object permanence

Preoperational stage (2-7)
• Use of language
• Egocentric

Concrete operations stage (7-12)
– Logic develops - “Conservation of matter”

Formal operations
– Abstract thought - imagine alternatives
The social self

George H. Mead
– The “self” comes from social experience
• Self-awareness and self image

Generalized other
– Cultural norms & values we use as a reference
in evaluating ourselves.

“Taking the role of the other”
– Imaging the situation from another person’s
point of view
Developing the “Generalized
Other”
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Imitation
Play
Game
Generalized other
The social self

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Charles H. Cooley
The Looking-glass Self
– People see themselves the way they think
others see them.
Kolberg’s Moral Reasoning

Preconventional (0-9 yrs)
– Self interest
• Avoid punishment

Conventional (To adolescence)
– Upholding laws

Postconventional (Adult)
– “What is right”
– Ethical principles
Resocialization & total
institutions

Resocialization
– Radically changing a personality
– Goffman = Resocialization is breaking down an
old identity, then building a new identity

Total institutions