Chapter 4

Copyright ©2013 W.W. Norton, Inc.
You
May Ask
Yourself
Core Third Edition
Dalton Conley
You
May Ask
Yourself
Third Edition
Dalton Conley
Chapter 4
Socialization
and the
Construction of
Reality

2Copyright ©2013 W.W. Norton, Inc.
Paradox

What Is Socialization?
• Socialization is the
process by which
individuals
internalize the
values, beliefs, and
norms of a given
society and learn to
function as a member
of that society.

Limits of Socialization
• However, socialization cannot explain
everything about a person’s development
and personality.
– Biology is also a very important
component.
– It is a combination of biology and social
interactions that makes us who we are.

Charles Horton Cooley
• Theorized that the “self”
emerges from our ability to
assume the point of view of
others and imagine how
those others see us.

George Herbert Mead
• Mead developed a theory about how the
social self develops over the course of
childhood.
• Infants know only the “I,” but through social
interaction they learn about “me” and the
“other.”
• They develop a concept of the “generalized
other,” which allows them to apply norms
and behaviors learned in specific situations
to new situations.

George Herbert Mead
• Mead stressed the importance of imitation,
play, and games in helping children recognize
one another, distinguish between self and
other, and grasp the idea that other people can
have multiple roles.

Eric Erikson
• Eric Erikson
– He established a theory of
psychosocial development that
identifies eight stages that span a
person’s lifetime.
– Each stage involves a specific conflict
that a person must resolve in order to
move on to the next stage.

Interview
C.J. Pascoe

Agents of Socialization
• Families, school, peers, the media, and total
institutions are all important socializing agents
or environments.
• A total institution is an institution in which one
is totally immersed that controls all the basics
of day-to-day life.

Interview
Annette Lareau

Resocialization
• a change in values, beliefs, or norms
through an intense social process

Social Interaction
• Robert Merton’s role theory provides a
way to describe social interaction.

Statuses and Roles
• A status is a position in society that
comes with a set of expectations.
– An ascribed status is one we are born with
that is unlikely to change.
– An achieved status is one we have earned
through individual effort or that is imposed
by others.

Statuses and Roles
• One’s master status is a status that seems
to override all others and affects all other
statuses that one possesses.
• Roles are the behaviors expected from a
particular status.

Statuses and Roles
• Role conflict occurs when the roles associated
with one status clash with the roles associated
with a different status.
• Role strain occurs when roles associated with a
single status clash.
• Either of these may lead to role exit.

Gender Roles
• set of behavioral norms associated primarily
with males or females in a given social
group or system
• Gender theorists argue that gender roles
can be more powerful and influential than
other roles that people fill.

The Social Construction of
Reality
• Social construction
– People give meaning or value to ideas or
objects through social interactions.
– It’s an ongoing process that is embedded
in our everyday interactions.

Reality
• Symbolic interactionism is a micro-
level theory based on the idea that
people act in accordance with shared
meanings, orientations, and
assumptions.
• Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical
theory views social life as a theatrical
performance in which we are all actors
on metaphysical stages with roles,
scripts, costumes, and sets.

Reality
• Ethnomethodology is an approach to
studying human interaction that focuses on
the ways in which we make sense of our
world, convey this understanding to others,
and produce a mutually shared social
order.

Reality
• Harold Garfinkel developed a method for
studying social interactions, called
breaching experiments, which involved
having collaborators exhibit “abnormal” or
“atypical” behaviors in social interactions
in order to see how people would react.

Reality
• The Internet has created new types of social
interaction that don’t incorporate verbal and
visual cues people are accustomed to relying
on. It has also changed society by creating
new types of crimes and new ways of
communicating.

Reality
• Because our reality is socially constructed,
an unexpected change in that reality can be
upsetting, frustrating, or just plain
incomprehensible.
• We all have a stake in maintaining
consensus on shared meanings so that our
society can continue to function smoothly.

