UNDERSTANDING THE SOCIALIZATION PROCESS

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Introduction to Sociology SOC101

Lesson 13

UNDERSTANDING THE SOCIALIZATION PROCESS

Socialization is a complex, lifelong process. In this lecture we shall focus on the works of three pioneer

researchers, namely Sigmund Freud (1856 -1939), George Herbert Mead

(1863 -1931), and Charles Horton Cooley (1864 -1929)

Freud's Model of Personality

Freud believed that biology plays a major part in human development, though not in

terms of human instincts. He theorized that humans have two basic needs that are there

at birth. First is the need for bonding, which Freud called the "life instinct". Second, we

have an aggressive drive he called the "death instinct". These opposing forces operate at

unconscious level and generate deep inner tension.

Freud joined basic needs with the influence of society to form a model of personality

with three parts: id, ego and superego.

The id (the Latin word for it) represents the human being's basic drives, which are unconscious and demand

immediate satisfaction. Rooted in biology id is present at birth, making a new born a bundle of demands

for attention, touching, and food. But society opposes the self-centered id, which is why one of the first

words a child learns is "no."

THE ID ("It"): functions in the irrational and emotional part of the mind. At birth a baby's mind is all Id -

want. The Id is the primitive mind. It contains all the basic needs and feelings. It is the source for libido

(psychic energy). And it has only one rule --> the "pleasure principle": "I want it and I want it all now". In

transactional analysis, Id equates to "Child".

Id too strong = bound up in self-gratification and uncaring to others

To avoid frustration, a child must learn to approach the world realistically. This is done through ego (Latin

word for I), which is a person's conscious effort to balance innate pleasure-seeking drives with the demands of society. Ego

is the balancing force between the id and the demands of society that suppress it. The ego develops as we

become aware of ourselves and at the same time realize that we cannot have everything we want.

Ego too strong = extremely rational and efficient, but cold, boring and distant

Finally, the human personality develops the superego (Latin meaning "above" or "beyond" the ego), which

are the cultural values and norms internalized by an individual. The superego represents culture within us i.e. the

norms and values that we have internalized from our social groups. The superego operates as our

conscience, telling us why we cannot have everything we want. As a moral component of the personality,

the superego gives us the feelings of guilt or shame when we break social rules or pride and self- satisfaction

when we follow them. The superego begins to form as a child comes to understand that everyone's

behavior must take the cultural norms into account.

Superego too strong = feels guilty all the time, may even have an insufferably saintly personality

To the id-centered child, the world is full of physical sanctions that being either pleasure or pain. As the

superego develops, however, the child learns the moral concepts of right and wrong. Initially, in other

words, the children can feel good or bad according to how they judge their behavior against cultural norms

(doing "the right thing").

The id and superego remain in conflict, but in a well-adjusted person, the ego manages these two opposing

forces. Culture, in the form of superego, serves to repress selfish demands, forcing people to look beyond

themselves.

When conflicts are not resolved during childhood, they may surface as personality disorders later on.

Freud emphasized the role of socialization in the personality i.e. that the social group into which we are

born transmits norms and values that restrain our biological drives.

George Herbert Mead: The Social Self

G. H. Mead (1863-1931) developed a theory of social behaviorism to explain how social experience creates

individual personality. There is the power of environment to shape behavior. Mead's central concept is self

that part of an individual's personality composed of self- awareness and self-image. For Mead:

Introduction to Sociology SOC101

1. The self develops only with social experience. The self is not part of the body, and it does not exist at birth.

Self develops only as the individual interacts with others. In the absence of interaction (as is

evident from the cases of isolated children like Anna, Isabelle, Genie) the body grows, but no self

emerges.

2. Social experience is the exchange of symbols. Only people use words, or the wave of the hand, or a smile

to create meaning. These symbols are parts of the language, which plays a vital part in the

development of self. Self is a product of socialization experiences and that it develops along with

our ability to think symbolically.

