Sociology Chapter 4
Psychosexual stages of development (Freud)
-4 stages of developing the self throughout life -Personality kinks can either be fixated or stuck at any stage -1st three stages through 1-5 years old: sets stage for the rest of lifespan -Last stage is at 12 years old: many don't make it here and can fixated and earlier stages
Turpin family
-Another case of child social isolation -Locked in rooms, shackled to beds and tortured -Children physically stunted and and lacked cognitive skills and basic funcions -Confirmed effects of social isolation are tragic
What are the different kinds of statuses?
-Ascribed status -Embodied status -Achieved status -Master status
Timeline of socialization
-Begins in infancy and is lifelong -Shapes us through our stages of development
What is a role?
-Behaviors expected from a particular status -Professors are EXPECTED to be teachers
Cooling the mark out (Goffman)
-Behaviors that help others save face and avoid embarrassment
What is ascribed status?
-Born with and cannot change (race)
Psychoanlytic theory of the Self (Sigmund Freud)
-Childhood and sexual development influence identity and how society is upheld through transformation of human instincts
Feral children
-Children who are subject to social isolation from a very young age -Allow social scientists to study effects of social isolation and understand relationship between development and socialization -Genie case study deprived of social interaction no language exposure malnourished devoid of social skills animal like qualities scientific team took her in and tried to help her out and she began to make substantial process but then funding was withdrawn and she was placed in foster homes
What is role strain?
-Contradictory demands of the same role a person has
What makes us human?
-Culture and society
What is an embodied status?
-Describes our physical appearance (beautiful, tall)
Freuds biggest contribution to understand the self
-Discovery of the unconscious mind -Unconscious energy is the source of conscious behavior
Erving Goffman
-Dramaturgy -Looked at how we define situations through interaction -Expressions of behavior: how we project our own definitions of a situation to others Expressions given: verbal Expressions given off: nonverbal but observable -Not just what you say but how you say it gives meaning
What is emotion's work?
-Evoking, suppressing or managing feelings to create emotions that are considering publicly acceptable
What is 'copresence'?
-Face-to-face interaction or being in the presence of others -Sociological perspectives focus on interactions that happen in this
"Civilization and Its Discontents"
-Freud -Psychological makeup creates social order but still being restrained by societal structure and demand and person becomes unhappy -Two impules Eros: libido of life Thanatos: aggression/death instinct -To be successful in society, we must successfully channel these impulses -Impules repressed: guilt -Impules expressed: positively transformed -Civilization demands we give up some satisfaction of acting on instinct to gain lesser happiness but better security
Is physical coapresence leaving us?
-Gradually. Technology is really making a mark on us as a society -Think of COVID, everyone was interacting through Zoom and stuff, nothing face to face.
What is the outcome of someone's sense of self if they can fulfill multiple roles?
-Heightened sense of self
School as an agent of socilization
-Help children be less dependent on family, bridge to social groups, and learn they will be judged on behavior and academia -Learn "hidden curriculum": punctuality, neatness hard work
Three systems of the mind according to Freud
-Id: biological drives, instincts, achieve pleasure and avoid pain, selfish -Ego: deals with the real world, acts on reason and mediates the superego and id -Superego: conscience and ego-ideal. Conscience- makes us abstain from socially unacceptable behavior Ego-ideal- holds belief of who we should be -Develops from parents (rewards/punishment) Inhibits id and encourages acceptable behavior of the ego
Peers as social agents
-Influence of peer increases, parent influence decreases. Most intense and immediate effect of a person -Peer groups allow independence of adult control -Peer subcultures a formed from common interests -Can be a source of pain and self-doubt: need to "fit-in" -Peer pressure can be good and bad
Charles Cooley
-Looking glass self -We all act like mirrors of each other, reflecting back to each other an image of ourselves 3 ways -Imagine how we look to others -Imagine other's judgement of us -We create a feeling about ourselves based on our perceptions of other peoples judgement -Concept of self formed by our reflection of ourselves we see from others and feelings we get when we imagine what they see in us -Sense of self has to have society
What constitutes as altering life forces?
-Marriage -Divorce -Hired/fired from job
Media as a social agent
-Media has now started to teach roles/values/norms which may lead to less responsibility of the family agent -Criticized for promoting bad behaviors because of how many young people use social media -Can create "contagion" effects: media portrayals resulting in copycat acts (13 reasons why--so many people wanted to unalive) -We internalize what we see in the media
Family as an agent of socialization
-Most significant agent -Primary socialization takes place (learn about gender roles-convert observations into reality) -Different among families because every family is different in regards to values, norms, beliefs, social class -Can be fluid over time (children not raised the same way as older kids of the same family) -So powerful because as kids we have limited outside contact to influence our beliefs -Location of the family also influences (neighborhood, community)
How does nature and nurture co-interact?
