SOCIALIZATION

Through socialization, children learn the culture of the society to which they belong so that they can be integrated into the community, find stable and meaningful satisfactions, and develop their potentials within the framework of the society. Children must learn to take account of others, share and co-operate if they want to lead happy and successful lives. Socialization is a kind of social control exercised for the sake of both group and personal growth.

1. Socialization teaches basic disciplines from toilet training to proficiency in intricate work skills to mastering the art of conflict resolution. Undisciplined behavior is prompted by impulse -- fleeting needs and impressions that ignores future consequences and stable satisfactions. Disciplined behavior restricts immediate gratification by postponing, foregoing or modifying them, sometimes for the sake of social approval, sometimes to insure a future goal.

2. Socialization teaches skills, providing the individual with a basic preparation for participation in adult activities and social roles and their supporting attitudes. Group membership requires more than just a generalized ability to take the role of others in a social situation; it requires the more specific ability to take specialized roles with the behaviors, feelings, attitudes and personality traits proper to it.

3. Socialization instills aspirations or the anticipation of some goal for the future. Disciplines may be unrewarding in themselves, but aspirations help to sustain them by making it easier and more meaningful to give up immediate gratifications for the future goal.. Society transmits not only general cultural values that define a way of life but also specific aspirations and ideals -- the desire to be a jazz musician, a nuclear scientist, a good father, a role model for kids who hang out in the streets, the Prime Minister of Canada or the President of the United States.

Absence of Instincts:

Humans have reflexes but not instincts; thus they must learn all that they know.

Childhood Dependence:

Humans are the most helpless of all creatures at birth, requiring caregiving persons.

Capacity to Learn:

Humans have higher levels of intelligence and can learn more than other species.

Capacity for Language:

Gives the ability to use reason and to engage in symbolic interaction.

Genetic Makeup of Individuals:

Sets up the potentials and limits that serve as constraints for the socializing process.

Personality refers to the fairly stable patterns of thought, feeling and action typical for an individual. It consists of three components: cognitive: perception, memory, and intellectual capacity; emotional -- subjective states of feeling of pleasure or pain, such as happiness, anger, anxiety; and behavioral -- skills typical patterns

INSTINCT:

A behavior pattern which

1. is complex

2. is unlearned

3. appears in all normal members of the species under normal conditions.

REFLEX:

Involuntary muscular responses like eye-blink, knee jerk, etc.

DRIVE:

Organic urge which can be satisfied in a variety of ways that are learned through cultural experience.

A self-concept based on our observations of other peoples' reactions toward us. Their reactions to us form a social "mirror" of ourselves which shapes our attitudes toward ourselves.

GEORGE HERBERT MEAD

MIND, SELF AND SOCIETY

Mind and self develop through:

Language: Symbols replace actual behavior of the socializing persons and give ability to reflect on self and others.

Role-taking: Pretending to take on the behavior of others; allows child to take the viewpoint of others.

- Stage 1: Imitation: Mimics the behavior of others; has little sense of self boundaries

- Stage 2: Play: Takes the role of "particular other", i.e. specific persons in environment

- Stage 3: Game: Organized games in which account must be taken of roles and positions played according to rules independent of persons.

"Generalized Other": The attitudes and viewpoints of the society at large.

ASPECTS OF THE SELF

"I" = the spontaneous, self-interested, impulsive unsocialized self.

"Me"= socialized self, conforming to norms, values, acceptable roles and expectations of society

THE UNCONSCIOUS:

The part of the mind, thought and feelings that are hidden from awareness.

ID:

The drives and instincts which remain unconscious but which are the energizing force behind behavior. Two dominant instincts:

+ Aggressive drive

+ Libido or sexual drive

PLEASURE PRINCIPLE:

Id's impulsive attempts to satisfy its drives.

SUPEREGO:

Society's norms and moral values as learned primarily by parents; conscience.

EGO:

The "reality principle"; part of the personality that mediates between force of the id and repression of the superego, channeling behavior in socially acceptable direction.

Conflict and

Resolution Culmination in Old Age

Infancy

Basic trust vs. Appreciation of interdependence and

mistrust: hope relatedness.

Early Childhood

Autonomy vs. Acceptance of the cycle of life from

shame: will integration to disintegration.

Play Age

Initiative vs. Humor; empathy; resilience

guilt: purpose

School Age

Industry vs inferiority: Humility, acceptance of the course of

competence one's life and unfulfilled hopes.

Adolescence

Identity vs confusion: Sense of complexity of life, merger of

fidelity sensory, logical and asthetic perception

Early Adulthood

Intimacy vs Sense of the complexity of relationships;

isolation; love value of tenderness and loving freely

Adulthood

Generativity vs Caritas, caring for others and agape,

stagnation: care empathy and concern

Old Age

Integrity vs. despair: Existential identity, a sense of integrity

wisdom strong enough to withstand physical

disintegration