Page 121 - Essencials of Sociology

94 CHAPTER 3 Socialization

Are We Prisoners of Socialization?
Understand why we are not
3.8
prisoners of socialization.
From our discussion of socialization, you might conclude that sociologists think of
people as robots: The socialization goes in, and the behavior comes out. People cannot
help what they do, think, or feel, as everything is a result of their exposure to socializing
agents.
Sociologists do not think of people in this way. Although socialization is powerful,
and affects all of us profoundly, we have a self. Established in childhood and continually
modified by later experience, our self is dynamic. Our self is not a sponge that passively
absorbs influences from the environment, but, rather, it is a vigorous, essential part of
our being that allows us to act on our environment.
Precisely because people are not robots, individual behavior is hard to predict. The
countless reactions of others merge in each of us. As the self develops, we each internalize
or “put together” these innumerable reactions, which become the basis for how we reason,
react to others, and make choices in life. The result is a unique whole called the individual.
Rather than being passive sponges in this process, each of us is actively involved in the
construction of the self. Our experiences in the family and other groups during childhood
lay down our basic orientations to life, but we are not doomed to keep these orientations
if we do not like them. We can purposely expose ourselves to other groups and ideas.
feral children children assumed Those experiences, in turn, have their own effects on our self. In short, we influence our
to have been raised by animals, socialization as we make choices. We can change even the self within the limitations of
in the wilderness, isolated from the framework laid down by our social locations. And that self—along with the options
humans
available within society—is the key to our behavior.

MySocLab Study and Review on MySocLab

CHAPTER 3 Summary and Review

Society Makes Us Human Socialization into the Self and Mind

Explain how feral, isolated, and institutionalized children help Use the ideas and research of Cooley (looking-glass self),
3.1 3.2
us understand that “society makes us human.” Mead (role taking), and Piaget (reasoning) to explain socialization
into the self and mind.
How much of our human characteristics come from
“nature” (heredity) and how much from “nurture” How do we acquire a self?
(the social environment)? Humans are born with the capacity to develop a self, but the
Observations of isolated, institutionalized, and feral self must be socially constructed; that is, its contents depend
children help to answer the nature–nurture question, on social interaction. According to Charles Horton Cooley’s
as do experiments with monkeys that were raised in concept of the looking-glass self, our self develops as we in-
isolation. Language and intimate social interaction— ternalize others’ reactions to us. George Herbert Mead iden-
aspects of “nurture”—are essential to the develop- tified the ability to take the role of the other as essential to
ment of what we consider to be human characteristics. the development of the self. Mead concluded that even the
Pp. 66–71. mind is a social product. Pp. 71–72.