Prerequisites for Good Socialization - Essay Example

Socialization The human world is a social world, made up of cultures that are defined by how societies create themselves through learned behaviors and traditions. Socialization happens as a natural consequence of interacting with the people with whom a child is raised, thus giving them cues on how to behave in the world. The learned behaviors define identity and position, giving a child a sense of who they are in relationship with who they are with in the world. The social networks that are made throughout life extend the power of those interactions allowing for needs to be fulfilled that become more and more sophisticated as life progresses. The world becomes accessible through greater connectivity and the socialization becomes a grand scale phenomenon in which all of the world is accessible if one learns how to create that access. When a child is born, socialization begins through the ways in which the world around them responds to their gender, in balance with the traditions that have been passed down in the way that an infant is handled. In the beginning, the way a child is talked to, the expectations that are imposed upon the child, and the ways in which adults behave around them will begin the process of teaching the child how to behave in the world and interact with others. As shown by Davis, a child will learn to get attention and to manifest wants, as well as how to eat and dispose of his or her elimination in a manner that is congruent with the people who are around them. When denied this type of learning, they will simply not participate in the world (558). As adults and older children interact with an infant, they begin to imitate the behaviors that they see being exhibited around them. This is the process of socialization. This occurs as the context of environmental factors begins to shape the perception of identity through different aspects of experience which include gender, ethnic identity, and nationality. In the United States this is a multifaceted structure in which connectivity is derived from crossing a series of cultures to which one is exposed and learning how to interact through a variety of different methods within a variety of different environments (Anderson and Taylor 98). As opposed to just one environment, a person has multiple environments in which different behaviors are appropriate. The way one behaves at home, in school, at work, and in social situations may all be very different and those behaviors are learned by observation and then imitation. Socialization is the occurrence of being able to navigate those atmospheres and to fit into them through interaction. Socialization is the way in which a child learns to engage in the world. Without learning communication, both through verbal and physical indications, a child will be without the ability to interact. If the situation of Helen Keller is examined, a girl who was born without the ability to either see nor hear, one can see how communication is developed through interaction. Because of her condition, Helen was indulged and became used to violently and aggressive outbursts through which she communicated what she wanted, but she did not have a concept of the needs of others (Keller et al xi). She had neither heard nor seen anything of her world, thus her only concept was that of her self. Through the interactions that were provided by a strong willed teacher who sought to bring her out of her self involved world, Keller was able to begin to understand communication, through which she could not only act, but interact. The example provided by Davis of Anna, a little girl who had been severely neglected to the point of showing little to no development of any kind, it is shown that through a small amount of interaction a child will be begin to interact with the world, thus proving the need and power of socialization. Anna showed little in the way of emotions, thus showing that even the acts of crying or smiling were not necessarily instinctual, but learned. However, just like Keller, she did show some aggressive behaviors, thus suggesting that this is something that comes naturally (Davis 556). Socialization into the world is a necessary aspect of development so that survival needs can be attained and utilized. In order to know how to get food, a child experiments with ways to get attention that result in being fed. In order to fulfill needs for praise, a child will learn to act in ways that elicit approval. Socialization occurs when needs are present and behaviors result in fulfilling those needs. As the needs become more sophisticated, so too do the behaviors. When adulthood is reached, most children have learned how to navigate their world so that the needs in ways in which higher levels of need satisfaction can be reached. Socialization occurs, primarily, in small groups. According to Ballantine and Roberts “Groups are necessary for protection, to obtain food, to manufacture goods, to get jobs done…to meet our social needs for belonging and acceptance, support us throughout our lives, and to place restrictions on us” (146). If one uses Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, as a framework (five levels of needs starting with the most basic need of physiological survival, to safety, to love, to esteem, and finally to