Socialization
Human Nature

How much does a person’s
characteristics come from “nature”heredity and how much from “nurture”social environment (contact with
others)??
Heredity



Intelligence- capacity for mental or intellectual
achievement s/a ability to think logically
Aptitude- capacity for developing physical or
social skills s/a athletic prowess
Role of heredity in determining intelligence and
aptitude is controversial



The extent to which intelligence and aptitude are
inherited is up for debate
Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray assume
that more than ½ of intelligence comes from
genes
Most social scientists consider intelligence to be
learned from social environment
Significance of Heredity

Although nature sets limits on what we
can achieve, socialization plays a large
role in determining what we do achieve
 Whatever
potential is inherited can be
enhanced or stunted through socialization
 Example: infants who grow up with abusive
parents, tend to grow up to be more
aggressive than if raised by affectionate
parents
Significance of Socialization

Humans are born helpless (tablua rasablank slate)- John Locke
 Depend

on adults to survival
Traits that seem basic and essential to
human nature appear to depend on
socialization
 Evidence
can be found from case studies
of children deprived of socialization or who
have been socialized into geniuses
Impairing development

Feral children- children supposedly
raised by animals
 Cases
where children run on all fours, had
no speech, preferred uncooked food and
couldn’t do simple things
Isabella & Genie

Isabella born to an unwed mother in OH

Grandfather kept her & her deaf-mute mother secluded in
a dark room


Discovered at age 6- showed great fear and hostility towards
people
Genie- found in CA in 1970 had been deprived of
socialization for nearly 13 years
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Tied to her potty seat during the day and straitjacketed and
caged to her crib at night. Her father would beat her if she
made any noise, and barked and growled at her.
When found she couldn’t stand straight, was unable to
speak and had the intelligence and social maturity of a 1
year old
Creating Geniuses


Specialized socialization can create
geniuses
Example: Edith- finished grammar school
in 4 years, skipped high school, graduated
college at age 15, got doctorate before 18.

Father filled her days with reading, math,
classical music, intellectual discussions and
debates and literature
 Played

chess for entertainment
Born with potential for becoming a genius
but through extraordinary socialization the
potential was transformed into reality
Socialization into the self, mind
and emotions
Cooley and the Looking-Glass
Self

Charles Horton Cooley, a symbolic
interactionist concluded that the “self” is
socially created
 Said
our sense of self-develops from
interaction with others
 Coined the term “looking-glass self” to
describe the process by which our sense of
self develops

Looking-Glass Self
3 elements

We imagine how we appear to those around us
 Example:

we think that others perceive us as witty or dull
We interpret others’ reactions
 we
come to conclusions about how others evaluate us- do
they like us, do they not?

We develop self concept
 How
we interpret others’ reactions to us frames our
feelings and ideas about ourselves


A favorable reflection in the “social mirror” leads to a positive
self-concept and visa versa
The development of self doesn’t depend on
accurate evaluations

Self is always changing- as we monitor how others
react to us, we continually modify the self
Mead and Role-Taking

George Herbert Mead, another social
interactionist added that play is crucial to the
development of self

Children gradually learn to take the role of others
and put themselves in someone else’s shoes


At 1st they take only role of significant others- people who
have a significant influence on their lives (parents,
siblings, etc.)
Eventually their ability to take the roles of others extends
to being able to take the role of “the group as a whole”

The term “Generalized others”- how people in general think
of us
Role Taking

We go through 3 stages as we learn to
take the role of others
 Imitation-
children under the age of 3 can
only mimic others
 Play- from 3-6, children pretend to take the
roles of specific people
 Firefighter,
 Team
nurse, superheroes, parents
games- to play these games the
individual must be able to take multiple
roles
 baseball
Piaget and the Development of
Reasoning

Children go through 4 stages as they
learn how to reason
 Sensorimotor
stage: birth-2. understanding
is limited to direct contact w/environment- 5
senses
 Preoperational stage: 2-7. children develop
the ability to use symbols but don’t yet
understand common concepts s/a size,
speed or causation
 Can
count but don’t know what #s mean
Stages continued

Concrete operational stage: 7-12.
reasoning ability is more developed but not
concrete
Understand numbers, causation, speed, and
take on roles but cant talk about concepts s/a
truth, honesty, etc. w/o examples
 Formal operational stage: 12+. Children are
capable of abstract thinking

 Can
talk about concepts, come to conclusions
based on general principles and use rules to solve
abstract problems
Sigmund Freud

Believed that personality consists of 3
elements
 Id-inherited
drives for self-gratification
 Ego-balances between the needs of the Id
and the demands of society
 Superego- social conscience

Sociologists object to Freud’s view that
inborn and unconscious motivations are
the primary reasons for human behavior
Conclusion

Most socialization is meant to turn us
into conforming members of society
 We
do some things and not others as a
result of socialization
 Our “social mirror”- the result of being
socialized into self and emotions- sets up
effective controls over our behavior