3. Understanding intention requires imagining the situation from the other's point of view. Using symbols we

imagine ourselves "in another person's shoes" and see ourselves as the person does. We can

therefore anticipate how others will respond to us even before we act. A simple toss of a ball

requires stepping out of ourselves to imagine how others will catch our throw. You may call it as to

think symbolically.

Thinking consists of the conversations we carry on in our minds with ourselves

about all sorts of things, especially about ourselves. As a child, you eventually

developed cognitively to the point at which you were able to use one symbol (a

doll, for example) to represent a parent and another symbol (another doll, for

example) that represent you. Only then you could engage in role taking 

imagining being someone else and looking from that person's perspective back at

yourself as a social object. That is the imitation of the role of others. Out of the

early social interactions we develop our ability to communicate, our ability to

think, and our social self emerge.

4. By taking the role of the other, we become self-aware. The self then has two parts.

As subject, the self is active and spontaneous. Mead called the active side of the

self as "I" (the spontaneous form of the personal pronoun). "I" is the self as

subject the active, spontaneous, creative part of self. But the self is also an

object, as we imagine ourselves as others see us. Mead called the objective side of

the self the "me" (the objective form of personal pronoun). All social experience

have both components.

The emergence of self consists of three stages:

1. The Play Stage. During the play stage, a child begins to develop a sense of him/herself as a social object

by taking the role of significant others in relation to him/herself. A girl child plays at being her mother or

father, which requires investing herself imaginatively into a doll, for example. She then makes the doll

behave as she behaves and evaluates and reacts to this behavior of the doll. She mimics the way in which

her father or mother reacts to her own behavior. In this way, she begins to make sense of why the parents

react to her as they do. At this stage, the child's self consists exclusively of the ideas she has about herself

based on her perceptions of how significant others, one at a time, view that self. (Significant others are

the persons who are very important for the individual)

2. The Game Stage. In the play stage, the child took the role of one significant other at a time. In order to

play games, however, the child must be able to take the roles of other players in the game simultaneously.

In a game (cricket, for example) each player must know what all the other players expect of him in any

situation that might come up. Being able to evaluate oneself from the perspective of several significant

others simultaneously results in more sophisticated self-concept.

3. The Stage of the Generalized Other. The generalized other represents the imagined perspective of the

community or society at large. At this stage of development, the child is capable of evaluating himself from

the perspective of community, sub-cultural, or cultural norms and expectations. The child tries to shape his

Introduction to Sociology SOC101

behavior in accordance with the expectations of the others and tries to become what others what him to

become.

Charles H. Cooley: The looking Glass Self

Others represent a mirror (which people used to call a "looking glass") in which we can see ourselves.

What we think of ourselves, then, depends on what we think others think of us. For example, if we think

others see us as clever, we will think ourselves in the same way. But if we feel they think of us as clumsy,

then that is how we will see ourselves. Cooley used the phrase looking glass self to mean a self-image based

on how we think others see us.

Our sense of self develops from interaction with others. The term looking glass self was coined by Cooley to

describe the process by which a sense of self develops. The looking glass self contains three elements:

1. We imagine how we appear to those around us. For example, we may think that others see us witty or

dull.

2. We interpret others' reactions. We come to conclusions about how others evaluate us. Do they like us

being witty? Do they dislike us for being dull?

3. We develop a self-concept. Based on our interpretations of the reactions of others, we develop feelings

and ideas about ourselves. A favorable reflection in this "social mirror" leads to a positive self-

concept, a negative reflection to a negative self-concept.

Note that the development of the self does not depend on accurate evaluations. Even if we grossly

misinterpret how others think about us, those misjudgments become part of our self-concept. Note also

that self-concept begins in childhood; its development is an ongoing, lifelong process. The three steps of the looking

glass self are a part of our everyday lives, and as we monitor how other people react to us, we continuously

modify the self. The self, then is never a finished product, but is always in process, even into old age.

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