self-actualization), the way in which those needs are satisfied is through interactions within small groups from which behaviors are learned in order to find ways in which those needs are attained (Smoke 123). As exampled by Travers and Milgram, the world is a web of connections through which each individual can more than likely find a connection to any other individual (425). Because of the multi-complex nature of social connectivity that is growing in a world that is built upon global communications, that connectivity has become even more profound than the time in which Travers and Milgram created their study, which was in 1969. While small groups still define a large portion of the lives of contemporary citizens of the world, large expanded groups have become so integrated into the communicative experiences of people that it is common place to count hundreds of ‘friends’ in one’s sphere of social connections. A social network is described as “a set of links between individuals or between other social units, such as bureaucratic organizations or even entire nations” (Anderson and Taylor 131). Within these social networks, it is the ones in which a certain level of intimacy has been established that will have the most importance. However, the success that one has in life is often more a matter of how social networks are navigated rather than by how much one has learned. Thus, the concept of it is not who you know, but what you know, has become a common cliche in the modern world. Networks evolve from the connections and structures of “neighborhoods, professional contacts, and associations formed in fraternal, religious, occupational, and volunteer groups” (Anderson and Taylor 131). Networks in which one is only weakly tied can provide a reservoir of connections to those who can provide aspects of social need, thus creating resources for survival. The ‘small world’ phenomenon is defined by the premise that in groups, every person may not know every other person, but there are links in which each person can follow a chain to every other person in the group (Degenne and Forse 13). Through these links, one can find each member of the group and exploit the relationships that have been followed to get to that member. This phenomenon can be appreciated in small groups, medium groups, all the way up to the whole world as a group. Through the Law of the Few it can be seen that it takes only a few to suddenly influence a greater group, exploiting the right links within those chains of connectivity in order to create a wave of social trends. Gladwell suggests that in order for a wave of trend to overtake a social group, members who motivate and move the behaviors of that group are needed. These members are known as connectors, mavens, and salesmen which operate in the context of the environment in order to create epidemics of trends throughout a group. Connectors have access to many types of groups, mavens broker the information, and salesmen “make an idea more contagious by altering it in such a way that extraneous details are dropped and others are exaggerated so that the message itself comes to acquire a deeper meaning” (Dewey and Ries 221). The way in which the perception of a social group is defined can be through the waves of epidemic beliefs that suggest ‘truths’ about the group as defined by those who have the power to distribute those beliefs. The socialization of an individual is the beginning of the overall socialization of a group. Each group is then networked out to the greater groups and so on and so forth until the entire world is encompassed within a global group of humanity. As the internet is creating larger connectivity to greater groups, the powers of the connectors, the mavens, and the salesmen to shape social interaction is getting stronger. The ’small world’ phenomenon is closing in on society, creating such tightly interwoven connections that the distance between one person and the next is no longer much of a gap. Socialization leads to greater connectivity, which ultimately gives one greater power over one’s own world as needs are met through the interactions within the world. Works Cited Andersen, Margaret L, and Howard F. Taylor. Sociology: The Essentials. Mason, OH: Thomson Wadsworth, 2007. Print. Andersen, Margaret L, and Howard F. Taylor. Sociology: Understanding a Diverse Society. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2006. Print. Ballantine, Jeanne H, and Keith A. Roberts. Our Social World: Introduction to Sociology. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press, An Imprint of SAGE Publications, 2010. Print. Davis, Kingsley. “Extreme Social Isolation of a Child“. The American Journal of Sociology. 45.4 (January 1940): 554 - 565, Print. Degenne, Alain, and Michel Forse. Introducing Social Networks. Introducing statistical methods. London [u.a.: SAGE, 2006. Print. Dewey, Steve, and John Ries. In Alien Heat: The Warminster Mystery Revisited. San Antonio, TX: Anomalist Books, 2006. Print. Keller, Helen, Anne Sullivan, John A. Macy, Roger Shattuck, and Dorothy Herrmann. The Story of My Life. New York: W. W. Norton, 2003. Print. Smoke, Clinton H. Company Officer. Australia: Thomson/Delmar Learning, 2005. Print. Travers, Jeffrey, and Stanley Milgram. “An Experimental Study of the Small World Problem“. 32.4 (December 1969): 425-443. Read More