Chapter 4 4th ed

The Real WorldAn Introduction to Sociology

4th Edition

Chapter 4:The Self and Interaction

The Real WorldCopyright © 2008 W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

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What is Human Nature?

• From a sociologists perspective, it is culture and society that make us human.

• We must learn the meanings we give to everything in society; food, housing, sex, and everything else…society is the teacher.

• Culture, which we learned about in our last chapter, is the “lesson plans” that society uses when it is teaching us these meanings.


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• The nature vs. nurture debate refers to the ongoing discussion of the respective roles of genetics and socialization in determining individual behaviors and traits.

• Which view is correct? Nature or Nurture?

• The answer is both. Ultimately both sides do play a role in making us the people that we are.


Nature vs. Nurture Continued…

Example: Research shows that high levels of testosterone contribute to stereotypically masculine traits such as aggressiveness and competitiveness. However, it is also true that facing a competitive challenge (such as playing a sport) causes testosterone levels to rise. So, is it the hormone that makes us competitive, or is it competition that stimulates hormone production?

Competition, a learned behavior, is causing a biological response. However, the traits caused by the increase in testosterone is biology having an effect on behavior.

You can see from this example that the relationship between nature and nurture is quite complex.

The Real World

Copyright © 2008 W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

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The Process of Socialization

• Socialization is the process of learning and internalizing the values, beliefs, and norms of our social group and by which we become functioning members of society.

• The socialization process begins in infancy and is especially productive once a child begins to understand and use language.

• Socialization is a lifelong process.


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• Society, culture, and the groups to which we belong (family, friends, schools, etc.) teaches us to become functioning members.

• However, in order for this teaching and learning process to be complete, we must internalize the values and norms of our society…which most of us tend to do.


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• There are 2 main goals of socialization:

– Teach us skills necessary to satisfy basic needs and defense from danger.

– Teach us the norms, values, and beliefs to ensure all members adhere to a shared way of life.

Social Isolation

• Infants have almost no innate capacities making it virtually impossible for them to develop into full human beings without human contact. Here are a few examples of this concept.

• Feral Children are children who have grown up in the wild. Supposedly, there are real cases of children being raised by wild animals. An example of this concept can be found in fictional works such as The Jungle Book and Tarzan.

• There are a few examples of children that have been discovered living in the wild and exhibiting animal like behaviors. However, there are no evidence that any of these children were “raised” by animals from infancy.

• One example that indicates that an infant would not survive in the wild comes to us from 13th century Germany and Emperor Frederick II. Frederick wanted to see if children would revert back to their natural state as in the Garden of Eden. All of the children died when they were abandoned in the forest.

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Feral Children, Do They Exist?

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Social Isolation

• Modern examples:

• Isabelle: Kingsley Davis observed a young girl in the 1930s who had been left in a dark room of her Ohio family’s home since infancy. The deaf-mute mother did not interact with the child at all. When she was discovered, the child only made croaking noises and could not interact. It would take two years after her rescue for her to acquire language and learn to interact with others, demonstrating that without socialization, we are almost totally devoid of the qualities we normally associate with being human.

The Real World


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Social Isolation

• Modern Examples Continued…

• Genie: In 1970, a 14 year-old Californian girl was discovered in a room where she had been confined since age 20 months. During her years of isolation, no family member had spoken to her, nor could she hear anything other than swearing. She also had no television or radio. She was virtually non-verbal. After being discovered, she was exposed to intensive speech therapy. In one year, she had the speech capabilities of an 18 month old. Today, Genie lives in a home for mentally disabled adults. However, she never reached her full language ability. This suggests that without socialization, our mental development could potentially be stunted; as we also know that our ability to learn certain things begins to narrow as we age…language being one of these examples.

The Real World


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Cooley, Meade, and Goffman

SELF DEVELOPMENT

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The Development of the Self

• The self is an individual’s conscious, reflexive, experience of a personal identity separate and distinct from others. It is our distinct identity that sets us apart from others.

• Consciousness, our ability to develop the “self,” makes humans unique from other creatures.

• The self is a social product; it is created and modified through interaction over the course of a lifetime.

• There are a few theories that discuss how it develops…

The Development of the Self (Cooley)

• Charles Cooley believed that we learn who we are by interacting with others.

• Furthermore, one’s sense of self comes not only from direct contemplation of our personal qualities but also from our impressions of how others perceive us.

