Page 122 - Essencials of Sociology

Summary and Review 95

How do children develop reasoning skills? behavior. Children receive messages about gender even in
Jean Piaget identified four stages that children go through as infancy. A society’s ideals of sex-linked behaviors are rein-
they develop the ability to reason: (1) sensorimotor, in which forced by its social institutions. Pp. 78–83.
understanding is limited to sensory stimuli such as touch and
sight; (2) preoperational, the ability to use symbols; (3) con- Agents of Socialization
crete operational, in which reasoning ability is more complex
but not yet capable of complex abstractions; and (4) formal
operational, or abstract thinking. Pp. 72–74. 3.5 Explain why the family, the neighborhood, religion, day
care, school, peer groups, and the workplace are called agents of
Learning Personality, Morality, and socialization.

Emotions What are the main agents of socialization?
The agents of socialization include the family, neighbor-
hood, religion, day care, school, peer groups, the mass me-
Explain how the development of personality and morality
3.3
dia, and the workplace. Each has its particular influences in
and socialization into emotions are part of how “society makes us
socializing us into becoming full-fledged members of society.
human.”
Pp. 83–88.
How do sociologists evaluate Freud’s
psychoanalytic theory of personality Resocialization
development?
Sigmund Freud viewed personality development as the result
Explain what total institutions are and how they resocialize
of our id (inborn, self-centered desires) clashing with the de- 3.6
people.
mands of society. The ego develops to balance the id and the
superego, the conscience. Sociologists, in contrast, do not What is resocialization?
examine inborn or subconscious motivations but, instead,
consider how social factors—social class, gender, religion, Resocialization is the process of learning new norms, values,
education, and so forth—underlie personality. Pp. 74–75. attitudes, and behavior. Most resocialization is voluntary, but
some, as with the resocialization of residents of total institu-
How do people develop morality? tions, is involuntary. Pp. 88–89.
That even babies exhibit a sense of morality seems to indi-
cate that a basic morality could be inborn. Lawrence Kohl- Socialization through the Life Course
berg identified four stages children go through as they learn
morality: amoral, preconventional, conventional, and post-
conventional. As they make moral decisions, both men and 3.7 Identify major divisions of the life course and discuss the
women use personal relationships and abstract principles. sociological significance of the life course.
The answer to “What is moral?” differs from society to
society. Pp. 75–76. Does socialization end when we enter
adulthood?
How does socialization influence emotions?
Socialization occurs throughout the life course. In
Socialization influences not only how we express our emo-
industrialized societies, the life course can be di-
tions but also what emotions we feel. Socialization into
vided into childhood, adolescence, young adult-
emotions is one of the means by which society produces
hood, the middle years, and the older years. The West
conformity. Pp. 76–78.
is adding two new stages, transitional adulthood
and transitional older years. Using the sociological
Socialization into Gender perspective, we can see how both the streams of history
and social location—geography, gender, race–ethnicity,
social class—influence the life course. Pp. 90–93.
Discuss how gender messages from the family, peers, and
3.4
the mass media teach us society’s gender map.
Are We Prisoners of Socialization?
How does gender socialization affect our Although socialization is powerful, we are not merely the
sense of self? sum of our socialization experiences. Just as socialization
influences our behavior, so we act on our environment and
Gender socialization—sorting males and females into dif-
influence even our self-concept. Pp. 93–94.
ferent roles—is a primary way that groups control human