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Chapter 5

Socialization and Interaction

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The Individual and the Self

• Charles Horton Cooley (1864-1929; American)

• The Looking Glass Self• Our self-image reflects how others respond to

us.

• We only develop a self-concept by interacting with others.

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The Individual and the Self• George Herbert Mead (1863-1931;

American)• The self is the ability that develops over time

to take oneself as an object through a process called taking the role of the other.

• Mead also distinguished between the I (the part of the self that is unconscious and creative) and the Me (the organized set of others’ attitudes assumed by the individual).

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The Individual and the Self

• The Individual as Performer• Erving Goffman (1922-1982; American)• Dramaturgy: social life is a series of dramatic

performances.• Impression management: when people interact with

others they use a variety of techniques to control the image that they want to project.

• Front stage: the social performance is designed to define the situation for those observing it.

• Back stage: people express themselves in ways that are suppressed in the front.

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Socialization

• Socialization is the process of learning and accepting the ways of a group or society.

• It almost always involves a process of interaction as those with knowledge and experience teach those with a need to acquire that knowledge.

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Socialization

• Socialization starts in childhood (when children develop a self) and continues over the life span (as adults learn how to function within a changing society).

• Agents of socialization are those who do the socializing.

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Childhood Socialization: The Family• Parents are called primary agents of

socialization because children acquire their first knowledge of language, norms, and values from them.

• Parents also engage in anticipatory socialization with their children, teaching them what will be expected of them in the future.

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Childhood Socialization: Schools and Teachers

• As children mature, other people and organizations become socializing forces.

• After parents and family, schools and teachers are the most important agents of socialization.

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Childhood Socialization: Peers

• A good deal of socialization at school takes place informally through interaction with fellow schoolmates.

• As children mature they spend an increasing amount of time in the company of friends.

• Peer socialization is increasingly likely to conflict with what is being taught at home and in the schools.

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Childhood Socialization: Gender

• Gender socialization is the transmission of norms and values about what boys and girls can and should do.

• This process starts even before babies are born.

• Gender differences (and expectations of behavior) are reinforced by clothes and toys.

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Childhood Socialization: Mass Media and the New Media

• Until recently, much of the emphasis on the role of the media in socialization focused on television.

• As children mature, more of their socialization takes place via the computer, smartphones, video games, and other new emerging technologies.

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Childhood Socialization: Consumer Culture

• One needs to be socialized in order to consume.

• Socialization of this type takes place (mainly) in consumption sites (malls, shopping sites on the Internet).

• This type of socialization reinforces lessons about race, class, and gender.

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Adult Socialization: The Workplace• Increasing numbers of workers change

jobs and even careers with frequency.

• Resocialization is the process of unlearning old behaviors and norms (the old job or career) and learning new behaviors and norms (the new job or career).

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Adult Socialization: Total Institutions

• A total institution is a closed, all-encompassing place of residence that is set off from the rest of society.

• The primary purpose is resocialization.

• Examples are prisons and the military.

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Other Agents of Adult Socialization• Changes in social values and norms

• Family changes

• Geographic mobility

• Changes associated with aging

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Interaction

• Interaction is social engagement involving two or more individuals.

• Key building block for macroscopic social phenomena

• Superordinate-Subordinate• Examples include between teacher and

student in the classroom, judge and defendant in the courtroom, and guard and prisoner in jail.

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Interaction

• Reciprocity and Exchange• A rational process where those involved seek

to maximize rewards and minimize costs

• “Doing” Interaction• Interaction is something that people “do”;

something that they accomplish on a day-to-day basis.

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Interaction

• Interaction Order• A social domain that is organized and orderly, but

created informally and governed by those involved in the interaction.

• Status (a position in society someone occupies) and Role (what is expected of someone in that status)• Ascribed• Achieved• Master

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Micro-Level Social Structures• Interpersonal Relationships

• Dyads

• Triads

• Social Networks• Groups, organizations, societies, global networks

• Network analysis

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Micro-Level Social Structures

• Groups• A group is a relatively small number of people

who over time develop a patterned relationship.• Different types of groups include primary,

secondary, reference, in groups, and out groups.

• Conformity• While some conformity to the group is necessary

for a group to survive, too much conformity can have disastrous consequences.