Socialization is the lifelong process through which individuals develop their human potential and learn culture through social experience. Theorists like Freud, Piaget, and Mead examined how personality develops from the interplay between innate human drives and social influences from agents of socialization like family, friends, schools, and media. Modern research demonstrates the crucial role of socialization in forming personality, as seen in studies of socially isolated children and monkeys.

1. Socialization
The Social
Experience: The Key
to Our Humanity

2. Socialization
Socialization is the
lifelong social experience by
which individuals develop
their human potential and
learn culture.
Social experience is also the
foundation for
personality a person’s
fairly consistent patterns of
thinking, feeling, and acting.
Socialization and personality
are not the same thing.

3. Nature or
Nurture?
• In the nineteenth century there was an intense
debate regarding the relative importance of
nature (biology) and nurture (socialization) in the
shaping of human behavior.
• Modern sociologists view nurture as being more
important than nature in shaping human
behavior.
• Research on the effects of social isolation has
demonstrated the importance of socialization. All
the evidence points to the crucial role in social
development in forming personality. This
research includes:
1. Harry and Margaret Harlow’s
experimental work with rhesus monkeys.
2. Studies of isolated children such as
Anna (Kingsley Davis).

4. Understanding
Socialization:
Sigmund Freud
• Freud examined the elements of
personality. He believed that:
• 1. The personality is shaped by two
opposed forces: eros the life instinct,
and thanatos the death instinct.
• 2. The personality includes three basic
components:
• id, the human being’s basic drives
(need for food, water, shelter-all
things that sustain life).
• superego, the operation of culture
within the individual (basically, “I
want what I want, when I want it”.).
• ego, a person’s conscious efforts to
balance innate pleasure-seeking
drives with the demands of society.
• The ego is the voice of reason; it
tries to be the balance the id and
the superego.

5. Critical
evaluation
of Freud
Freud’s notion that we
internalize norms and his idea
that childhood experiences have
lasting importance in the
socialization process remain
critical.
Some of his work has been
criticized as reflecting a sexist
bias (plus he liked to snort the
cocaine)

6. Understanding
Socialization:
Jean Piaget
• Piaget is responsible for examining cognitive
development (how we think). He identified
four stages of cognitive development:
• The sensorimotor stage, where
individuals experience the world only
through sensory contact (this stage is
about the first 2 yrs. of life).
• The preoperational stage, when
individuals first use language and other
symbols (between ages 2 to 6).
• The concrete operational stage, when
individuals first perceive causal
connections in their surroundings
(between ages 7 to 12).
• The formal operational stage, where
individuals think abstractly and critically
(this occurs about age 13 and over).

7. Critical
Evaluation
of Piaget
Piaget showed that human
beings’ ability to shape
their social world unfolds
gradually as the result of
both biological maturation
and social experience.
His theory may not apply
to people in a society but
rather the development of
individuals

8. Understanding
Socialization:
George
Herbert Mead
• Developed the idea of the social self.
• The self is a dimension of personality
composed of an individual’s self-
awareness and self-image.
a. It emerges from social
experience.
b. This social experience is based
on the exchange of symbols.
c. Understanding someone’s
intentions requires imagining the
situation from that person’s point of
view, a process called taking the
role of the other

9. Mead’s
Development
of the Self
Imitation (Think about playing
peek-a-boo with a toddler;
they do what you do)
Play in which children take the
roles of significant others
Games in which they take the
roles of several other people
at the same time.
Acquisition of the generalized
other, defined as widespread
cultural norms and values we
use as references in evaluating
ourselves.

10. Critical
Evaluation
of Mead
While Mead showed
that symbolic
interaction is the
foundation of both self
and society.
He may be criticized for
ignoring the role of
biology in the
development of the
self.

11. Agents of
Socialization
(What
socializes
you)
Family
Friends
Schools
Media (especially
social media)

12. The Family
• Most important agent of
socialization
• First people we have
contact with that sets the
tone of how we will
become integrated into
the larger society
• Socialization within the
family varies markedly by
social class

13. Schools
• Schooling introduces students
to being evaluated according to
universal standards.
• The hidden curriculum passes
on important cultural values,
mostly implicitly the importance
of race and gender (this is a
latent function of education).

14. Friends • Peer groups are also important, whose
members have interests, social position, and
age in common.
• Anticipatory socialization is the process of
social learning directed toward gaining a
desired position, commonly occurs among
peers.

15. The Media
• The mass media, impersonal
communications directed at a vast
audience, also shape socialization.
• Television, the internet, and, in particular,
social media have become especially
important in this regard.

16. Resocialization:
Total
Institutions
Total institutions are settings in which
people are isolated from the rest of society
and manipulated by an administrative staff
(think about prisons and the military).
The purpose of total institutions is
resocialization: radically altering
someone’s personality through deliberate
control of the environment.
Resocialization is a two-stage process:
•The staff breaks down the individual’s existing
identity.
•They try to build a new self within the individual.