CHAPTER 3

Socialization (Chapter 3)
What is human nature?
socialization
the process by which people learn the characteristics of their group—the knowledge, skills,
attitudes, values, norms, and actions thought appropriate for them

Society Makes Us Human:

 Babies do not develop “naturally” into social adults.
 If children are reared in isolation, their bodies grow, but they become little more than
big animals.
 Without the concepts that language provides, they can’t grasp relationships between
people (the “connections” we call brother, sister, parent, friend, teacher, and so on).
 And without warm, friendly interactions, they can’t bond with others. They don’t
become “friendly” or cooperate with others.
 In short, it is through human contact that people learn to be members of the human
community.
 This process by which we learn the ways of society (or of particular groups), called
socialization, is what sociologists have in mind when they say, “Society makes us
human.”

Socialization into the self and mind

 Self: the unique human capacity of being able to see ourselves “from the outside”; the
views we internalize of how we think others see us
 looking-glass self: a term coined by Charles Horton Cooley to refer to the process by
which our self develops through internalizing others’ reactions to us
 When you were born, you had no ideas. You didn’t know that you were a son or
daughter. You didn’t even know that you were a he or she. How did you develop a
self, your image of who you are? And how did you develop your ability to reason?

Cooley and the Looking-Glass Self

 About a hundred years ago, Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929), a symbolic

interactionist who taught at the University of Michigan, concluded that producing a
self is an essential part of how society makes us human. He said that our sense of self
develops from interaction with others. To describe the process by which this unique
aspect of “ humanness” develops, Cooley (1902) coined the term looking-glass self.
 He summarized this idea in the following couplet:
Each to each a looking-glass
Reflects the other that doth pass.

The looking-glass self contains three elements:

1. We imagine how we appear to those around us.
 For example, we may think that others perceive us as witty or dull.
2. We interpret others’ reactions.
  We come to conclusions about how others evaluate us. Do they like us for
being witty? Do they dislike us for being dull?
3. We develop a self-concept.
 How we interpret others’ reactions to us frames our feelings and ideas about
ourselves.
 A favorable reflection in this social mirror leads to a positive self-concept; a
negative reflection leads to a negative self-concept.

In Sum
 Although the self-concept begins in childhood, it is never a finished product.
 All of our lives, we monitor how others react to us.
 Whether we are accurate in how we think others evaluate us does not change the
process.
 Even if we grossly misinterpret how others think about us, those misjudgments
become part of our self-concept.
 Because we are always monitoring others’ reactions to us, we are continually
modifying the self, even in our old age.

Mead and Role Taking

 Another symbolic interactionist, George Herbert Mead (1863–1931), who taught at
the University of Chicago, pointed out how important play is in developing a self.

1. As we play with others, we learn to take the role of the other. That is, we learn to
put ourselves in someone else’s shoes—to understand how someone else feels and
thinks and to anticipate how that person will act.
 This doesn’t happen overnight. We develop this ability over a period of years (Mead
1934; Denzin 2007).
 Psychologist John Flavel (1968) asked 8- and 14-year-olds to explain a board game to
children who were blindfolded and also to others who were not. The 14-year-olds
gave more detailed instructions to those who were blindfolded, but the 8-year-olds
gave the same instructions to everyone. The younger children could not yet take the
role of the other, while the older children could.
2. As we develop this ability, at first we can take only the roles of significant others,
individuals who significantly influence our lives, such as parents or siblings.

significant other
an individual who significantly influences someone else

 By assuming their roles during play, such as dressing up in our parents’ clothing, we
cultivate the ability to put ourselves in the place of significant others.
 As our self gradually develops, we internalize the expectations of more and more
people.
 Our ability to take the role of others eventually extends to being able to take the role
of “the group as a whole.”
 Mead used the term generalized other to refer to our perception of how people in
general think of us.
generalized other: the norms, values, attitudes, and expectations of people “in
general”; the child’s ability to take the role of the generalized other is a significant
step in the development of a self
  Taking the role of others is essential if we are to become cooperative members of
human groups— whether they are family, friends, or co-workers. This ability allows
us to modify our behavior by anticipating how others will react—something Genie
never learned.

we go through three stages as we learn to take the role of the other:

