Sociological Imagination: How to Gain Wisdom about the Society in which We All Participate and for Whose Future We Are All Responsible (Part 11)

Remorse for what? You people have done everything in the world to me. Doesn't that give me equal right?

― Charles Manson

Socialization

(part a)

 by

 Charles Lamson

 Becoming a Social Being

How do we become responsible members of

our society? Why are some people endowed with

qualities we admire, such as courage or altruism,

while others display qualities we abhor, such as

selfishness or cruelty? What are the influences of

family, schools, peers, and other social groups on

people's character and the way they behave toward

others?

Socialization is the term sociologists use to describe the ways in which people learn to conform to their society's norms, values, and roles. People develop their own unique personalities as a result of the learning they gain from parents, siblings, relatives, peers, teachers, mentors, and all the people who influence them throughout their lives (W. Corsaro, 1997. The Sociology of Childhood; F. Elkin & G. Handel, 1989. The Child and Society: The Process of Socialization, 5th ed.) From the viewpoint of a society as a whole, however, what is important about the process of socialization is that that people learn to behave according to the norms of their culture. How people learn to behave according to cultural norms---that is, the way they learn their culture---makes possible the transmission of culture from one generation to the next. In this way the culture is reproduced in the next generation (J. Gonzales-Mena, 1998. The Child in the Family and the Community; D. Roer-Strier & M.K. Rosenthal, 2001. Socialization in Changing Social Contexts: A Search for Images of the "Adaptive Adult," Social Work, 46, 215-228).

Socialization occurs throughout the life as the individual learns new norms in new groups and situations. For purposes of analysis, however, socialization can be divided into three major phases. The first is primary socialization. It refers to all the ways in which the newborn individual is molded into a social being---that is, into a growing person who can interact with others according to the expectations of society. Primary socialization occurs within the family and other intimate groups in the child's social environment. Secondary socialization occurs in later childhood and adolescence, when the child enters school and comes under the influence of adults and peers outside the household and immediate family. Adult socialization is a third stage, when the person learns the norms associated with new statuses such as wife, husband, journalist, programmer, grandparent, or nursing home patient (Elkin & Handel 1989).

There are several unresolved and highly controversial issues in the study of socialization, and we will explore some of them in the next few posts. Chief among them are the following:

• Nature and nurture. What is the relative strength of biological (i.e. genetic) versus social influences on the individual? This issue, often referred to as the nature-nurture problem, is raised most strikingly by people who risk their lives attempting to rescue others in extremely hazardous situations. Is it some innate, biological aspect of their nature that makes them act so selflessly ("nature"), or is their behavior a results of their home environment and professional training ("nurture")? Social scientists tend to lean toward explanations based on nurture, but as we will see in the next few posts, biology plays a significant role in behavior and in forming an individual's personality. Neither biological nor sociological factors alone explain the complex behaviors involved in successful socialization (G. R. Steen, 1996. DNA and Destiny: Nature and Nurture in Human Behavior; N. Wade, 2001, November 5. Study Finds Genetic Link Between Intelligence and size of Some Regions of the Brain. New York Times, p. A15).  

• The social construction of the self. A second controversy in the study of socialization is the question of how a person's sense of self becomes established. We all learn to play many different roles, but how do the influences of others in our social world affect our role playing, and how did these experiences help form our sense of ourselves? How do people learn to conform to society's norms and to take the roles that society makes available to them?
• Influences on socialization. How do different social environments, such as the affluent suburban school or the slum neighborhood or the military boot camp, influence socialization? In other words, how do different social environments produce different kinds of people? What are the influences throughout life of different agencies of socialization and different experiences with other people?
• Gender socialization and sexual identity. Gender socialization refers to the ways in which we become the girls and boys and, gradually, the men and women of our society and culture. All the controversies over whether behavior is innate or learned are intensified when we consider the differences and similarities in the socialization of males and females. This is especially true in reference to the ways in which we are socialized to acquire a sexual identity.

In the next few posts we explore each of these questions in detail. We will be concerned primarily with the socialization of "normal" members of society---people who are able to perform roles, to feel empathy for others, to express emotions and yet control feelings that are anti-social, to nurture others and raise children who will also be able to nurture, and to take on new roles as they grow older. But the failures of socialization can also tell us a great deal about what is involved in creating the social being.

For instance, consider the case of Charles Manson, who was convicted for his part in the 1969 Tate-La Bianca murders. Not long before the murders, Manson had been released after serving a 10-year prison term. In fact, Manson, who was born in a state penitentiary, spent 17 of his first 35 years in more than a dozen penal institutions. His history is one of complete neglect. He was beaten with a heavy paddle, so he beat others. He was sodomized, so he sodomized others at knifepoint. In fact, he was so undersocialized for life outside the prison that when he was due to be released he pleaded to be allowed to stay there (https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/charles-manson-raped-male-classmate-18968710). 

The issue in cases like Manson's is not whether we should excuse what such individuals have done but whether we can learn from their tragedies so that we can prevent others. And scientists, biological and social, still have a good deal to learn. Socialization is an extremely complex process some people who were abused and neglected can nevertheless become good parents, despite the odds (Corosaro 1997; D. H. Wrong, 1961. The Oversocialized Conception of Man in Modern Sociology. American Sociological Review, 24, 772-782). Others who seem to have experienced all the right influences can end up doing evil things, again despite the odds. Even if we could trace all the social influences on a person's development, there would remain many unanswered questions about the combined influences of the person's genetic potential and his or her social experiences---that is, the relative importance of nature and nurture.

*MAIN SOURCE: SOCIOLOGY IN A CHANGING WORLD, 6TH ED., 2003, WILLIAM KORNBLUM, PGS. 118-119*  

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