Social Psychology Chapter 2

Family

Family Most of a young child's contact occurs with family members, and therefore, the primary agent of socialization is the family. The family often provides children with attachment, or close relationships that produce security and stimulation, which are needed for the development of interpersonal skills. There are diverse family types and parenting styles. Consequently, many researchers study the diversity of families and the subsequent effects on the development and well-being of children. Findings consistently show that an authoritative parenting style, one of both warmth and control, has a greater influence on cognitive and social development of children than other variables, such as working mothers, single parents, or gay and lesbian parents. It is more difficult to study the effects of divorce on children. Many other variables related to divorce have an influence. Again, some studies on children of divorced parents suggest that the lack of an authoritative parenting style can be related to poor development. Attachment: close relationships that produce security and stimulation...

Outcomes of socialization

Gender roles, Linguistic and cognitive competence, moral development, and work orientations

Work Orientations

In contemporary American culture, children learn at an early age that adults must work in order to earn money. They learn that such money is used to pay for food, bills, and other expenses. Children are socialized into this work culture. Earlier we discussed some latent functions of the education system; another latent function of schools is to prepare children for work. In a week's time, many children will spend at least 35 hours in school. In that time, they learn to write reports, navigate bureaucracies, and develop interpersonal communication skills, all of which are essential in our work culture.

Generalized other

In relation to children's development of self, they help to create a child's understanding of the generalized other, or the norms and values that are perceived to be widely shared by the social group to which one belongs.

Significant Others

Of course, some peoples' perceptions have more weight in determining a sense of self than others'. Significant others are those people with the greatest influence on our self-concept.

Self-differentiation

Of course, there are many factors crucial for developing a sense of self, but a notable few follow. The first is self-differentiation, which is the ability to differentiate oneself from others

Role Acquisition

All through our lives, we acquire and lose roles. After graduating, people are no longer students. Once people have children, they become parents. With these changes, people must learn the expectations associated with their new statuses, and this process is called role acquisition. Sometimes, role acquisition is quite formal. When a company hires a new employee and a college accepts a new student, there is usually some form of orientation. At times role acquisition is less formal. For example, when a person's spouse dies, there are no clear rules that delineate how one ought to behave in his or her new role as a widow. A person may have difficulty adjusting to her or his new situation when their roles change. One problem is anomie, a notable lack of norms or expected behaviors that may result from not having a clear role or being thrust into a new social role that has unclear expectations. In his classic study Suicide: A Study in Sociology (1979), Emile Durkheim details the necessity of having a properly defined role that, while not being overly restrictive, acts to limit the desirable courses of action and aspirations available to individuals. Without such a role, individuals are more apt to flounder, like a ship without a rudder. Kai Erikson (1976) studied the anomic state that followed the devastating Buffalo Creek flood in 1970s West Virginia. That flood completely destroyed not just the community, but also the roles possessed by individuals within the community. It is an excellent example of the detrimental effects for communities and individuals that are associated with a lack of social roles. Possessing and understanding social roles is critical for the social health of both individuals and the community they construct. Myers (2012) presents a good discussion of the problems associated with excessive choices on p. 52. WORDS: anomie

Anticipatory Socialization

Although role acquisition focuses on obtaining the knowledge associated with a new role, this type of socialization is the development of knowledge, skills, and values related to a role that a person does not yet occupy. A young girl who cheers along with the cheerleaders at a football game is learning the roles associated with being a cheerleader, while not yet being one. Anticipatory socialization helps to ease the transition into new roles. However, sometimes, as with the death of a spouse mentioned above, role expectations are not clearly defined, and it is difficult to anticipate those roles.

Linguistic and Cognitive Competence

Another outcome of socialization is the ability to interact. Children learn to communicate by using language. Babies begin learning language by imitating the sounds made by their caretakers. Children also learn to understand their social environment by categorizing it. For example, a young boy, whose family dog is named Jaker, may call all dogs Jaker. It is only after he learns that Jaker is one example of the category "dog" that he can recognize that other dogs are not called Jaker. Similarly, as their communication skills develop, children acquire the ability to adopt different perspectives. For example, as a young girl learns kinship language, she begins to understand that her grandparents are her parents' parents and that her aunts and uncles are her parents' siblings.

