July 8, 2003 Grade: Unknown Socialization Socialization is when people learn to conform to societies norms and values. Sociologists describe this process in three stages. The first stage is primary socialization. IT refers to the way a newborn child is molded into a social being. The second stage is secondary socialization, which occurs later in childhood. Adults as well as peers have a strong influence in the development of children. Adult socialization is the third and final stage. Men and women learn the norms and values that are practiced by spouse, journalists, grandparents, etc. Sigmund Freud was the first scientist to study and compare the nature and nurture aspects of human beings. Freud believed that the personality of an infant develops through the process of his her ability to control bodily functions. Freud divided the personality into three areas, the Id, ego, and superego. The id is when the infant’s personality traits that are un-socialized come from. Superego is where the moral code of adults is incorporated into the person’s mind. The ego is a person’s relation to him or herself in relation to other human beings. Freud believed that the superego or conscience and the id or the child like behaviors are in conflict and because of this conflict it threatens to upset the ego. In the 20th century Freud’s theory that human qualities are biologically determined by nature where challenged by another theory known as behaviorism. Behaviorists saw the individual as someone who had a blank slate, tabula rasa, where behaviors can be learned or conditioned. It was originated by Ivan Pavlov and continued by John B. Watson and B.F. Skinner. Feral children are children that have experience, extreme isolation, and have been raised outside of human society. This rare case presents itself as a natural experiment. Once a child is brought into contact with humans, studies begin to determine how well he or she acts in a social environment. In the studies conduction so far, children that are reintroduced to society learn much more slowly than children that have not been raised in isolation. This is comparable to the mentally handicap and retarded children. Re-socialization is the process in which individuals undergo a deliberate change in an effort to change major beliefs and behaviors. It is often used to change self-destructive behaviors such as abusive drinking, drug use, over-eating, etc. Identification is a social process in which the individual chooses other people as role models or people that they can relate. Sociologist Erik Erikson developed this theory |