Unit 5: Socialization

Introduction

Socialisation is the lifelong process of

social interaction through which
individuals acquire a self-identity and the
physical, mental, and social skills needed
for survival in society

It is the process of becoming a social

being, a process that continues
throughout one’s life.

The process of “making our own” the

norms of the groups is known as
internalization.

Failure of the socialization process can

lead to many problems in the personality
of the individual in the community.

Over to you

Think of problems associated with

1
socially isolated children like in care
homes where they live without the
mother’s emotional attachment and care.

Importance of socialisation

It is essential for the survival and stability

of society when people conform to the
norms of society

Human Nature and Human Nurture

People are not born human. We become

human through the process of social
interaction.

Over to you

Relate the human nature versus human

nurture debate to the study of human
behaviour

Sociologists study human nurture and not

human nature. Nevertheless, biological
and hereditary influences also must be

2
considered if one seeks to understand
human behaviour.

Preconditions for Socialization

1. The child must have an adequate

biological inheritance.

2. There must be an ongoing society

from which the child learns.

Types of Socialization

Because socialization begins at birth and

continues throughout the life cycle, it is a
process that takes different forms,
depending on the stage of life and the
specific environmental and situational
problem that may arise.

 Describe the following types of

socialisation with relevant examples:

 Primary Socialization

3
  Secondary Socialization

 Anticipatory Socialization

 Resocialization

 Occupational Socialization

Agents of Socialization

A number of agents of socialization

transformed you into a social being and
equipped you for life in a social
environment.

 Describe the functions of the following

agents of socialisation:

 The Family

 Peer Groups

 The school

 The Mass Media

4
  Religion

 The Workplace

The Workplace

The socialization process usually follows 2

lines:

1. Formal socialization from supervisors

teaching us the policies, rules and
regulations, and perhaps the technical
skills needed to complete the assigned
work.

2. Informal socialization from co-workers

teaches us the “unofficial rules” we must
abide by in order to be fully accepted by
our peers on the job.

5
The Self and Socialisation

The Looking Glass Self: Charles

Horton Cooley

A process by which we imaginatively

assume the stance of other people and
view ourselves as we believe they see us.

Research suggests that the looking glass

self functions as a “magnifying glass”
during self-perception, so that what
people see in themselves while others are
present has an extra powerful impact on
their self-images.

Example:
A nurse feeling that she is competent and
organised depends to a larger extent on
what she thinks other people perceive
her.

This ability to “take over” the perspective

of another person, according to Cooley,

6
forms the basis on which the person
models his or her behaviour.

The process of developing a self-identity

or self-concept has 3 stages:

1. The imagination of our appearance

to others

2. The imagination of their

judgement of that appearance

3. The development of feelings about

and responses to these judgements

Example
___________________________________________

It must be stressed that what this

approach concentrates on is that the self
is the product of the individual’s
imagination of what he or she thinks
others see him or her. As a result, we can
develop self-identities based on incorrect
perceptions of how others see us.

7
Example
_________________________________________

What we believe others think of us

frequently forms a more important basis
for further action than is justified by what
is really the case.

Nurses should therefore understand how

people, including patients, perceive
reality, so that they show understanding
for the social behaviour of other
people/patients.

Patient: ‘Seeing what this nurse is doing,

I think she doesn’t like me so I will not
answer any question that she asks me
about my condition’.

8
Generalized Other: George Herbert
Mead

Continued Cooley’s exploration of

interactionist theory of looking – glass
self.

Mead (1931/1964) contended that we

gain a sense of selfhood by acting towards
ourselves in much the same fashion that
we act towards others.

In our imagination we take the position of

another person and look back on
ourselves from this standpoint.

In so doing we “take the role of the other

towards ourselves”

We mentally assume a dual perspective:

We are simultaneously the subject (“1”)
doing the viewing and the object (“me”)
being viewed.

Example:
Think of what happens if you as a student
nurse during your clinical practice in a

9
hospital want to put a question to a
lecturer supervisor and you say to
yourself: “If I ask her a question, she will
think that I am dull. I must therefore
rather keep quiet.”

In this example, you have looked at

yourself as a student nurse through the
eyes of the lecturer supervisor. By doing
this you have in your imagination
assumed her role and have seen yourself
as the object, the “me”. It is the “I” as
the subject that has decided that it would
be unwise to ask the question and
therefore rather keep quite.

Importance of language in socialisation of

the self

We judge how other people will respond

to us through language that allows us to
carry on an internal conversation

We talk and reply to ourselves in much

the same manner that we carry on a
conversation with others.

10
Sociologist Ralph Turner (1968) clarified
and extended Mead’s ideas on the self.
Turner pointed out that when speaking
and acting, we typically adopt a state of
preparedness for certain types of
responses from the other person.

This is how it happens:

Preparedness ___ testing ___ revision

Example:
_________________________________________

Note that when an individual acts, he or

she takes into account an entire group of
people.