Gender Roles

Boys and girls are treated differently from birth in most, if not all, cultures. New babies often come home to bedrooms that have been decorated in blue for boys and pink for girls. Male babies are handled more roughly than female babies. Cries from female babies are answered more quickly than cries from male babies. Clothes, names, and toys are also distinguished by gender. Through this gendered socialization, children learn behavioral expectations based on their gender, or gender roles. The games that children play are also gendered. Children learn the appropriate games for their gender, and these games serve to reproduce the gender structure. For example, girls traditionally play house and care for baby dolls, which teaches them the familial roles of taking care of the house and children. Boys play games that require aggression and competition, which teaches them masculine models for business, as men's traditional familial role is that of the economic provider. Obviously, there are people who deviate from their traditional gender roles, but these people are often met with harsh criticisms. Terms like "sissy" or "tomboy" are but two examples of the ways children are encouraged to fulfill these traditional gender roles. Differences in socialization may be due to a number of causes, including parents or family members with different gender expectations. However, the majority of people conform, at least partially, to their prescribed gender role. Often, families, schools, peers, religion, and the media reinforce gender roles.

Impact of Social Structure

Finally, a more sociological approach to socialization is this other perspective. It asserts that socialization occurs through relations in structures. Children learn to operate in structures that are all around them, such as familial, educational, and possibly religious structures. Within these structures, there are appropriate roles and norms that are specific to certain locations, or statuses, within the structure. For example, in school, children learn appropriate behavior that is based on their status as students. They not only learn the expectations associated with their own status, but they also learn the roles associated with other statuses, such as teacher or principal. This perspective also helps us understand how male and female children learn different behaviors as a function of their status as males or females.

Processes of Socialization

Instrumental conditioning, observational learning, internalization

Self-serving bias

One of the most consistent findings in social psychological research is the strong tendency to have a higher opinion of ourselves than others have of us. An excellent summary of self-serving bias can be seen on p. 43 of Myers (2012) in Figure 4-1. We also tend to claim credit for our successes, yet blame external factors when we fail. For example: Athletes claim credit for victories but attribute losses to poor calls by referees, cheating by the other team, or bad luck (Grove, Hanrahan, & McInman, 1991). Most of us believe we are above average and are more optimistic about our own fate than about the fate of others, as illustrated below: Husbands and wives each believe they do a larger proportion of the household work than their spouse credits them with (Bird, 1999). Students perceive themselves as more likely to obtain a good job, have a high salary, and own a home; they see themselves as less likely to be fired or have a heart attack before the age of 40 (Shepperd, 2003). Most older teens think they are less likely than their peers to become HIV-positive (Pryor & Reeder, 1993).

Identities

Related to selves are identities. Identities are the meanings attached by oneself and others to the self. Because we often encounter multiple situational settings or contexts (this involves moving between institutional settings or different groups within the same setting), one's self has more than one identity.

Adult Socialization

Role Acquisition, Anticipatory Socialization, and role discontinuity

Role Discontinuity

Role acquisition may be especially difficult if contradictions between new and old roles, or role discontinuity, exist. For instance, the high school senior who drinks alcohol underage and smokes marijuana will experience role discontinuity if he or she becomes a police officer after graduation. Likewise, the teacher who is promoted to principal will also experience role discontinuity. One way to help ease role discontinuity is through a rite of passage or public ceremony that affirms a person's new role. Rites of passage, such as weddings, religious confirmations, and bar mitzvahs, indicate to the individual and the public that the individual occupies a new role with new behavioral expectations. WORD: Rite of passage

Self-esteem and self-efficacy

Self-Esteem Self-esteem is how positively or negatively people views themselves. It is based on our evaluation of how well we fulfill or embody our self-concepts. For example, if you think of yourself as good at basketball, then part of your self-esteem will be based on how well you perceive yourself to fulfill that quality. Thus, if in a game of pick-up basketball you perceive that you have played well, your self-esteem will be boosted, but if you believe you have played poorly, your self-esteem will not be boosted. Further, if being a good basketball player is not part of your self-concept, then how well you played is unlikely to have much of an effect on your self-esteem. Self-esteem is influenced by family, by positive and negative performance feedback, and by social comparisons, in which people compare themselves to others. Self-esteem is also influenced by self-efficacy, or a sense of competence, which may be created after successful experiences with an activity over time. As Myers (2012) notes, a sense of self-efficacy can be critical in promoting continued effort towards the completion of tasks. However, if someone has an overly optimistic sense of self-efficacy, goals can become unmanageable and they can lose sight of what is realistically possible (p.55). When people experience a series of failures, their self-esteem often plummets, which may make them less confident and less willing to continue trying to better themselves.

Self-schema

Social psychologists use the term self-schema to describe the organized structure of attributes people ascribe to themselves. For example, I am smart, witty, a good cook, etc. It is who we understand ourselves to be.

The self

Socialization also influences how we think about ourselves. The self is the individual who is both the source and target of behavior. As Myers (2012) explains, our sense of self can be described as our self-concept, or the set of responses one would give to the prompt "I am ______." (p.23).