1. Imitation.
 Under the age of 3, we can only mimic others.
 We do not yet have a sense of self separate from others, and we can only imitate
people’s gestures and words. (This stage is actually not role taking, but it prepares us
for it.)
2. Play.
 During the second stage, from the ages of about 3 to 6, we pretend to take the roles of
specific people.
 We might pretend that we are a firefighter, a wrestler, a nurse, Supergirl, Spider-Man,
a princess, and so on.
 We like costumes at this stage and enjoy dressing up in our parents’ clothing or tying
a towel around our neck to “become” Superman or Wonder Woman.
3. Team Games.
 This third stage, organized play, or team games, begins roughly when we enter
school. The significance for the self is that to play these games, we must be able to
take multiple roles.
 Baseball was one of Mead’s favorite examples. To play baseball, each player must be
able to take the role of any other player. It isn’t enough that players know their own
role; they also must be able to anticipate what everyone else on the field will do when
the ball is hit or thrown.
 Mead also said that the self has two parts, the “I” and the “me.”
 The “I” is the self as subject, the active, spontaneous, creative part of the self. In
contrast, the “me” is the self as object. It is made up of attitudes we internalize from
our interactions with others.
 Mead chose these pronouns because in English, “I” is the active agent, as in “I shoved
him,” while “me” is the object of action, as in “He shoved me.”
 Mead stressed that we are not passive in the socialization process. We are not like
robots, with programmed software shoved into us. Rather, our “I” actively evaluates
the reactions of others and organizes them into a unified whole. Mead added that the
“I” even monitors the “me,” fine-tuning our ideas and attitudes to help us better meet
what others expect of us.

In Sum
 Both our self and our mind are social products.
 Mead stressed that we cannot think without symbols.
 But where do these symbols come from? Only from society, which gives us our
symbols by giving us language.
 If society did not provide the symbols, we would not be able to think and so would
not possess a self-concept or that entity we call the mind.
 The self and mind, then, like language, are products of society.
Piaget and the Development of Reasoning
 The development of the mind—specifically, how we learn to reason—was studied in
detail by Jean Piaget (1896–1980).
 This Swiss psychologist noticed that when young children take intelligence tests, they
often give similar wrong answers.
 This set Piaget to thinking that the children might be using some consistent, but
incorrect, reasoning. It might even indicate that children go through some natural
process as they learn how to reason.
 Stimulated by this intriguing possibility, Piaget set up a laboratory where he could
give children of different ages problems to solve (Piaget 1950, 1954; Flavel et al.
2002). After years of testing, Piaget concluded that children go through a natural
process as they develop their ability to reason.

 This process has four stages. (If you mentally substitute “reasoning” or “reasoning
skills” for the term operational as you review these stages, Piaget’s findings will be
easier to understand.)
1. The sensorimotor stage (from birth to about age 2).
 During this stage, our understanding is limited to direct contact—eat, touching,
listening, looking.
 We aren’t able to “think.”
 During the first part of this stage, we do not even know that our bodies are separate
from the environment.
 Indeed, we have yet to discover that we have toes.
 Neither can we recognize cause and effect. That is, we do not know that our actions
cause something to happen.
2. The preoperational stage (from about age 2 to age 7).
 During this stage, we develop the ability to use symbols.
 However, we do not yet understand common concepts such as size, speed, or
causation.
 Although we are learning to count, we do not really understand what numbers mean.
3. The concrete operational stage (from about age 7 to age 12).
 Although our reasoning abilities are more developed, they remain concrete.
 We can now understand numbers, size, causation, and speed,
 and we are able to take the role of the other.
 We can even play team games.
 Unless we have concrete examples, however, we are unable to talk about concepts
such as truth, honesty, or justice.
 We can explain why Jane’s answer was a lie, but we cannot describe what truth itself
is.
4. The formal operational stage (after the age of about 12).
 We now are capable of abstract thinking.
 We can talk about concepts, come to conclusions based on general principles, and use
rules to solve abstract problems.
 During this stage, we are likely to become young philosophers (Kagan 1984).
 If we were shown a photo of a slave during our concrete operational stage, we might
have said, “That’s wrong!”
 Now at the formal operational stage we are likely to add, “If our country was founded
on equality, how could anyone own slaves?”
Global Aspects of the Self and Reasoning
  Cooley’s conclusions about the looking-glass -self appear to be true for everyone
around the world.
 So do Mead’s conclusions about role taking and the mind and self as social products,
although researchers are finding that the self may develop earlier than Mead
indicated.
 Piaget’s theory is also being refined (Burman 2013).
 Although children everywhere begin with the concrete and move to the abstract,
researchers have found that the stages are not as distinct as Piaget concluded.
 The ages at which individuals enter the stages also differ from one person to another
(Flavel et al. 2002).
 Even during the sensorimotor stage, for example, children show early signs of
reasoning, which may indicate an innate ability that is wired into the brain.
 Interestingly, some people seem to get stuck in the concreteness of the third stage and
never reach the fourth stage of abstract thinking (Kohlberg and Gilligan 1971; Suizzo
2000).
 College, for example, nurtures the fourth stage, and people with this experience
apparently have more ability for abstract thought. Social experiences, then, can
modify these stages.

