Psychologists and Socialization

• Socialization is studied by psychologists.

Key Psychologists and Their Theories

• Sigmund Freud: Focused on personality development from ages 0-6.
  • Stages include oral, anal, psycho-sexual trust, and genital stages.
  • Concepts: Electrum complex for girls, Oedipus complex for boys.
  • Personality components: Ego, Id (biological drives), and Superego (cultural norms).
• Albert Bandura: Studied early childhood development and aggression using Bobo dolls.
  • Children learn passively.
• Lawrence Kohlberg/Carol Gilligan: Studied moral development in early, middle, and late adolescence.
  • Gilligan wrote "A Different Voice."
• Jean Piaget: Studied cognitive development.
  • Stages: Sensorimotor, preoperational (learning words and colors), concrete operational, and formal operational (adulting).
• Erik Erikson: Studied socialization across the life course in eight stages.
  • Stages can be underdeveloped or overdeveloped.

Feral Children

• Feral children lack normal speech and human behaviors.
• They may be raised by animals or kept in isolation due to parental neglect.

Socialization

• Purpose: To develop a sense of self and learn about society and culture.
• Agents: Parents, teachers, peers (interactive), and media (passive).
• Primary emotions are basic human emotions.

G.H. Mead

• Focused on the "social" self and self-concepts in childhood.
• Self-consciousness develops through human interaction; feral children lack it.
• Role-taking: Adopting another person's perspective to understand their viewpoint and adjust behavior.
  • Also known as the theory of mind.
  • Stages:
  • Imitation stage (0-6 months): Interacting with significant others.
  • Play stage (1-2 years): Playing with less significant others.
  • Game stage (2-5 years): Involving rules.
  • Minding stage: Role-taking with generalized others (people not co-present).

William James

• Believes we have as many selves as there are people who have an impression of us.

Charles Horton Cooley

• The looking-glass self is when we see ourselves reflected in others.
• Appropriated self includes taking elements from our surroundings and making them our own.

Desocialization & Resocialization

• Desocialization: Unlearning behaviors or rules associated with a relinquished status.
  • Giving up old social norms, values, and behaviors.
• Resocialization: Learning new values, beliefs, and behaviors to fit into a new role or social group.

Ervin Goffman

• Dramaturgy: Life as a performance.
• Total institutions: Places where resocialization occurs (e.g., prisons, hospitals, military).
• Learning about society/culture involves understanding social systems and their statuses/roles/relationships.
• Zimbarbo’s Mock prison experiment.
• Cultures consist of beliefs, values, symbols, language, and norms.

Social Systems

• Characteristics:
  • Dominant group
  • Subordinate group
  • Control group

Theoretical Perspectives

• S/F (Structural Functionalism): Conformity.
• C (Conflict Theory): Steering.
• SI (Symbolic Interactionism): Development of reflexivity (reflexive mind).

Sociology of Everyday Life

• Dramaturgy (Erving Goffman): Status as part, role as behavior, script as relating to others' statuses.
• We are all actors on a stage.
• Definition of the situation includes self, others, and society.
  • Front stage (when people are watching) vs. backstage.
  • Presentation of self and impression management.
• Role Strain: Too many roles associated with one status.
• Role Conflict: Conflicting roles from two or more statuses (e.g., being a father and a professor to your son).
• Role Immersion: Being in a status 24/7 (master identity, e.g., a mom).
• Role Distance: Dissociating from a role or aspects of a role.
• W.I. Thomas Theorem: What a person believes to be real becomes real.
  • Beliefs occupy the mind.

Ethnomethodology

• Ethno refers to culture.
• Harold Garfinkel studied the "taken for granted" world (culture of a group).
• Breaching experiments: Aligning actions to repair breaches and minimize embarrassment.
• Vocabulary of motives includes:
  • Accepting/rejecting responsibility.
  • Accepting/rejecting justification.
  • Accepting apologies.
• Techniques of neutralization and vocabulary of motive are similar.

Sociology of Emotions

• Emotions vs. feelings:
• Feelings are private and physiological.
• Emotions are public and social expressions of feelings.
• Primary and secondary emotions exist.
• Three pillars:
  • Emotions are socially constructed, exchanged, and maintained over time.
• Feeling rules, display rules, cultural rules, gender rules, and occupational rules exist.
• Hochschild developed the concept of emotional labor.

Groups and Organizations

• Primary vs. secondary groups:
  • Primary groups (expressive): Small, close relationships, focused on self-expression.
  • Secondary groups (instrumental): Larger, impersonal, formal relationships, goal-oriented.
• Group size: Dyads have strong bonds; triads are more durable but have weaker bonds.
• Bystander effect: Individuals are less likely to help when others are present.
• Conformity:
  • Ash: Group conformity.
  • Milgram: Pressure from authority.
  • Janis: Groupthink (influenced by an authoritative figure).

Formal Organizations

• Types:
  • Coercive
  • Normative (voluntary)
  • Utilitarian (work)

Mcdonaldization

• Ritzer's theory: Fast-food principles dominating more sectors of society globally.
• Four effects on social organization: Efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control.
• Examples: Health care and education.

Bureaucracies (Max Weber)

• Characteristics: division of labor, hierarchy of organization, written rules and regulations, impersonality, and employment based on technical qualifications. Criticisms: rigidity, impersonal nature, tendency to stifle creativity and innovation.
• Scientific management: Max Weber problems with bureaucracies, the focus on formal rules can also lead to inefficiency and delays, especially in fast-paced industries that require quick decision-making.

Sexuality

• Sex, gender, and sexuality are distinct.
  • Sex: Biological category (male, female, intersexual).
  • Gender: Bio-psycho-social category (masculinity, femininity, androgyny).
  • Sexuality: Sexual feelings, thoughts, attractions, and behaviors.
• Human species are often called omnisexual.
• Primary sexual characteristics: Groin.
• Secondary sexual characteristics: Develop during puberty.
• Theoretical perspectives:
  • Sexual dimorphism produces two body types.
    • Both body parts compliment each other.
    • Traditional gender roles represent narrow prescriptions for human sexuality.
• Conflict theory: Power to define sex and gender roles lies with entities like government officials.

Deviance

• Deviance: Behavior that deviates from normal standards (can be good or bad).

Explanations for Deviance

• Sin
• Genetics
• Sick (medicalization of deviance)

Types of Deviance

• Violation of norms (folkways, mores, laws, taboo).
• Crime:
  • Street crime
  • Organized crime
  • Victimless crime
  • White-collar crime
  • Government/political crime
• Mental/physical health (being sick). Physical Appearance ( tattoo, piercing, disfigured etc)
• Deviant career (cult, nudist colony).

Theoretical Perspectives on Deviance

• Biological:
  • Cesare Lombroso: Anthropological criminology/Theory of phrenology.
  • William Sheldon: Theory of somatotype (ectomorph, endomorph, mesomorph).
• DNA/genetic Biological imbalance / Disease
• Psychology: Mental/emotional stress.
• Sociological
  • Pathology.
  • Anomie and strain theory (Merton).
  • Conflict theory: Creating deviance to control the population.
  • Examples: Drapetomania, hysteria, homosexuality.