Sociology Chapter 4 - Notes
Generalized other
The perspectives and expectations of a network of others that a child learns and then takes into account when shaping his or her own behavior
Particular or Significant other (Mead)
The perspectives and expectations of a particular role that a child learns and internalizes
Play Stage (Mead)
The second stage in meads theory of the development of self wherein children pretend to play the role of the particular and significant other
ID
Which is composed of biological drives is the spur of instinctive psychic energy. It's main goal is to achieve pleasure and to avoid pin in all situations which makes the ID a selfish and unrealistic part of the mind
social isolation
a complete/ near complete lack of contact with people and society for members of social spears; not the same thing as loneliness, which is temporary - solitude increases perceptions - applied perception on self causes identity lose - since you are not around others you are no need to be defined and you become irrelevant <~ Christopher Knight did this study
saturated self
a post modern idea that the self is now developed by multiple influences chosen from a wide range of media sources
role-taking emotions
emotions such as sympathy, embarrassment, or shame that require that we assume the perspective of another person or group and respond accordingly
expressions given
expressions that are intentional and usually verbal, such as utterances
front
in the dramaturgical perspective, the setting or scene of performances that helps establish the definition of the situation
Feeling Rules (Hochschild)
norms regarding the expression and display of emotions; expectations about the acceptable or desirable feelings in a given situation
role strain
tension among the roles connected to a single status
preparatory stage
the first stage in Mead's theory of the development of self wherein children mimic or imitate others
social construction
the process by which a concept or practice is created and maintained by participants who collectively agree that it exists
hidden curriculum
values or behaviors that students learn indirectly over the course of their schooling
supergo
Composed of two components: the conscience and the ego-ideal. The conscience serves to keep us from engaging in socially undesirable behavior and the ego ideal upholds our vision of who we believe we should ideally be - it develops as a result of parental guidance, particularly in the form of the rewards and punishments we receive as children - it inhibits the urges of the id and encourages the ego to find morally acceptable forms of behavior - it suppresses the urge to kill your competition and keeps you working toward getting that raise in socially acceptable ways - overall all of these systems work together to keep the individual in a more or less healthy state of balance
Dramaturgy
an approach pioneered by Erving Goffman in which social life is analyzed in terms of its similarities to theatrical performance
feral children
Individuals who were not raised with human contact or care - babies have innate capacities but can fully develop as human beings only through contact with others - stories like the jungle book present images of primitive humans who have survived outside the society and who are both heathen and uncivilized yet pure and uncorrupt, who lack in social graces but possess the keenest of instincts - without human contact the children who were used in these cruel experiments did not reveal any divine truths to the experiments -- they simply perished - These give social scientists the chance to study the effects of social isolation and to better understand the relationship between human development and socialization - It is only through contact with others that people develop the qualities we consider natural and normal in a human being
The mind consists of three interrelated systems
The ID, the ego , and the superego
Dual nature of the self
The idea that we experience the self as both subject and object the "I" and the "me"
Ego
The part that deals with the real world , it operates on the basis of reason and helps to meditate and integrate the demands of both the id and the superego —- it says " ok this time the other guy won but if I keep trying I am bound to get that raise eventually
status
a position in a social hierarchy that carries a particular set of expectations - master statuses carry with them expectations that may blind people to other facets of our personalities - erving goffman and Ralph turner deliberately use the theatrical analogy to describe how roles provide a kind of script, outlining that we are expected to say and do as a result of our position of the social structure
role
a set of expectations (norms) about a social position, defining how those in the position ought to behave - if a person can play a number of different roles well, it can enhance her sense of self but it is not always easy to juggle the varying demands and expectations associated with multiple roles - status and roles help shape our identities by providing guidelines ( sometimes formal sometimes informal) for our own behavior aand by providing the patterns that others use to interact with us. They are part of the construction of our social selves.
achieved status
a status earned through individual effort or imposed by others
embodied status
a status generated by physical characteristics
master status
a status that is always relevant and affects all other statuses we possess
ascribed status
a status that is inborn; usually difficult or impossible to change
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 those of others and realize goals
cooling the mark out
behaviors that help others to save face or avoid embarrassment, often referred to as civility or tact
Thomas Theorem
classic formulation of the way individuals determine reality, whereby "if people define situations as real, they are real in their consequences"
psychosexual stages of development
four distinct stages of the development of the self between birth and adulthood, according to Freud; personality quirks are a result of being fixated, or stuck, at any stage - -Freud proposed that psychological development in childhood takes place during five psychosexual stages: oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital. These are called psychosexual stages because each stage represents the fixation of libido (roughly translated as sexual drives or instincts) on a different area of the body. - Freud believed that the conscious level of awareness is just the tip of the iceberg and that just below the surface is a far greater area of mind the subconscious and the unconscious. He proposed that this unconscious energy source of conscious thoughts and behavior - Again Freud focused on the subconscious drives or instincts of the individual he referred to as two main impulses; eros - the libido or life instinct and Thanatos which is aggression or the death instinct - The raw and primitive drives of the individual must be managed somehow. When instincts are repressed or turned inward, they become the conscience and a source of guilt and neuroses - Other sociologists have extended freuds work and focused especially on gender identity -- seeing oneself as feminine or masculine
total institution
institutions in which individuals are cut off from the rest of society so that they can be controlled and regulated for the purpose of systematically stripping away previous roles and identities in order to create new ones
human nature
is just phrase often used to explain everything from violence and jealousy to love and altruism
stereotype
judging others based on preconceived generalizations about groups or categories of people
interacting online
marc smith, peter kollock, steve jobs, philip howard , and barry wellman all looked at how we began interacting with each other in virtual space and via electronic media -- and how we interacted with the machine themselves - when we interact online we can control when, where, and how we communicate - teens invite those who are of their group into the virtual world while adults use social media to expand their social circles aand spread word about there accomplishments
