Page 100 - Essencials of Sociology

Socialization into the Self and Mind 73

To help his students understand
the term generalized other, Mead
used baseball as an illustration.
Why are team sports and organized
games excellent examples to use in
explaining this concept?

Stimulated by this intriguing possibility, Piaget set up a laboratory where he could generalized other the norms,
give children of different ages problems to solve (Piaget 1950, 1954; Flavel et al. values, attitudes, and expectations
2002). After years of testing, Piaget concluded that children go through a natural pro- of people “in general”; the child’s
cess as they develop their ability to reason. This process has four stages. (If you men- ability to take the role of the gener-
tally substitute “reasoning” or “reasoning skills” for the term operational as you review alized other is a significant step in
these stages, Piaget’s findings will be easier to understand.) the development of a self

1. The sensorimotor stage (from birth to about age 2). During
this stage, our understanding is limited to direct contact—
sucking, touching, listening, looking. We aren’t able to
“think.” During the first part of this stage, we do not even
know that our bodies are separate from the environment.
Indeed, we have yet to discover that we have toes. Neither can
we recognize cause and effect. That is, we do not know that
our actions cause something to happen.
2. The preoperational stage (from about age 2 to age 7).
During this stage, we develop the ability to use symbols. How-
ever, we do not yet understand common concepts such as size,
speed, or causation. Although we are learning to count, we do
not really understand what numbers mean.
3. The concrete operational stage (from about age 7 to age 12).
Although our reasoning abilities are more developed, they re-
main concrete. We can now understand numbers, size, causation,
and speed, and we are able to take the role of the other. We
can even play team games. Unless we have concrete examples,
however, we are unable to talk about concepts such as truth,
honesty, or justice. We can explain why Jane’s answer was a lie, Jean Piaget in his office.
but we cannot describe what truth itself is.
4. The formal operational stage (after the age of about 12). We now are capable of
abstract thinking. We can talk about concepts, come to conclusions based on general
principles, and use rules to solve abstract problems. During this stage, we are likely
to become young philosophers (Kagan 1984). If we were shown a photo of a slave
during our concrete operational stage, we might have said, “That’s wrong!” Now
at the formal operational stage we are likely to add, “If our country was founded on
equality, how could anyone own slaves?”