Concepts of Socialization, Essay Example

Introduction

Concepts of socialization are those attributes that help to define us as human beings and provide a concept of self.  For example, how we develop our cultural skills and interact with other people and how identify our personal identity.  This involves the learning of conformity to the values, norms and behavioural considerations of society. These concept are what help to sustain society and future generations.  These have essentially been split into two distinct component types i.e. Nature and Nurture.  It was Sigmund Freud that was interested more in the nature and genetic considerations of sociology whereas Cooley & Mead focused on the Nurture concept and the importance of learning and environmental influences.

Sociology originally viewed the concept of socialization as that of civilisation and how one conforms to societal groups.  The concept of losing individuality in order to be accepted within the normal conforms of society.  This view has shifted over the last 100 years and it is now more equated with how one assimilates social norms and values into your own individual being.   The concept of being socialised relates to that of acceptance and being recognized as belonging to a specific group.  The opposite is to be anti-social and outside of any social structure placing individualism and freedom of individual thought and action outside the consideration of social norms or group acceptance.  The following video link provided an understanding of concepts of socialization http://irt.austincc.edu/streaming/telecourses/si.html. The video examines the concept of how we become social beings with the capacity to interact with one another. The debate centres around aspects of conformity to society and the impact of nature vs. nurture. Nature being genetic inheritances from parents whereas nurture looks at the input of environmental input to social behaviour.

Sigmund Freud and Socialization

Freud was noted as a leading Neurologist and for most of his works conducted at the University of Vienna in Austria.  He was the founder of the Psychoanalytic School of Psychology and for his theories in the unconscious mind and the defense mechanism of repression.  Frauds significant contributions relate to that of how the human mind is organized and theories around human behavioral conditions.  He theorized that individual personality development was formed by those experiences in early childhood. According to Freud it is possible to categorize the human personality into three types: (i) ID (ii) Ego and (iii) Super ego.  The ID was defined by Freud as being our biological needs of food, water and sex. He cited the analogy of thermodynamics where the source of energy was fire. He considered super ego to be the rules of society and our conscience. This contrasted to ego which is more individualistic and contains single person’s individual thoughts, emotions and personal judgements.  Freud viewed ego as a mediating role that balanced the id and super ego. He maintained that a person was nurtured from birth until adulthood passing through psychosexual stages of development. Our Mothers gave us unconditional love and were a source of supreme authority in our formative years; hence the threat of separation is very powerful. The concept of female managers nurturing and looking after their staff, the failure of such casts them into the dark side and branded as a monster

Pavlov and Nurture

The Russian scientist made the early break-through in identification of first conditioning through his experimentation with dogs. Pavlov examined the internal digestive systems of dogs and found reflex systems to specific behavioural patterns. This led him to discover that dogs would salivate when in proximity of food via a reflex in the digestive system of the dog.  The dogs associated the sound of a moving door with that of feeding time and this stimulated an appropriate response. Many other famous theories were produced from the likes of Darwin, Skinner, and Thorndyke etc. The roots of these theories are based in existential psychology and the study of human traits and personalities.  It was the American Psychologists of Maslow and Rogers who pioneered the understanding of a new approach in order to understand personality development and the influence of satisfaction on individuals.

Personal Reflection

Although there are undoubted genetic attributes that influence social behaviour. I personally lean towards the nurture side of the debate.  That is to say the family provides an important influence on social behavioural development. Parents often do this without understanding that they are making a significant contribution to the development of the child’s socialisation.  This point is evidenced by specific examples within the context of the video.  Here the video underscores the importance that each family member makes in the social development of the child.  This applies to the extended family like the children’s interaction with grandparents.