SOCIOLOGY THE STUDY OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS
CHAPTER 5
Socializing the Individual
Section 1: Personality Development
Section 2: The Social Self
Section 3: Agents of Socialization
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SOCIOLOGY THE STUDY OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS
Section 1: Personality Development
Objectives:
 Explain how isolation in childhood affects
development.
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SOCIOLOGY THE STUDY OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS
Social Isolation
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Harlow (1962)- Rhesus Monkeys
 Complete isolation for 1st 6
months seriously distributed
development
 Infant monkeys given
artificial “mother” of wire
mesh also did poorly
 Infants given artificial
“mother” covered in cloth did
better, they would cling to
mother
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SOCIOLOGY THE STUDY OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS
2 Important Discoveries
 As long as infant monkeys were surrounded by
other infant monkeys, they were not adversely
affected by a lack of mother
 Lesser amounts of isolation (up to 3 months)
caused some problems but they were
temporary. Longer periods of isolation had
damage that could not be undone
HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON
SOCIOLOGY THE STUDY OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS
Isolation in Childhood:
 Feral children:
 Wild or untamed children.
 Children isolated in their homes by parents/family
members
 Children had not reasoning ability or no manners, and
no ability to control their bodily functions.
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Anna and Isabelle
 Anna:
 Confined to an attic at 6 months old.
 Result: (age 6) Could not walk, talk, feed
herself, expressionless face.
 Later on: could eventually talk, feed
herself, could talk in phrases…died at 10
years old.
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 Isabelle:
 She and her deaf mother confined to a dark closet.
 Result:
 Used gestures to communicate
 Did not learn to speak
 Crawled on her hands and knees
 Made grunting, animal-like sounds
 Ate with hands
 Later On…:
 Able to overcome her early social deprivation due to the
constant contact with her mother.
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Genie:
 Confined at age of 20 months to a small
bedroom.
 Tied to an infant's potty-chair and nights
wrapped in a sleeping bag.
 Totally silent world!!
 Toys: 2 plastic raincoats;
empty cottage cheese container!
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Result of Genie:
 Discovered at 13 years old.
 Could not stand straight!!
 Social/Psychological skills of
one-year-old.
 At 21 years of age, still could not function as
a social being.
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Institutionalization:
 Children in orphanages and hospitals:
 Children wasted away from lack of love and
attention.
 After Psychologist Rene Spitz studied an
orphanage in 1945…
 Fewer than 25% could walk by themselves, dress
themselves, or use a spoon.
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Section 1: Personality Development
Isolation in Childhood
and Development
 Research shows that a healthy cultural
environment is essential for a child’s full
development.
 Isolation can lead to severe effects such as
causing children to waste away and die or to
have stunted development.
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Section 1: Personality Development
Objectives:
 Identify the four main factors that affect the
development of personality.
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What is Personality??
 Personality:
 The sum total of behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, and
values that are characteristic of an individual.
 (A person’s fairly consistent patterns of thinking,
feeling, and acting)
 At an older age, personality traits change at a
slower rate.
 However, development varies from individual to
individual.
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Can a person’s personality contribute to
eating disorders?????
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Can a person’s personality contribute to
eating disorders?????
 "Patients with personality disorders exhibit feelings
of ineffectiveness, a strong need to control one's
environment, inflexible thinking, perfectionism, and
overly restrained initiative and emotional expression
... Bulimics show a greater tendency to have impulsecontrol problems, abuse alcohol or other drugs, and
have a greater frequency of suicide attempts.“ (Sam
Vankin)
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 The current view of orthodoxy is that the
eating disordered patient is attempting to
reassert control over his/her life by ritually
regulating her food intake and his/her body
weight. In this respect, eating disorders
resemble obsessive-compulsive disorders.
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Nature vs. Nurture:
 Nature:
 Heredity: the transmission of genetic
characteristics from parents to children.
 Instinct: unchanging, biologically inherited
behavior pattern.
 EX: birds migrating
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 Nurture:
 Behavior is result of social environment.
 EX: Your friends can shape your personality.
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 Sociobiology:
 The systematic study of the biological basis
of all social behavior.
 They believe that most of behavior is
determined by biological factors.
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Nature v Nurture:
 Are you the way you are because you were born
that way? Or did you learn to be the people you
are?
 Freud says anatomy is destiny
 B.F. Skinner says that we are born with no
personality at all and that everything about us is a
result of learning
 Consider both sides…which do you believe is
correct and why?
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Consider both sides…which do you
believe is correct and why?
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Break into 2 groups…(10 min. to prepare
debate)
 We are born with our
personalities
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 Our personalities are
learned
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SOCIOLOGY THE STUDY OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS
What do most sociologists believe????
 Assume that personality and social behavior
result from a blending of hereditary and
social environmental influences.
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SOCIOLOGY THE STUDY OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS
Section 1: Personality Development
Factors That Shape Personality Development
 Heredity – physical traits, aptitudes (capacity to learn
a particular skill), inherited characteristics, biological
drives.
 Parents – parental characteristics, such as age,
education, religion, and economic status.
 Birth order – personalities are shaped by whether one
has siblings. (1st born: goal-oriented/last-born: more
social oriented; risk-takers).
 Cultural environment – determines the basic
personality types found in a society.
(EX: male vs.
female)
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AND
WINSTON
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SOCIOLOGY THE STUDY OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS
Sociologists have identified
characteristics of people according to
birth order.
 As an example, it has been determined that 1st
borns and only children are generally the
highest achievers in academics.