Role-taking

The ability to imaginatively view one's self from another's viewpoint. While we tend to overestimate others' awareness and knowledge of our self, because of the spotlight effect and the illusion of transparency, respectively (Myers 2012, 24), the ability to imagine how others' perceive us is a critical aspect of developing a sense of self, because we tend to see ourselves as others perceive us. In essence, because there is no actual, objective mirror from which to view our social self, we must rely on the subjective mirror provided by the social environment in which we live. Consequentially, our perceptions of our selves are shaped largely by what we believe others' perceptions of our selves to be.

Agents of Socialization

There are many different sources, or agents, of socialization. That is, children are not just socialized through one person or institution. We will discuss the three major agents, which include the family, peers, and school systems. However, there are countless other agents, including religion and the media. In this section, you will learn about the different agents of socialization and how they affect child development. Family, Peers, School

Development Perspective

This focuses on the unfolding of a child's natural abilities. Supporters of this perspective assert that a baby's interactions with other people follow a uniform pattern. For example, in general, children two years of age prefer to play alone more than children three years of age. Developmental theorists argue that by age three, children have further developed their ingrained social skills. The focus in this approach is on developmental readiness. An example of this perspective would be developmental charts for newborns, identifying the kinds of behavior (such as sitting up, rolling over, crawling, standing) that can be expected at various ages.

Peers

This group is also a very important agent of socialization. As children begin spending time with peers and away from family members, changes occur in their development. Interaction among peers is different than interaction within families because, in peer groups, people are generally treated as equals in status. There are no specific norms regarding deference or respect that guide conduct in peer groups. However, status hierarchies do develop in peer groups. Children from middle- or upper-class families tend to be more popular. Their parents can afford to enroll them in more extracurricular activities, such as sports, which help children accrue status. In American society, peer groups are often defined by age. For example, schools, youth sports programs, and Sunday school classes are usually segregated by age. Peer groups among younger children are more likely to be larger and more homogenous based on race and sex than peer groups among older youths. Borderwork, which is made up of interactions aimed at strengthening gender boundaries, is often found in younger peer groups, which are likely to be stratified by gender. There are three primary forms of borderwork. First, boys and girls engage in chasing games. Second, individuals or groups are often seen as contaminated with "cooties," and these distinctions often occur based on gender. Finally, invasions occur when children of one gender take over playground areas that are dominated by the other gender. Boarderwork: know word

Social comparison

This is the idea that only through comparing our selves to others, which is made possible by an ability to self-differentiate, we are able to gain a sense of our self. In other words, if we did not have others to utilize as benchmarks to compare ourselves against, we wouldn't have a sense of where we stand.

Situated self and role-identities

This is the identity that one adopts within a specific situation. For example, while a person may identify as a student both while in the classroom and later that night at a bar, the meanings they attach to that identity are likely vastly different due to the context. For example, while in the classroom on Thursday they may emphasize the more "studently" aspects of their student identity, indicating how much they have read and studied all week. Conversely, while at the bar later that night, they may emphasize the fact that while it's Thursday, since they don't have a class until 2:00 the next day, they can stay out as late as they please. As the context in which they are in changes, so too do the meanings they attach to a specific identity. Consequentially, their situated self is displayed by the fact that their self has changed as they have moved between settings. Identities with different behavioral expectations are called role-identities. Identities dependent upon one's social group are social identities. For example, social identities may include student or college graduate, unemployed or full-time employed, and poor or wealthy.

Instrumental Conditioning

This is the process through which children learn rules for appropriate behavior through positive and negative reinforcement. The presence of positive reinforcers and the withdrawal of negative reinforcers strengthens the associations with the given behavior. For example, children receive praise when they perform appropriate behavior, such as sharing, tying their shoes, or demonstrating knowledge (for example, by reciting the alphabet song). On the other hand, they receive disapproval when they fight, say bad words, and misbehave. Shaping is a form of instrumental conditioning in which behaviors that remotely resemble the desired behavior are rewarded. As time goes, rewards are given only for the desired behavior, and the behaviors that only remotely resemble the desired behavior are no longer rewarded. For example, when young schoolchildren are taught to line up, they may be rewarded when they first form a line. Eventually, the teacher may only reward them after they are lined up and quiet. The examples thus far have been of extrinsic motivation, in which children depend on someone else for their reward or punishment. Intrinsic motivation, the motivation derived from one's own personal goals, is also important for instrumental conditioning. For example, a child may get excited when he builds an impressive sand castle. That child may have intrinsic motivation to continue building. Self-reinforcement is the act of judging one's own behavior. WORDS: Shaping, extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation, and self-reinforcement

Socialization

This is the process through which individuals learn the skills, knowledge, values, motives, and roles associated with their statuses in their culture. Through socialization, individuals learn language, expectations, and how to conform.