Socialization into Gender

Gender: the behaviors and attitudes that a society considers proper for its males and females;
masculinity or femininity
gender socialization: learning society’s “gender map,” the paths in life set out for us because
we are male or female

socialization into gender is part of the way that society turns us into certain types of people—and
sets up deep controls over us.

Learning the Gender Map

 For a child, society is unexplored territory.
 A major signpost on society’s map is gender, the attitudes and behaviors that are
expected of us because we are a male or a female.
 In learning the gender map (called gender socialization), we are nudged into
different lanes in life—into contrasting attitudes and behaviors. We take direction so
well that, as adults, most of us act, think, and even feel according to our culture’s
guidelines regarding what is appropriate for our gender. For now, though, let’s briefly
consider some of the gender messages that we get from our family and the mass
media

Gender Messages in the Family

1.Parents
 Our parents are the first to introduce us to the gender map.
 Sometimes they do this consciously, perhaps by bringing into play pink and blue,
colors that have no meaning in themselves but that are now associated with gender.
Our parents’ own
 Cultural diversity around the world
 Agents of socialization
 Socialization through life
  Gender orientations are embedded so firmly that they do most of their gender teaching
without being aware of what they are doing. This is illustrated in a classic study by
psychologists Susan Goldberg and Michael Lewis (1969), whose results have been
confirmed by other researchers (Connors 1996; Clearfield and Nelson 2006; Best
2010).
Goldberg and Lewis asked mothers to bring their 6-month-old infants into their
laboratory, supposedly to observe the infants’ development.
Covertly, however, they also observed the mothers.
They found that the mothers kept their daughters closer to them.
They also touched their daughters more and spoke to them more frequently than they did
to their sons.
By the time the children were 13 months old, the girls stayed closer to their mothers
during play, and they returned to their mothers sooner and more often than the boys did.
Then Goldberg and Lewis did a little experiment. They set up a barrier to separate the
children from their mothers, who were holding toys.
The girls were more likely to cry and motion for help; the boys, to try to climb over the
barrier.

Goldberg and Lewis concluded that the mothers had subconsciously rewarded their daughters
for being passive and dependent, their sons for being active and independent.

Toys and Play

 Our family’s gender lessons are thorough.
TOYS:

 On the basis of our gender, our parents give us different kinds of toys.
 Boys are more likely to get guns and “action figures” that destroy enemies.
 Girls are more likely to be given dolls and jewelry.
 Some parents try to choose “gender neutral” toys,
 but kids know what is popular, and they feel left out if they don’t have what the other
kids have.
 The significance of toys in gender socialization can be summarized this way: Most
parents would be upset if someone gave their son Barbie dolls.
PLAY:
 We also learn gender through play.
 subtly “signal” to their sons that it is okay for them to participate in more rough-and-
tumble play.
 In general, parents expect their sons to get dirtier and to be more defiant, their
daughters to be daintier (neater) and more compliant (obedient) (Gilman 1911/1971;
Nordberg 2010). And in large part, parents get what they expect.
 Our experiences in socialization lie at the heart of the sociological explanation of
male–female differences.

2.Gender Messages from Peers

peer group: a group of individuals, often of roughly the same age, who are linked by
common interests and orientations

 Sociologists stress how this sorting process into gender that begins in the family is
reinforced as children are exposed to other aspects of society.
  Of those other influences, one of the most powerful is the peer group, individuals of
roughly the same age who are linked by common interests.
 Examples of peer groups are friends, classmates, and “the kids in the neighborhood.”
 As you grew up, you saw girls and boys teach one another what it means to be female
or male.
 You might not have recognized what was happening, however, so let’s eavesdrop on a
conversation between two eighth-grade girls studied by sociologist Donna Eder
(2007).--- the discussion indicated girls talking about makeup, ugliness etc… how
these girls were giving gender lessons? They were reinforcing images of appearance
and behavior that they thought were appropriate for females.
 Boys, too, reinforce cultural expectations of gender (Carter 2014). When sociologist
Melissa Milkie (1994) studied junior high school boys, she caught a glimpse of this in
action. Much of their talk was about movies and TV programs. Of the many images
they saw, the boys would single out those associated with gender and violence. They
would amuse one another by repeating lines, acting out parts, and joking and laughing
at what they had seen.
 The boys, she concluded, were using media images to develop their identity as males.
They had gotten the message: “Real” males are obsessed with gender and violence.

3.Gender Messages in the Mass Media

mass media forms of communication, such as radio, newspapers, and television that are
directed to mass audiences; forms of communication that are directed to large audiences.