expressions given off
observable expressions that can be either intended or unintended and are usually nonverbal
Nature vs. Nurture
others in the natural sciences argue that behavioral traits can be explained by genetics and those taking the nurture side sociologist and others in the social sciences argue that human behavior is learned in shape through social interaction - Both are right for example research shows that high levels of testosterone contribute to stereotypical masculine traits such as aggressiveness and competitiveness - Nature provides a biological window through which social and moral development occurs - The point is that there is a complex relationship between nature and nurture neither one alone insufficient to explain what makes us human certainly hereditary gives us a basic potential help you but it is primarily is a social environment that determines whether we realize or fall short of that potential - We are subject to social influences from the moment we are born and even before and these influences only increased over the years - In part, because the influence of social contact happens so gradually into some extent unconsciously we don't really know that's what or how we are learning
mind, self, and society (Mead)
self develops in stages, process begins in childhood - George Herbert Mead extended Cooleys ideas about the development of the self and laid the essential groundwork that became the theory of symbolic interactionism - he believed that self is created through social interaction - he believed that the start of this begins in childhood -- that children begin to develop a language and the 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 - the two components are inseparable and are united to form a single self in each of us. It is this process of recognizing the dual nature of self and taking the role of the particular other and seeing the perspective of the generalized other that Mead suggests leads to the development stage
expressions of behavior
small actions such as an eye roll or head nod that serve as an interactional tool to help project our definition of the situation to others
agents of socialization
social groups, institutions, and individuals (especially the family, schools, peers, and the mass media) that provide structured situations in which socialization takes place - family is the original group to which we belong. it is where early emotional and social bonds are created, where language is learned, and where we first begin to internalize the norms and values of our society - family teaches us to become mature, responsible members of society, takes place within the family it is not surprising then that the family has the longest-lasting influence on the individual - the family has such a powerful impact on us partly because as young children we have limited outside contact until we start day care and therefore we have few influences --- the family is our world - one of the most important things that we learn in families is gender roles -- with what roles moms and dads hold - SCHOOLS ; plays a critical role in maintaining a democracy ( through blacks and women still lacked the right to vote) and in shaping generations of citizens. They now provide physical education, meals, discipline and child care. - attending school may be a child's first significant experience away from home. School helps them become less dependent on family, which provides them a bridge to other social groups. They learn that they will judged on their behavior and academic performance - peers ; are groups of people . who are about the same age and have similar social characteristics - they often become more imp than parents as agents of socialization - as the influence of peers increases influence of parents decreases - peers have the most intense and immediate effect on each other - The media; this role is one of the most significant sources of socialization - watching tv actually helps kids learn to distinguish between reality and fantasy -- in addition their ability to entertain, the media also have great potential to inform and educate
agency
the ability of the individual to act freely and independently
region
the context in which the performance takes place, including location, decor, and props
impression management
the effort to control the impressions we make on others so that they form a desired view of us and the situation; the use of self-presentation and performance tactics
Self
the individual's conscious, reflexive experience of a personal identity separate and distinct from other individuals - Our thoughts and feeling emanate both from and toward ourselves; this is in effect how we come to "know" ourselves - They believe that the self is created and modified through social interaction over the course of a lifetime. But while sociologists agree that the self is largely a social product there are still a number of theories about how the self develops as we will see
Looking Glass Self (Cooley)
the notion that the self develops through our perception of others' views and evaluations of us - Charles Cooley founded this term and he was an early member of the Chicago School of sociology and he devised this theory as being simple but elegant way to conceptualize how individuals gain a sense of self - He believed that we all act like mirrors to each other reflecting back to one another an image of ourselves - We do this in three steeps 1.) we imagine how we look to others 2.) We imagine other people's judgement of us 3.) We experience some kind of feeling about ourselves based on our perception of other people's judgements - the imp point here is that we respond to the judgements that we believe that others make about us without really knowing for sure what they think. - The social looking glass --- is the way we see ourselves reflected back from others -- together with the feelings we develop as a result of what we imagine they see in us, from our concept of self
personal front
the performance tactics we use to present ourselves to others, including appearance, costume, and manner
Frontstage
the places in which we deliver our performances to an audience of others
backstage
the places in which we rehearse and prepare for our performances
adult socialization
the process by which adults learn new statuses and roles - life is continually presenting us with new situations and new roles with unfamiliar norms and values - we are constantly learning and adjusting to new conditions over the life course and thereby participating in secondary socialization - adult socialization requires the replacement of previously learned norms and values with different ones what is known as resocialization - few adults experience this however they continue to learn and synthesize norms and values throughout their lives as they move into different roles and social settings settings
role exit
the process of disengagement from a role that is central to one's self-identity in order to establish a new role and identity
emotion work (emotional labor)
the process of evoking, suppressing, or otherwise managing feelings to create a publicly observable display of emotion
Socialization
the process of learning and internalizing the values, beliefs, and norms of our social group, by which we become functioning members of society. - socialization thus works on both individual and social level we learn our societies way of life and make it our own socialization. - two main goals : 1st teaches members the skills necessary to satisfy basic human needs and to defend themselves against danger , thus ensuring that society itself will continue to exist. 2nd socialization teaches individuals the norms values and beliefs associated with their culture and provides ways to ensure that members adhere to their shared way of life
Resocialization
the process of replacing previously learned norms and values with new ones as a part of transition of life
role conflict
the tension caused by competing demands between two or more roles pertaining to different statuses
Game stage
the third stage wherein children play organized games and take on the perspective of the generalized other
Copresence
when individuals are in one another's physical presence