-Nature provides a biological window where social and moral development can occur
What are feeling rules?
-Norms made by social constructs that lay out appropriate feelings and emotions for a given situation
Nature v. Nurture
-Ongoing discussion of the roles of genetics and and socialization in determine behaviors/traits
What is the self?
-Our experience of a distinct personal identity separate from everyone elses -We have an ability to think of ourselves as more than one being and see ourselves from observation -Believed the "self" is created and changed through social interaction that is lifelong
What is role exit?
-Person abandons a role they once had
What are total institutions?
-Places that cut people off from society in order to be controlled in order to get rid of a person previous roles and behaviors and replace them with new ones -Resocialization occurs here -Prisoners, mental patients, army recruits
What is the saturate self?
-Postmodern idea -The self is now formed from multiple influences from the media
What is resocialization?
-Process of replacing previous norms and values because of transitional phases in life -Adult socialization usually requires this
How do we develop characteristics that are natural and normal?
-Social interaction
Dramaturgy (Goffman)
-Social life is analyzed by similarities to a theatrical performance -Front: setting that creates meaning (classroom for teaching) -Region (specific social setting): gives more elements that create boundaries for interaction (location, scenery)
What is a status?
-Social position in a social hierarchy that comes with a set of expectations for behavior and what not -Some can be formal: professor (has a set of roles that they must abide by because of their *status* as a professor) -Informal: "class clown"; less explicit than formal but widely acknowledged -Numerous statuses can be occupied by one individual: A professor can be a mother, a klutz, etc. -Some statuses can change over a lifetime (marital status)
Agents of Socialization
-Socializing forces that significantly impact our life -Provide structured situations for socializing -Family -School -Peers -Media
Nature side backing
-Sociobiologists -Some psychologists -Genetics responsible for behavior
Edward O. Wilson contribution to sociology
-Sociobiology -Uses biological and evolutionary explanations for social behavior
Nurture side backing
-Sociologists -Psychologists -Behavior is learned and shaped through social interaction
What is a master status?
-Status by which a person is most identified with -This could be embodied, ascribed or achieved -Can be used by others to make prejudgments about you (stereotyping)
What is an achieved status?
-Status that we earn through hard work, whether that be occupational or school OR that has been acquired in some way (criminal status)
What are role-taking emotions?
-Sympathy, embarrassment, and shame that make us take on the perspective of another person and respond accordingly
What is the goal of socialization?
-Teaches skills for its members to satisfy basic human needs (ensure society will survive) -Teaches individual norms, values and beliefs of culture to keep members adhered to this way of life
George Herbet Mead (1863-1931)
-Theory of Symbolic Interactionism -Self emerges through social interaction -Began in childhood (language development-growth in mental capacities -Preperatory stage: children mimic others -Play stage: children take the role of a significant other (firefighter). internalize expectations of these others and gain new perspectives -Game stage: play organized games and take on perspective of generalized other, children begin to understand standards of a social group -Dual Nature of the Self: We experience the self as a subject and object; "I" and "me"
What ideas do Postmodernist's assert about the role of technology in interaction?
-They claim that interacting through technology is the primary way of interacting in the postmodern world that we live in. -We are in what is called the "Information Age" which should lead sociologists to find new definitions of how we define self development whilst including technology
W.I Thomas
-Thomas Theorem -We encounter ambiguous situations and many meanings are possible. The way we define each situation becomes a reality -Definition of a perceived situation creates a different approach to it, which makes consequences real
What did Goffman mean by impression management?
-Trying to control our impressions on others so they form a positive view of us and the situation by using self-presentation/performance tactics
What is role conflict?
-Two or more roles one person has in a situation are contradictory with their expectations of the person
What is socialization?
-Twofold process -Society, individuals and groups influence members to be functioning members of society -Process where people learn and internalize values/norms of the group -Learn a societys way of life and make it our own
How does interacting online allow us to reduce risks for ourselves?
-We have control over the entire situation and context. We can choose when, where, and how to engage with someone online. Basically keeping others at arms length. We then can perform a facade of who we want to be perceived instead of who we actually are.
Back regions and Front regions (back stage/front stage--Dramaturgy)
-Where we prepare/rehearse for "performances" and where we play a particular role and perform for "audience" -Behave differently in both -We present different selves in different situations and how people react to those selves molds our definition of the self and situation at hand (self is a social construct
Do roles shape the way we define ourselves and others?
-Yes
Does status influence how people perceive us?
-Yes
Are emotions are sociological phenomena?
-Yes, just think about feeling rules -Individual reactions are influenced by society and culture
Can emotions be influenced by insitutions?
-Yuh
Personal front (dramaturgy)
-aspects of identity that follow the performer wherever they go -we use these to determine judgments about people (idea of what a professor should look like)