• His theory, the looking-glass self, refers to the notion that the self develops through our perception of others’ evaluations and appraisals of us.

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The Development of the Self (Cooley)

• Charles Cooley theorized that there were 3 phases in the “looking-glass self” process:

– Step 1: We imagine how we look to others (family, friends, strangers, etc.).

– Step 2: Then, we imagine other people’s evaluation of us (attractive, intelligent, shy, strange, etc.)

– Step 3: Finally, we develop some sort of feeling about ourselves based on our perception of that evaluation (shame, pride, embarrassment, etc.)

The Looking-Glass Self

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Step 1: “I think I look

pretty good for this

date.”

Step 2: “Wow..she is looking at

me like I’m a freak!”

Step 3: “I don’t know

what I did wrong! I

must look goofy or

something”

The Development of the Self (Mead)

• George Herbert Mead expanded Cooley’s ideas about the development of the self.

• Mead also believed that the self was created through social interaction and that this process started in childhood (that children began to develop a sense of self at about the same time that they began to learn language).

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• The acquisition of language skills coincides with the growth of mental capacities, including the ability to think of ourselves as separate and distinct, and to see ourselves in relationship to others.

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• He theorized that the self unfolds in stages:

– Stage 1: Preparatory Stage (before age 3) – children imitate significant others. For example, a child might bang on a piece of wood while a parent is engaged in carpentry work, or throw a ball if an older sibling is doing so nearby.

– Children also begin to learn symbols, gestures, and language that allow them to begin communicating.

– Mead defined significant others as those who are most important in the development of the self. These are the people that we’re closest to (parents, family, friends, etc.).


Stage 2: Play Stage (after age 3) – children pretend to be other people – this is referred to “taking the role of the other.”

• After children learn to communicate, they gradually become more aware of social relationships. As a result, during this stage, they begin to pretend to be other people. Just as an actor “becomes” a character, a child becomes a doctor, parent, superhero, or ship captain.

• Mead called this process “role taking.” Role taking is mentally assuming the perspective of another and responding from that imagined view-point.

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Stage 3: Game Stage (Early School Years) – children’s self awareness increases through a process that Mead compared to games.• The child no longer just plays roles but begins to consider several

tasks and relationships simultaneously. At this point in development, children grasp not only their own social positions but also those of others around them.

• For example, consider sports, a child must understand their own position as well as everyone else’s positions…hence the name “Game Stage.” This understanding applies to all aspects of life…teacher/student, parent/child, coworker/coworker, etc. The child can now respond to numerous members of the social environment.

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• Stage 3: Game Stage continued…– Mead uses the term “Generalized Other” to refer to the attitudes,

viewpoints, and expectations of society as a whole that a child takes into account in his or her behavior. In other words, the “generalized other” is the perspectives and expectations of a network of others (or society in general) that a child learns and then takes into account when shaping his or her own behavior.

– For example: A child will not act courteously to other people merely to please a parent. Rather, the child comes to understand that courtesy is a widespread social value endorsed by everyone.

– At the game stage, children can take a more sophisticated view of people and the social environment. They now understand specific occupations and social positions.

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Mead: The Stages of the Self

The Preparatory

Stage

Children imitate

significant others to

learn meaning behind

symbols, gestures,

and language.

The Play Stage

Children begin “role-

taking” in which they

mentally assume the

perspective of another

and respond from that

view-point.

The Game Stage

Children are now aware

of their position in

relationship to the other

numerous social

positions in society.

The Development of the Self (Goffman)

• Erving Goffman believed that meaning is constructed through interaction. To better understand where Goffman is coming from, you need to know the Thomas Theorem:

– The Thomas Theorem states that if people “define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.” (pg. 123)

– Definition of the Situation – an agreement with others about “what is going on” in a given circumstance. This consensus allows us to coordinate our actions with others and realize goals.

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• Erving Goffman takes the ideas of the Thomas Theorem as step further…he looks at our definitions of the situation not just cognitively, but interactionally as well. – Expression of Behavior – tools we use to project our definitions of the

situation to others.

– Expressions Given – expressions that are intentional and usually verbal.

– Expressions Given Off – observable expression that can either be intended or unintended and are usually non-verbal.

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• Erving Goffman and Impression Management & Dramaturgy

• Goffman sees social life as a sort of game, where we work to control the impressions others have of us, a process he called impression management.