Impression Management: Erving

Goffman

Many of our daily activities involve

attempts to convey impressions of who we
are.

11
Impression Management

Goffman thinks that we are constantly

trying to influence others in a certain way
and therefore present ourselves to others
in such a way that they will form a
favourable impression of us.

To create a favourable impression, people

make use of concealment and strategic
disclosure.

Concealment
Example: ________________________________

Strategic disclosure/revelation
Example: ________________________________

To further explain social life, Goffman

makes use of the dramaturgical approach.

Dramaturgical approach
He describes social life as a stage or a
drama. All human beings are both actors
and members of the audience, and the
parts are the roles people play in the
course of their lives.

12
According to him, the self is a product of
the ongoing performances that
characterise a person’s everyday
interaction with others, and of how these
performances are interpreted by others.

Example
A nurse may try to appear busier than he
or she is if a supervisor happens to be
watching.

In accordance with this he uses terms

“front stage” and “backstage”

Example

Through most of the day a nurse will be

“front stage” where they will and must
play their assigned and expected roles
of clinical competence and caring for
patients . At their home, with a good
friend, they are “back stage”, there they
can literally be “themself” and do
anything that they cannot do while at
work. Even the nurses’ tea room at the
hospital could from time to time be

13
 “backstage”.

Over to you

Think of what nurses talk about

concerning their patients when they are
by themselves resting in the nurses room
during breaktime

However, problems could also be

encountered with regard to impression
management. Once an individual has
made a certain impression on others, he
or she is expected to maintain that
impression or behaviour. If mistakes are
made, other people could form the wrong
impression about such a person.

Outsiders could sometimes accidentally

see a person’s “backstage” and
consequently make the wrong assumption
about such a person.

14
Three aspects are used to create
favourable impressions:

A Social Place
Appearance
Attitudes

Socialization in the hospital social

system: becoming a nurse and
patient

Nurses and patients share the same

environment and social system in the
hospital

The labelling of one individual as ‘nurse’

and another as ‘patient’ tends to create
stereotypical ideas as to what is or should
be the appropriate behaviour for the role.

This can be dysfunctional for patient care.

Nurse: if perceived by the patient to be a

charismatic angel of mercy

15
Patient: if perceived by the nurse to be an
unquestioning, subordinate and
dependent individual.

Sharing the socialization processes

Nurses and patients share similar

socialization processes in the hospital.

They both undergo a process of role-

stripping with divests them of the symbols
associated with their previous social roles
of for example, adolescent girl.

Both are divested of their personal

identities by a labelling process. The
adolescent girl is given the title of ‘nurse’
and the sick individual labelled ‘patient’

-The wearing of a uniform, e.g. at a

mental hospital

Social distance

16
Both nurse and patient inevitably
experience a social distance in the social
system

Nurses and patients even though they are

geographically near to each other in the
hospital, are individuals in different and
distinct social groups which are distinctly
separate social entities;

A social group of patients and a social

group of nurses separated by social
distance.
Social distance also exists between nurse
students and trained nurses who also
form distinct social groups in the hospital.

Dehumanization

The terms patient and nurse are ‘labels’

which can have a dehumanization effect if
they lead to the perception of a patient
and nurse as a stereotype and not as
someone who is a unique individual.

17
The stereotype is the greatest barrier to
allowing the nurse to perceive and
respond to the human being in the
patient, as well as acting as a barrier to
making others to respond to the human
being who is a nurse.

Patient socialisation

Becoming a patient entail behaving

differently from how one would behave in
other settings.

New patients learn the new role of

patients within a particular ward.

Some patients leave behind their adult

independence. If they exert their usual
degree of independence in certain
circumstances, they may receive a
reprimand from the staff.

The role of patient, like other roles in life,

has to be learnt. This is achieved by
talking with other patients and observing
how they behave, as well as being

18
explicitly taught and controlled in certain
ways by hospital staff. In other words,
new patients are socialized into their role
as patient.

On entry to the hospital some patients

refuse to accept that their roles have
changed. They may avoid talking with
other patients, regarding themselves as
different, and they may respond to
hospital staff in a manner different from
that of other patients.

However, after they have been socialised

in their patient role, new patients may
start to spend some time talking, take
meals with other patients, and so on
rather than spending time alone in the
ward.

While engaging in this behaviour,

however, they may attempt to withdraw
from patient role in other ways.

19
Patients become socialised in the patient
role and, in extreme circumstances some
patients become ‘institutionalised’.
Psychiatric patients, for example, go
through the process of
institutionalisation. When patients
become institutionalised, they learn to
conform to rules and routines of the
institution, and they lose their ‘old’ self
and gain a new institutionalised identity.

This presents a problem when attempts

are made to rehabilitate long-stay
patients from hospitals for the mentally
handicapped or mentally ill.

They must unlearn their patient role and

associated behaviours and become
socialised into a more adaptive socially
appropriate role in the community.

20