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HOMEWORK:
 Do a survey to determine if this is true in your
school
 1st write a hypothesis
 2nd ask 8 people the following questions
 1. Are you the oldest child in your family
 2. Are you an Only Child
 3. Circle the range below to indicate your overall
academic average at the end of the last grading
period.
 Below 70 71-75
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81-85
86-90
91-95
96-100
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SOCIOLOGY THE STUDY OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS
End of Chapter 5: Section1
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Chapter 5:2
The Social Self
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Section 2: The Social Self
Objectives:
 Explain how a person’s sense of self emerges.
 Identify and describe the theories that have
been put forth to explain the process of
socialization.
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Section 2: The Social Self
How Sense of Self Emerges
 Through interaction with social and cultural
environments people are transformed into
members of society
 The interactive process through which people learn the
basic skills, values, beliefs, and behavior patterns of a
society is called socialization
 Self: Your conscious awareness of possessing a
distinct identity that separates you and your
environment from other members of society.
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SOCIOLOGY THE STUDY OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS
Section 2: The Social Self
Three Theories of Socialization
1. John Locke – The Tabula Rosa
2. Charles Horton Cooley – The Looking Glass
Self
3. George Herbert Mead – Role-Taking
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Section 2: The Social Self
John Locke – The Tabula Rosa
 Each person is a blank slate at birth (tabula
rosa), with no personality.
 People develop personality as a result of their
social experiences.
 Moreover, infants can be molded into any type
of person.
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Do you agree with Locke??????
 Do you believe that socialization is a process
by which individuals absorb the aspect of their
culture with which they come into contact????
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Section 2: The Social Self
Charles Horton Cooley –
The Looking Glass Self
 Infants have no sense of person or place.
 Children develop an image of themselves
based on how others see them.
 Looking-glass self
 Other people act as a mirror, reflecting back
the image a child projects through their
reactions to the child’s behavior.
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Need an Example????
 A child will develop a sense of self by the way
his/her primary group members act around
them (EX: parents, brothers, sisters, aunts,
uncles, etc….)
 If parents treat a child as capable
and competent ….then will
produce a capable and competent
child.
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SOCIOLOGY THE STUDY OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS
Each time we relate to others 3 steps
are involved:
 1. our judgment of our own appearance or
behavior
 2. our interpretation of the other persons
judgment of our appearance or behavior
 3. a self-feeling such as pride or inferiority
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Do you think the “looking-glass self”
seems true? Why?
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Quote:
 “No one can make you feel inferior without
your consent” – Eleanor Roosevelt
 How does this relate to the “looking-glass self”
theory
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Section 2: The Social Self
George Herbert Mead – Role-Taking
 People not only come to see themselves as others see
them but also take on or pretend to take on the roles
of others through imitation, play, and games.
 Role-taking: taking or pretending to take the role of
others.
 This process enables people to anticipate what others
expect of them.
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George Mead (Cont’d)
 Significant others:
 Specific people, such as parents, brothers,
sisters, other relatives, and friends, who have a
direct influence on our socialization.
 Generalized other:
 Internalized attitudes, expectations, and
viewpoints of society that we use to guide our
behavior and reinforce our sense of self.
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George Mead (Cont’d)
 He believes the self consists of 2 related parts:
1. I: the unsocialized, spontaneous, self-interested
component of personality and self-identity.
2. Me: the part of yourself that is aware of the
expectations and attitudes of society – the socialized
self.
** To be a well-rounded member of society, a person needs
BOTH aspects of the self!
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Chapter 5: Section 3
Agents of Socialization
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Section 3: Agents of Socialization
Objectives:
 Identify the most important agents of
socialization in the United States.
 Explain why family and education are
important social institutions.
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Agents of Socialization:
 The specific individuals, groups, and
institutions that enable socialization to take
place.
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Section 3: Agents of Socialization
Agents of Socialization
1. Family: – most important agent
 Principal socializer of young children.
 Intended vs. unintended socialization.
“Do as I say, not as I do.”
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Agents of Socialization:
2. Peer group: – primary group composed of
individuals of roughly equal age and social
characteristics, particularly influential during preteenage and early teenage years.
 Peer-group goals are sometimes at odds with the
goals of the larger society…can be alarming to
family.
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Agents of Socialization:
3. School: – plays a major role!
 Much of socialization is deliberate.
 Also, unintentional socialization
EX: Teachers become models,
such as manners of speech,
styles of dress, etc….
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Agents of Socialization:
4. Mass media: – books, films, the Internet,
magazines and television, not face-to-face.
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The Mass Media (Cont’d)
 98% of homes in U.S. have TVs.
 (Average: More than 2 per home)
 6-17 years old:
 TV is the primary after-school activity!
 Spend twice as much time watching TV than
in school!
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The Mass Media (Cont’d)
 Violence in the Media:
 By age 18…
 Witnessed 200,000 fictional acts of violence
 16,000 murders
 Studies suggest that violence encourages
viewers to act in aggressive ways and to see
aggression as a valid way to solve problems.
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The Mass Media (Cont’d)
 Positive Side:
 Television expands the viewers’ world.
 Educational tool.
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Section 3: Agents of Socialization
Overall Importance of Family and
Education
 Teach children important life skills.
 Teach values, norms, and beliefs.
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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.
 EX: Prisons, military boot camp,
and psychiatric hospitals.
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 Resocialization:
 Involves a break with past experiences and the
learning of new values and norms.
 Goal:
 To change an individuals personality and social
behavior.
 Individual identity taken away!
 (EX: hair cut; uniforms; etc….)
 Once self is weakened, then easier to convince
others to conform to new patterns of behavior.
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