Television, Movies, and Cartoons

 If you’ve watched youngsters while they are watching children’s videos or television
you’ve probably noticed how engrossed they are.
 They can hardly lift their eyes from “the action” when you try to get their attention.
 What are children learning through these powerful media that transmit ideas through
words and moving images?
 One major lesson is that males are more important than females, as male characters
outnumber female characters two to one (Ahmed and Wahab 2014).
 In children’s cartoons, females used to be portrayed as less brave and more
dependent.
 Reflecting women’s changing position in society, cartoons now feature more
dominant, aggressive females.
 With tongue in cheek, the Power-puff Girls are touted as “the most elite kindergarten
crime-fighting force ever assembled.” This changed portrayal of gender is especially
evident in the violent females who play lead characters in action movies,
 A key part of gender is body image, and the mass media are effective in teaching us
what we “should” look like.
 While girls are presented as more powerful than they used to be, they have to be
skinny and gorgeous and wear the latest fashions.
 Such messages present a dilemma for girls: Continuously thrust before them is a
model that is almost impossible to replicate in real life.

Video Games
 All over the nation, parents are concerned that their children are wasting their time
playing video games.
  To the parent’s dismay, with an athletic scholarship available, children can now
mount a stronger defense.
 Sociologists have found that the message of male dominance continues in this format,
too—and overwhelmingly so. Females are even more underrepresented in video
games than on television: 96 percent of the main characters are male—and most
females, as usual, are portrayed as attractive (Kuchera 2013).

Advertising

 From an early age, you have been bombarded with stereotypical images of gender.
 If you are average, you are exposed to a blistering 200,000 commercials a year
(Kacen 2011).
 In commercials geared toward children, boys are more likely to be shown as
competing in outdoor settings, while girls are more likely to be portrayed as
cooperating in indoor settings.
 Action figures are pitched to boys, and dolls are directed to girls (Kahlenberg and
Hein 2010).
 As adults, we are still peppered with ads.
 Although their purpose is to sell products-these ads continue our gender lessons.

In Sum “Male” and “female” are powerful symbols.

 When we learn that different behaviors and attitudes are expected of us because we
are a girl or a boy, we learn to interpret the world in terms of gender.
 Whether overt (obvious) and exaggerated or subtle and below our awareness, the
mass media continue the gender lessons begun at home and reinforced by our peers.
 Gender serves as a primary basis for social inequality—social condition indicating
giving privileges and obligations to one group of people while denying them to
another,

Cultural Diversity around the World

When Women Become Men: The Sworn Virgins

“I will become a man,” said Pashe. “I will do it.” The decision was final. Taking a pair of
scissors, she soon had her long, black curls lying at her feet. She put on her father’s baggy
trousers. She armed herself with her father’s rifle. She would need it. Going before the
village elders, she swore to never marry, to never have children. Pashe had become a sworn
man. There was no turning back. The penalty for violating the oath was death.

 In northern Albania, where Pashe Keqi lives, and in parts of Bosnia and Serbia, some
women become men. They are not transsexuals. Nor do they have a gender-change
operation, something which is unknown in those parts.
 This custom, which goes back centuries, is a practical matter, a way to protect and
support the family.
 In these traditional societies, women stay home and take care of the children and
household. They can go hardly anywhere except to the market and mosque. Women
depend on men for survival.
 And when there is no man? This is the problem. Pashe’s father was killed in a blood
feud. In these traditional groups, when the family patriarch (male head) dies and there
are no male heirs, how are the women to survive?
 In the fifteenth century, people in this area hit upon a solution: One of the women
gives an oath of lifelong taking over of the man’s role. She then becomes a social
he—she wears male clothing, carries a gun, owns property, and moves freely
throughout the society. She sits with the men at weddings. She prays with the men at
the mosque. When a man wants to marry a girl of the family, she is the one who
approves or disapproves of the suitor.
 In short, the woman really becomes a man. Actually, a social man, sociologists would
add. Her biology does not change, but her gender does.
 Pashe had become the man of the house, a status she occupied her entire life. Taking
this position at the age of 11—Pashe is in her 70s now—also made her responsible for
avenging her father’s murder. But when his killer was released from prison, her 15-
year-old nephew (she is his uncle) rushed in and did the deed instead.
 Such women walk like men, they talk like men, and they hunt with the men. They
also take up manly occupations. They become shepherds, security guards, truck
drivers, and political leaders. Those around them know that they are biological
women, but in all ways they treat them as men. When such a sworn man talks to
women, the women recoil in shyness.
 These women of Albania are a fascinating cultural contradiction: In the midst of a
highly traditional group, one built around male superiority that severely limits
women, we find both the belief and practice that a biological woman can do the work
of a man and function in all of a man’s social roles. The sole exception is marriage.
 Under communist rule until 1985, with travel restricted by law and custom,
mountainous northern Albania had been cut off from the rest of the world. Now there
is a democratic government, and the region is connected to the world by better roads,
telephones, and even television. As modern life trickles into these villages, few
women want to become men. “Why should we?” they ask. “Now we have freedom.
We can go to the city and work and support our families.”