Socialization
1800s: Martineau · Tocqueville · Marx · Spencer · Le Bon · Ward · Pareto · Tönnies · Veblen · Simmel · Durkheim · Addams · Mead · Weber · Du Bois · Mannheim · Elias In sociology, socialization (also socialisation – see spelling differences) is the process of internalizing the norms and ideologies of society.
[4] Socialization essentially represents the whole process of learning throughout the life course and is a central influence on the behavior, beliefs, and actions of adults as well as of children.
[19] The term was relatively uncommon before 1940, but became popular after World War II, appearing in dictionaries and scholarly works such as the theory of Talcott Parsons.
Finally, the post-conventional stage (more rarely achieved) occurs if a person moves beyond society's norms to consider abstract ethical principles when making moral decisions.
Research in the theory concludes that newborns are born into the world with a unique genetic wiring to be social.
[25] Circumstantial evidence supporting the social pre-wiring hypothesis can be revealed when examining newborns' behavior.
[25] The social pre-wiring hypothesis was proved correct, "The central advance of this study is the demonstration that 'social actions' are already performed in the second trimester of gestation.
"[25] Primary socialization occurs when a child learns the attitudes, values, and actions appropriate to individuals as members of a particular culture.
Secondary socialization refers to the process of learning what is the appropriate behavior as a member of a smaller group within the larger society.
[27] Research by Kenneth J. Levine and Cynthia A. Hoffner identifies parents as the main source of anticipatory socialization in regard to jobs and careers.
One common example involves resocialization through a total institution, or "a setting in which people are isolated from the rest of society and manipulated by an administrative staff".
[30][31] Other examples include the experiences of a young person leaving home to join the military, or of a religious convert internalizing the beliefs and rituals of a new faith.
Another example would be the process by which a transsexual person learns to function socially in a dramatically altered gender-role.
Socialization functions as a control system in that newcomers learn to internalize and obey organizational values and practices.
Also, because of already existing genetic similarities with parents, developing personalities outside of childhood home environments would further diversify individuals, increasing their evolutionary success.
There is a predictable sequence of stages that occur as an individual transitions through a group: investigation, socialization, maintenance, resocialization, and remembrance.
For example, the individual may react cautiously or misinterpret other members' reactions in the belief that they will be treated differently as a newcomer.
The family is certainly important in reinforcing gender roles, but so are groups - including friends, peers, school, work, and the mass media.
Girls struggle to regain their personal strength when moving through adolescence as they have fewer female teachers and most authority figures are men.
Promotion of mistrust refers to the parenting practices of socializing children to be wary of people from other races.
Egalitarianism refers to socializing children with the belief that all people are equal and should be treated with common humanity.
[48] In the United States, white people are socialized to perceive race as a zero-sum game and a black-white binary.
[51] This action is a form of political socialization in its relation to power and the persistent compliance of the disadvantaged with their oppression using limited "overt coercion".
Émile Durkheim viewed society as an external force controlling individuals through the imposition of sanctions and codes of law.
[citation needed] Building technology is made easy, is improved and carried out due to the ease with which interaction in interest services and media work can be connected.
[citation needed] Citizens must instil in themselves excellent morals, ethics, and values and must preserve human rights or have sound judgment to be able to lead a country to a higher developmental level in order to construct a decent and democratic society for nation-building.
Individual humans tend to like the people who fill their social learning processes with positive motivation, loving care, and rewarding opportunities.
[citation needed] A high ratio of negative to positive socialization can make a person unhappy, leading to defeated or pessimistic feelings about life.
Reality processing is productive because human beings actively grapple with their lives and attempt to cope with the attendant developmental tasks.
Incorporated within all developmental tasks is the necessity to reconcile personal individuation and social integration and so secure the "I-dentity".
