CHAPTER 3

BECOMING A MEMBER OF SOCIETY

Key Concepts
Socialization is the lifelong social experience by which people develop their human potential
and learn culture. Unlike other living species, whose behavior is mostly or entirely set by
biology, humans need social experience to learn their culture and to survive. Social experience is
also the foundation of personality, a person’s fairly consistent patterns of acting, thinking and
feeling (Macionis 2012: 102).

Another term for socialization is enculturation.

There are many theories on how the self, as a product of socialization, is formed. We will
examine the work of four researchers: Sigmund Freud, Charles Cooley, George Herbert Mead,
and Jean Piaget (Macionis 2012: 104–108).

Freud’s model of personality. Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) combined basic needs and the
influence of society into a model of personality with three parts: id, ego, and superego. The id
represents the human being’s basic drives, or biological and physical needs which are
unconscious and demand immediate satisfaction. In the human personality, the superego refers
to the cultural values and norms internalized by an individual. Society, through its values and
norms, opposes the self-centered id. The ego is, thus, a person’s conscious efforts to balance
innate pleasure-seeking drives (id) with the demands of society (superego).

Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. From his studies of human cognition, or how people
think and understand. Jean Piaget (1896–1980) identified four stages of cognitive development.

Stage one is the sensorimotor stage (first two years of life), the level of human development at
which individuals know the world only through the five senses. Stage two is the preoperational
stage (about age two to seven) at which individuals first use language and other symbols. Stage
three is concrete operational stage (between the ages of seven and eleven) at which individuals
first see causal connections in their surroundings. The last stage is the formal operational stage
(about age twelve) at which individuals think abstractly and critically.

Mead’s theory of the social self. George Herbert Mead (1863–1931) For Mead, the self is a part
of our personality and includes self-awareness and self-image. It is the product of social
experience, and is not guided by biological drives (see Freud) or biological maturation (see
Piaget). According to Mead, the key to developing the self is learning to take the role of the
other. Infants can do this only through imitation and, without understanding underlying
intentions, have no self. As children learn to use language and other symbols, the self emerges in
the form of play. Play involves assuming roles modeled on significant others, or people, such as
parents, who have special importance for socialization. Then, children learn to take the roles of
several others at once, and move from simple play with one other to complex games involving
many others. The final stage in the development of the self is when children are able to not only
take the role of specific people in just one situation, but that of many others in different
situations. Mead used the term generalized other to refer to widespread cultural norms and
values we use as references in evaluating ourselves.

Cooley’s Looking-glass Self. Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929) used the phrase looking-glass
self to mean a self-image based on how we think others see us. As we interact with others, the
people around us become a mirror (an object that people used to call a “looking glass”) in which
we can see ourselves. What we think of ourselves, then, depends on how we think others see us.
For example, if we think others see us as clever, we will think of ourselves in the same way. But
if we feel they think of us as clumsy, then that is how we will see ourselves.

Agents of socialization

Several settings have special importance in the socialization process. These include the family,
school, peer group, and the mass media. The family, usually the first setting of socialization, has
the greatest impact on attitudes and behavior. Schools teach knowledge and skills needed for
later life, and expose children to greater social diversity. The peer group takes on great
importance during adolescence. The mass media have a huge impact on socialization in modern
societies.

Values, norms, status, and roles

Socialization is also defined as the process of preparing members for membership in a given
group in society. Through socialization, individuals learn the norms and values of their society.
Values are culturally defined standards that people use to decide what is desirable, good, and
beautiful and that serve as broad guidelines for social living. Norms are the rules and
expectations by which a society guides the behavior of its members.

Socialization prepares individuals to occupy statuses and roles (Macionis 2012: 127– 128).
Status refers a social position that a person holds. An ascribed status is a social position a
person receives at birth or takes on involuntarily later in life. Examples of ascribed statuses
include being a daughter, a Filipino, a teenager, or a widower. Achieved status refers to a social
position a person takes on voluntarily that reflects personal ability and effort. Achieved statuses
include honors student, athlete, nurse, software writer, and thief. Role refers to behavior
expected of someone who holds a particular status.
Gender role socialization

Sex refers to the biological characteristics distinguishing male and female (Macionis 2012: 169).
Sex is based on chromosomes, anatomy, hormones, reproductive systems, and other
physiological components.

Gender refers to those social, cultural, and psychological traits linked to males and females
through particular social contexts. Sex makes us male or female; gender makes us masculine or
feminine. All the major agents of socialization—family, peer groups, schools, and the mass
media—reinforce cultural definitions of what is feminine and masculine. (Dionisio 1992: 1-2;
Macionis 2012: 170).

Conformity and Deviance

Conformity and deviance (Macionis 2012: 194)

Every society is a system of social control, or attempts by society to regulate people’s thoughts
and behavior. Social control encourages conformity to certain norms and discourages deviance
or norm breaking. Deviance range from minor infractions, such as bad manners, to major
infractions, such as serious violence.

Norms that become specified and institutionalized are called laws. Crime refers to the violation
of the law.

There is a lack of consensus in society regarding which behaviors or traits are deviant. What is
considered as deviance will vary across time, places, and social groups. How a society defines
deviance, who is branded as deviant, and what people decide to do about deviance all have to do
with the way society is organized.

The functions of deviance (Macionis 2012: 197).According to Emile Durkheim (1858–1917),

deviance performs the following functions:
 Affirms cultural norms and values. Deviance is needed to define and support
morality. There can be no good without evil and no justice without crime.
 Clarifies moral boundaries. By defining some individuals as deviant, people draw
a boundary between right and wrong.
 Brings people together. People typically react to serious deviance with shared
outrage, and in doing so reaffirm the moral ties that bind them.
 Encourages social change. Deviant people suggest alternatives to the status quo
and encouraging change.
Merton’s strain theory (Macionis 2012: 197–198). Robert Merton (1910–2003) argued that the
extent and type of deviance people engage in depend on whether a society provides the means
(such as schooling and job opportunities) to achieve cultural goals (such as financial success).
Conformity means achieving cultural goals through approved means. However, the strain
between the cultural goal and the lack of opportunities to achieve these goals using approved
means may result in deviance. Merton identifies four types of deviance: innovation, ritualism,
retreatism, and rebellion. Innovation involves using unconventional means (for example, Steve
Jobs, the founder of the Apple computer company, and his colleagues who, without support from
big corporations, worked in a garage to invent personal computers) rather than conventional
means (working for an established computer company) to achieve a culturally approved goal
(wealth). In ritualism, people do not care much about the goal (getting rich) but stick to the rules
(the conventional means) anyway in order to feel “respectable.” A third response to the strain
between the cultural goal and the approved means is retreatism, rejecting both cultural goals
and conventional means so that a person in effect “drops out.” The fourth response is rebellion.
Like retreatists, rebels reject both the cultural definition of success and the conventional means
of achieving it, but they provide alternatives to the existing social order.