– IM is a person’s efforts to manage the impressions that others receive of her or him.

– We are constantly managing the impression we want others to see.

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• His approach, dramaturgy, compares social interaction to the theater, where individuals take on roles and act them out to present a favorable impression to their “audience.”

– Setting (OR Region)

– Front Stage

– Back Stage

– Role Performance/Role Expectation

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Family, School, Peers, and Mass Media

AGENTS OF SOCIALIZATION

Agents of Socialization

• Agents of socialization are the social groups, institutions, and individuals that provide structured situations in which socialization takes place.

• The four predominant agents of socialization are the family, schools, peers, and the mass media.

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Agents of Socialization (cont’d)

• The family is the single most significant agent of socialization in all societies and teaches us the basic values and norms that shape our identity.

• Where a family is located, both geographically and socially will affect family members.

• Socialization differs because each family has its own set of values and beliefs.

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• Over the years, schools have gradually taken on greater responsibilities than merely teaching a prescribed curriculum.

• Schools help children become less dependent on the family.

• Schools provide education and socialize us through a hidden curriculum (a set of behavioral traits such as punctuality, neatness, discipline, hard work, competition, and obedience) that teaches many of the behaviors that will be important later in life.

• Pressure for schools to become even more involved.


• Peers provide very different social skills and often become more immediately significant than the family, especially as children move through adolescence.

• As children age, peers often become more important than parents as agents of socialization.

• Peer subcultures are formed

• Peer Pressure refers to the influence exerted by a peer group in encouraging a person to change his or her attitudes, values, or behavior in order to conform to group norms.

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• The media has become an important agent of socialization, often overriding the family and other institutions in instilling values and norms.

• Sociologists questioned the extent that media has usurped some of the functions of the family.

• What affects does television have on our children?

– Body image is one example.3

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• Adult Socialization – We are constantly learning and adjusting to new conditions over the life course, and thereby participating in secondary socialization.

– Examples: new job, marriage, divorce, death, etc.

• Resocialization is the process of replacing previously learned norms and values with new ones as a part of a transition in life.


• A dramatic form of resocialization takes place in a total institution, which is an institution (a place such as a prison, cult, or mental hospital) in which individuals are cut off from the rest of society so that their lives can be controlled and regulated for the purpose of systematically stripping away previous roles and identities in order to create a new one.

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Behavioral Expectations

STATUSES AND ROLES

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.

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Statuses and Roles (cont’d)

• One’s master status is a status that seems to override all others and affects all other statuses that one possesses.

• Master statuses carry with them expectations that may blind people to other facets of our personalities.

– Stereotyping is judging others based on preconceived generalizations about groups or categories of people.

• Roles are the behaviors expected from a particular status.

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Statuses and Roles (cont’d)

• 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; the process of leaving a role that we will no longer occupy.

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Emotions and Personality

• An aspect of the roles and statuses we assume is our emotions. Emotions vary from status to status, role to role.

• Though we tend to believe that our emotions are highly personal and individual, there are social patterns in our emotional responses.

• Paul Ekman – Global Emotions

– Anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise

– Universal facial expressions

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Emotions and Personality (cont’d)

• Role-taking emotions are emotions like sympathy, embarrassment, or shame, which require that we assume the perspective of another person and respond from that person’s point of view.

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• Feeling rules are socially constructed norms regarding the expression and display of emotions and include expectations about the acceptable or desirable feelings in a given situation.

– Arlie Hochschild – emotion is guided by sets of feeling rules, which tell us how to feel in certain roles or situations

• Gender and emotion

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• Emotional work refers to the process of evoking, suppressing, or otherwise managing feelings to create a publicly observable display of emotion.

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New Interactional Contexts

• What are the implications of our new forms of interaction on the “self”? Instant messaging, texting, Facebook, etc.?

• Though most sociological perspectives on interaction focus on interactions that occur in copresence (when individuals are in one another’s physical presence), modern technology enables us to interact with people very far away.

• What effect does this have on us?

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New Interactional Contexts (cont’d.)

• Postmodern theorists claim that the role of technology in interaction is one of the primary features of postmodern life.

• Interacting through technology exposes us to more information and diverse perspectives that may shape our sense of self and socialize us in new ways. This is another reason why the media is a controversial agent of socialization.

• We are now exposed to many more sources to help us shape our sense of self.

Education

Chapter 4 4th ed