Chapter 4

Nancy Chodorow

a feminist and psychoanalytic sociologist, has written widely on human behavior and internal psychic structures and how patterns of gendered parenting and early childhood development can lead to the reproduction of traditional gender roles in society.

status

a position in a social hierarchy that carries a particular set of expectations

achieved status

a status earned through individual effort (occupation, hobby or skill) or imposed by others. (drug addiction, mental illness, criminal identity) for instance,

embodied status

a status generated by physical characteristics. for instance, beauty or disability.

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. for instance, gender or race.

ego

according to freud, it's 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.

id

according to freud, this is composed of biological drives and is the source of instinctive, psychic energy. Its main goal is to achieve pleasure and to avoid pain in all situations, which makes it a selfish and unrealistic

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.

dramaturgy

an approach pioneered by Erving Goffman in which social life is analyzed in terms of its similarities to theatrical performance.

peers

as children get older, this often become more important than parents as agents of socialization. as the influence their influence increases, the influence of parents decreases. It is them who have the most intense and immediate effect on each other.

cooling the mark out

behaviors that help others to save face or avoid embarrassment, often referred to as civility or tact.

Ervin Goffman

believed that all meaning, as well as our individual selves, is constructed through interaction. Many of his key ideas are expressed in The Presentation of Self in Everyday life (1956).

George Herbert Mead

believed that the self is created through social interaction. He believed that this process starts in childhood--that children begin to develop a sense of self at about the same time that they began to learn language. 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.

media

causing women to feel insecure about themselves, which leads to eating disorders.

informal status

class clown of the class

Thomas Theorem

classic formulation of the way individuals determine reality, whereby "if people define situations as real, they are real in their consequneces"

superego

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 behaviors.

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.

Sigmund Freud

emphasizes childhood and sexual development as indelible influences on an individual's identity, and in turn how society is upheld through the transformation of human instincts.

Rene Descartes

exclaimed "I think, therefore, I am," he was expressing this basic fact--that we possess a consciousness about ourselves.

role strain

experienced when there are contradictory expectations within one role.

role conflict

experienced when we occupy two or more roles with contradictory expectations.

expressions given

expressions that are intentional and usually verbal, such as utterances.

copresence

face-to-face interaction or being in the presence of others.

Bradley and Wildman

found that peer pressure was a predictor of adolescents participation in risky behaviors such as dangerous driving, unsafe sex, and drug and alcohol use.

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.

Daniel Murphy

he and his wife were expecting a baby whose due date coincided with the beginning of the baseball season. he ended up taking three days off for the birth of baby Noah and missed both the Mets' season opener and an away-game against in the Washington Nationals. as a result, he became the focus of an expected controversy as several high profile sporstcasters criticized him for missing work to be with his family.

Civilization and Its Discontents

in Freud's another work called this, he extended his thesis to show how the psychological makeup of the individual helps to create social order, or civilization, while at the same time being constrained by society's structures and demands, causing the person to become discontent. Again he focused on the subconscious drives or instincts of the individual. he referred to two main impulses: "Eros" the libido or life instinct, and "Thanatos" which is aggression or the death instinct. To live successfully in human community, we must find socially acceptable ways of channeling these instincts. We cannot simply act out on our sexual or aggressive impulses without harming ourselves and others and threatening the larger collective.

feral children

in myths and rare real-world cases, children who have had little human contact and may have lived in social isolation from a young age.

front

in the dramaturgical perspective, the setting or scene of performances that helps establish the definition of the situation.

total institutions

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. for instance, prison and mental hospitals.

family

is the single most significant agent of socialization in all societies, have the longest-lasting influence.

socialization

it includes the process by which a society, culture, or group teaches individuals to become functioning members, and the process by which individuals learn and internalize the values and norms of the group.

stereotyping

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

saturated self

kenneth gergen coined this term, a postmodern idea that the self is now developed by multiple influences chosen from a wife range of media sources.

school

may be their first significant experience away from home, helps them become less dependent on family, providing a bridge to other social groups, they will learn that they will be judged on their behavior and on academic performance, and they learn not only formal objects but also a hidden curriculum.

feeling rules

norms regarding the expression and display of emotions; expectations about the acceptable or desirable feelings in a given situation

expressions given off

observable expressions that can be either intended or unintended and are usually nonverbal.

formal status

professor

Charles Cooley

referred to his concept as the looking-glass self. He believed that we all act like mirrors to each other, reflecting back to one another an image of ourselves.

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, peers, and the mass media) that provide structured situations in which socialization takes place.

social interaction

sociologists believe that the self is created and modified through this over the course of a lifetime.

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.

preparatory stage

the first stage in mead's theory of the development of self wherein children mimic or imitate others.

the family, schools, peers, and media

the four most predominant agents of socialization.

dual nature of the self

the idea that we experience the self as both subject and object, the "I" and the "me".

self

the individual's conscious reflexive experience of a personal identity separate and distinct from others.

looking-glass self

the notion that the self develops through our perception of others' evaluations and appraisals of us.

nature vs. nurture debate

the ongoing discussion of the respective roles of genetics and socialization in determining individual behaviors and traits

personal front

the performance tactics we use to present ourselves to others, including appearance, costume, and manner.

generalized other

the perspective and expectations of a network of others (or of society in general) that a child learns and then takes into account when shaping his or her own behavior.

particular or significant other

the perspective and expectations of a particular role that a child learns and internalize.

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 performance.

social construction

the process by which a concept or practice is created and maintained by participants who collectively agree that it exists.

emotion work

the process of evoking, suppressing, or otherwise managing feelings to create a publicly observable display of emotion

role exit

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

resocialization

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

play stage

the second stage in mead's theory of the development of self wherein children pretend to play the role of the particular or significant other.

role

the set of behaviors expected of someone because of his or her status

game stage

the third stage in Mead's theory of the development of self wherein children play organized games and take on the perspective of the generalized other.

genie

this child was discovered by child welfare servives in 1970, at the same she was thirteen years old and had been living with her family in Arcadia, California, where she had been severely neglected and abused. The authorities were shocked to find that the young girl had not developed like a normal child. since infancy, her father had kept her locked in a small room, where she was often tied to a potty chair or crib, and she was deprived of practically all human interaction. she had not been exposed to language much and therefore had not learned to speak. because her movements had been restricted, and she was also malnourised, she lacked in physical development. she was afraid of strangers and devoid of any social skills. she exhibited some animal-like qualities; she clawed and sniffed and spat frequently.

we imagine how we look to others, we imagine other people's judgement of us, and we experience some kind of feeling about ourselves based on our perception of other people's judgments.

three steps in looking-glass self.

hidden curriculum

values or behaviors that students learn indirectly over the course of their schooling.