SOCIALIZATION: MEANING, IMPORTANCE, AND AGENTS

Meaning of Socialization

Sociability is a characteristic of human life from the very beginning. Normally, an infant is surrounded by people who interact with him/her from the moment of his/her birth.

Meaning of Socialization

• Socialization is the acquisition of the norms and roles expected of the people in a particular society.

• Socialization is a life-long process of learning whereby the individual acquires the accepted beliefs, values, sentiments, norms, and behavior of his/her group and society.

• Espiritu (1986) defined socialization as a process by which social sharing and transmission occur.

Meaning of Socialization

• Garcia (1992) said that the socialization is the process by which an individual learns to conform to the norms of his/her social group, acquires a status, and plays a corresponding role.

• Brinkerhoff and White (1998) pointed out that socialization is a process of learning the roles, statuses, and values necessary for participation in social institutions.

1) The process of learning to be competent members of the society; and

2) The process of developing oneself.

Meaning of SocializationBased on the foregoing definitions, socialization is actually two processes in one:

Importance of Socialization

Human culture is transmitted from one generation to the next.

2

The young become part of an organized society

The individual acquires a social self and personality.

1

Knowledge and skills are developed to ensure satisfaction of needs and human survival.

1

The individual learns his/her role in a society.

Social Role and Status

A role is a pattern of behavior that is expected from an individual who occupies a particular status in society.

Social Role and Status

A status is a rank or position relative to other positions in a particular group at a particular time.

• A status may be assigned to a person at birth or at another stage in life cycle. This is called “ascribed status”. There is hardly a personal choice with this status.

• Status may also be attained through personal effort, merit, or choice. This status is called “achieved status”.

Social Role and Status

Agents of Socialization

1) Family – It is considered as the most important agent of socialization in the sense that it is usually the first group to provide the meaning and support to the individual.

2) Peer – It consists of many groups made up of children, in which the child participates. The peer group enables the child to experience an egalitarian type of relationship.

Agents of Socialization

4) School – The school exposes children to situations in which the same rules, regulations, and authority patterns apply to everyone.

5) Mass Media – The mass media such as newspapers, radio, movies, television, and books, are also important in communicating to individuals a society’s beliefs, values, mores, and traditions.

4) Religion – The values and moral principles in religious doctrines serve as guide to appropriate roles and behaviors.

5) Primary Group – These sentiments, impulses, and human feelings are developed within people as they are molded by primary groups.

Agents of Socialization

PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL SELF

Meaning of Personality

• Personality is the relatively enduring pattern of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that characterize a person, along with the psychological processes behind those characteristics.

• Personality is the set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that are organized and relatively enduring and that influence his/her interactions with, and adaptations to, the intrapsychic, physical, and social environments.

Meaning of Personality

• Brinkerhoff (1988) defines personality as the unique attributes and abilities of the individual.

• Barnow (1983) defines personality as a more or less enduring organization of forces within the individual, associated with a complex of fairly consistent attitudes, values, and models of perception, which account, in part, for the individual’s consistency of behavior.

• Dewey and Humber (1966) look at personality as the way by which the individual is interrelated through ideas, actions, and attitudes to the many non-human aspects of his/her environment and biological heritage.

Determinants of Personality

1) Heredity is the determinant of the biological make-up of a person. This biological make-up provides the raw materials of stuff from which personality is formed.

2) Environment is the molder of the personality. It is the sum total of a person’s natural, cultural, and social surroundings.

a) Natural Environment – This includes all living things that surround a person.

b) Cultural Environment – This consists of the material and non-material human made environment.

c) Social Environment – This is the network of relationships and institutions surrounding the individual.

THEORIES OF PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT

Freud’s Psychosexual Stages

1) Oral Stage (birth to 1 year) – during the first year of life, the infants seeks satisfaction through stimulation to the mouth by sucking, biting, and chewing.

2) Anal Stage (1-3 years) – the infant achieves satisfaction from the withholding of expelling of feces.

3) Phallic Stage (4-5 years) – According to Freud, a male child is attracted to, and seeks satisfaction from his mother (Oedipal stage). A female child, in turn, seeks affection from her father (Electra stage).

Freud’s Psychosexual Stages

4) Latency Stage (5 years to adolescence) – at this stage, children turn their attention to surrounding world in which they are dominated by their intellectual and social development.

5) Genital Stage (Adolescence and beyond) – the sexual impulses become active again and individual focuses on the opposite sex, looks around for a potential marriage partner, and prepares for marriage and adult responsibilities.

Erikson’s Psychosocial Studies

1) Basic trust versus mistrust

2) Autonomy versus shame and doubt

3) Initiative versus guilt

4) Industry versus inferiority

5) Identity versus role confusion

6) Intimacy versus isolation

7) Generativity versus self-absorption and stagnation

8) Integrity versus despair

1) Sensory Stage (from birth to 18 months of age) – at this stage, infants are primarily concerned with their own senses and motor activities.

2) Pre-operational Stage (from about 18 months to 7 years of age) – by this time, children have total object permanence and are learning to use language to communicate with others.

3) Concrete Operational Stage (from about 7 to 11 years of age) – thinking of children remains tied to the concrete world.

Jean Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development

4) Formal Operational Stage ( begins with the onset of adolescence at about age 11) – at this stage, children begin to think in terms of general principles, abstract concepts, and theories.

Jean Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development

Three steps in the formation of the looking-glass self:

1) We imagine how we appear to others.

2) We imagine how others judge our appearance.

3) We develop feelings about and responses of these judgments.

Charles's Horton Cooley’s Concept of the “Looking-Glass Self”

1) Preparatory Stage – during this stage, children imitate the behavior of others in the environment.

2) Play Stage – during the play stage, children assume or play several roles, one after another.

3) Game Stage – during the game stage, children assume several roles simultaneously.

George Mead’s Self-development Stage

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