Internalization

This occurs when people adopt external behavior standards as their own. These standards guide a person's behavior, even when there are no observers who can reward or punish the actor. An example of an internalized standard for behavior relates to murder. Most people do not commit murder. For most people, this is not because of a system of laws that prevents them from committing that act, but because they simply think it is wrong to kill another person. These people have internalized the standard for behavior that claims that murder is wrong. In fact, in Civilization and Its Discontents (2010), Sigmund Freud argues that people are naturally aggressive towards others and that in order for civilization to exist, aversion to aggression has had to be internalized by individuals. Consequentially, claims Freud, individuals are inherently discontent because of their inability to exorcise their lust for aggression. Furthermore, Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1995) is an excellent example of work dealing with internalized standards of conduct. It details the process through which state disciplinary devices (public torture, penitentiary system, etc.) have evolved and gained popularity in accordance with their ability to get individuals under the states' control to internalize attitudes and beliefs that are beneficial to the states' maintenance of power. Bentham's Panopticon prison design, in which prison cells are arranged in a circular fashion around a central guard tower that can see into all the cells, is often pointed to as the supreme expression of internalized control; theoretically, it would create a prison system in which guards wouldn't be necessary, because prisoners would internalize the authorities' standards of conduct due to the fear they were always under surveillance. Even though you may not be in the prison system anytime soon, you can still observe instances in which the state is promoting internalized control. For instance, next time you're driving down the interstate, note the utilization of highway information signs to promote adherence to the speed limit. While the signs state to watch your speed because enforcement is up—which implies that if you don't, you will get a ticket from an agent of the state who will directly enforce the law—what one must realize is that the sign is actually promoting internalized control. Like the Panopticon, to be effective, it does not matter if anyone is actually enforcing the speed limit; the fact that individuals believe someone could be is enough to get to them to internalize the state's wishes and slow down.

Interpretive Perspective

This perspective is based on symbolic interactionism, which we learned about in Lesson 1. Its primary tenet is that socialization occurs through social interaction. Children learn the beliefs and customs of their cultures through cultural routines, which are regularly repeated activities that are a part of everyday social life. An example of a cultural routine is childhood fantasy and pretending, in which children learn adult expectations for conduct. The interpretive perspective asserts that children do not simply learn culture, but they come to understand it through interpretive reproduction, a process in which they acquire and reproduce culture through interaction. Children are not just passive receptors of culture; rather, they enact and shape it even as they learn it.

Moral Development

Through socialization, children also learn modes of proper behavior. Norms are rules that guide behavior. An example of a norm is waiting in line until it is one's turn. People who cut in line violate this norm. Sometimes, norms are made into laws. In the United States, people are expected to drive on the right side of the road, and the law enforces this norm. Just as laws change depending on where one is (in England, people drive on the left side of the road), so do norms. In some cultures, maintaining eye contact represents deference and honesty, while in others, it may be viewed as insulting and disrespectful. There are different types of norms. William Graham Sumner (1906), an early sociologist, distinguishes between folkways and mores (pronounced "mor-ays"). A folkway is a type of norm that governs everyday conduct. There are no significant consequences for violating a folkway. If someone says, "thank you," the folkway would be to say, "You are welcome." However, if one does not say, "you are welcome," no punishment should be expected. On the other hand, mores are norms with strong moral imperatives and strict enforcement. Someone who engages in promiscuous sex, murder, or robbery is violating a more and will probably be punished. The process through which children learn about mores is called moral development. WORDS: Norms, folkway, mores and moral development

Social Learning Perspective

Unlike the developmental perspective, in which children are believed to develop their own innate skills, this other perspective asserts that children learn shared meanings and values from the group in which they are raised. While different groups teach their children different things, children learn these things in roughly the same ways. Children learn verbal and interpersonal skills that help them interact with others and perpetuate the meanings taught to them by their social group. Socialization is a very important aspect of the social learning perspective. This perspective moves beyond the developmental perspective by its claim that although developmental readiness is crucial for socialization, learning is also essential. In the social learning perspective, both nature and nurture are required for development to occur, meaning that an infant growing up in isolation or with minimal stimulation would learn less than one growing up in a supportive environment.

False consensus effect

We also may experience a false consensus effect in which we believe other people agree with us more than they actually do. For example: We may believe other people will vote the same as us (Koestner, 1993). We may believe others share our negative stereotypes about another racial group (Krueger, 1996). This self-serving bias can help our mental health, as we feel good about ourselves, but it can also cause distress. For example, if individuals think they are more deserving than their colleagues, they may feel underpaid and overworked, or they may feel they should have an above-average raise (Blackburn, Pellino, Boberg, O'Connell, 1980).