Concept Quiz
1. In social development theory, the “self” can
be defined as _______.
a) the individual identity of a person as perceived by
that same person
b) one’s sense of agency, action, or power
c) the identity of a person as perceived by others
d) all of the above

Concept Quiz
2. According to George Herbert Mead’s stages
of development, children learn to recognize
an “other” through _____.
a) formal games
b) imitation
c) playing informally with other children
d) none of the above

Concept Quiz
3. ______ are common agents of socialization.
a) Siblings
b) Teachers
c) Television programs
d) all of the above
e) none of the above

Concept Quiz
4. Which of the following is an example of a total
institution?
a) elementary school
b) sports team
c) convent
d) political party

Concept Quiz
5. Which of the following theories argues that
people’s choices about how to act are based
on shared meanings, orientations, and
assumptions?
a) symbolic interactionism
b) functionalism
c) dramaturgical theory
d) postmodernism

Concept Quiz
6. Harold Garfinkel is well known for _______.
a) developing the theory of impression
management
b) creating breaching experiments
c) investigating the armed forces as a total
institution
d) his analysis of socialization agents

Discussion Questions
1. Have you ever been told that you act like your
parents?
a) yes
b) no
2. Are you adopted?
a) yes
b) no

Discussion Questions
3. Do you have siblings?
a) Yes
b) no
4. Are you a twin?
a) yes
b) no
5. How similar do you think you are to your
siblings?
a) very similar
b) somewhat similar
c) not similar

You May Ask Yourself: An Introduction to Thinking Like a Sociologist, 3rd Edition Copyright ©2013 W.W. Norton, Inc. 32
Chapter opener

Early in elementary school you were taught to raise your hand to speak in class.
Can you think of other examples of internalized behavior?

How does a small child playing peekaboo demonstrate the social process of creating the self?

Figure 4.1: Mead’s Stages of Social Development

Why are games an important part of child development? What do team sports like soccer
teach us about multiple roles?

According to Annette Lareau, how do working-class and middle-class families structure their
children’s free time differently? What are the results of these different socializing behaviors?

What advantages do students at elite private schools, such as the young men pictured above in
this 1964 Philips Academy yearbook photo, have over those who attend public schools?
How do elite schools prepare students differently?

Research on television shows such as Sesame Street shows that they help children develop
math and verbal skills.

Marines training at Parris Island. How is Marine boot camp an example of a total institution?

Who are you? What are the different roles in your status set? For example, singer Beyonce’s
statuses include mother, daughter, and partner.

How do the displays at this New York City toy store serve as an example of the ways that we
learn gender roles through socialization?

Which one of these paintings is a “real” Jackson Pollock? Does it matter? (For the record,
the real one is on the right.) How is the controversy over the Pollock paintings an
example of the social construction of reality?

Lunch? Cicadas, grasshoppers, and other insects on skewers for sale in Donghaumen
Night Market in Beijing, China.

How does symbolic interactionism help us understand the differences in greetings among
various cultures? Pictured here are Bedouins touching noses, Malian men with their
arms around each other, and the Belgian royal family celebrating the prince’s 18th birthday.

Celebrities such as Tiger Woods suffer from tabloid scandals when their backstage lives
become public, but we all make distinctions in our lives between front-stage
and backstage behaviors.

A scene from the film Borat. What established scripts did Sacha Baron Cohen’s character
Borat violate by going on an elevator naked? How did the unsuspecting woman on
the elevator try to cope with the breach?

Two teachers work with students in a Harlem Children’s Zone program. The HCZ school day is
1.5 hours longer than public-school days and includes many special activities
and clubs that most impoverished schools cannot offer.

Paramedics try to resuscitate professional wrestler Owen Hart after a deadly fall in
Kansas City, Missouri.

This concludes the
Lecture PowerPoint
presentation for:
You
May Ask
Yourself
Core Third Edition
Dalton Conley
You
May Ask
Yourself
Third Edition
Dalton Conley
Visit the StudySpace at:
wwnorton.com/studyspace
For more learning resources, please
visit the StudySpace site for
You May Ask Yourself
Chapter 4
Socialization and the
Construction of Reality
52

Chapter 4

More Related Content

What's hot

Similar to Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Editor's Notes