Socialization is a boring topic. All theory and abstruse reasoning about society. But it seems so only at first glance. In fact, socialization is everything to us. When your parents taught you to eat with a fork, use the toilet and communicate, and your neighbor Marya Ivanovna shook her finger and insisted that walking on the lawns was bad, you were socialized. And this process continues to this day.
YouTube and television, church and work collective - all these institutions put certain values and norms in our heads, carrying out socialization. Read the article further and you will find out the details, and also understand why socialization is so important and what will happen if it is not passed in childhood. Spoiler: it will be very bad.
Definition of socialization
Before discussing this topic, it is necessary to understand what socialization as such is.
Psychological science says that socialization
is the process of an individual’s entry into a social system, mastering its norms, rules of behavior, values, knowledge and skills, and psychological attitudes.
Another, “unofficial” definition says that socialization is what allows a person to live in harmony with the world around him. How is this harmony achieved?
Man is the only creature who, let’s say, is not born by himself. Any animal at birth belongs to a certain species - the same one to which its parents belonged. And only a person, in order to obtain the characteristics inherent to his species, is obliged to undergo a long and complex process of socialization, individual forms of which occur throughout his entire life. In fact, if a newborn is left in the forest and there he randomly survives, then he will not learn to speak, or build, or even hunt. Certain forms of learning, of course, exist in many animals, but they take place only for a short time; an animal that has not undergone “socialization” still has a great chance of surviving and producing offspring, since the basic skills are embedded in its instincts. Long and complex socialization is observed only in higher primates, which proves that this phenomenon did not arise suddenly, but was inherited from our animal ancestors and evolved over thousands of years.
Youth and maturity
Socialization is a process that continues during youth and then into adulthood. In this case, a person must go through several steps: finish school, receive (often) a higher education, find his first job, and become established as an employee. Many people take this as a life plan.
However, in the present, deviations from the traditional version are completely permitted. The modern concept of socialization allows for a lack of education, especially if it is replaced by self-education with a sufficient level of control. In fact, everyone can make their own study plan and follow it.
A separate issue is career. A few decades ago, it was considered completely normal to work constantly at one company and receive promotions. Now the level of horizontal mobility in the professional sphere has increased significantly. Now there is no specific plan; a person may well change several professions and a huge number of companies.
Ideas about what constitutes maturity have also changed. Previously it was believed that it occurs at about 30 years of age. Now these time frames have shifted by 10 years, and people perceive the period between 30 and 40 as the peak of activity, acquisition of the maximum number of useful skills and their further improvement.
Types of socialization
Socialization is a difficult, even contradictory process. In the process of his development, an individual becomes acquainted with both humanity as a whole and individual groups of people who have their own rules, goals and guidelines.
Therefore, experts distinguish several types of this phenomenon:
- Primary socialization
begins at the birth of a child and ends with the formation of a mature personality. It lays the foundations for all subsequent development of a person, and to some extent determines the scenario of his future life. The family is of greatest importance, because it is the first thing a child sees in his life. It is necessary to keep in mind that children perceive what they see around them uncritically, therefore they regard the behavior of adults in the family as basic, standard. Alcoholism and sloppiness, unsanitary conditions in the house - all this is “imprinted” in the child’s mind and can remain with him for life if he does not go through the subsequent stages of socialization. And vice versa - intelligence and cleanliness learned in the family will also accompany him in the future. In the future, kindergarten, school, a group of friends and peers become new social environments, where the child has to get accustomed to a new environment and act in accordance with new rules. - Secondary socialization, or resocialization
, is the process of eliminating previous patterns of behavior and learning new ones. This process continues throughout the individual's life. During resocialization, a person experiences a complete break with his past and feels the need to assimilate new values that are strikingly different from those that he previously adhered to. Typically, the changes that occur during secondary socialization are less than during primary socialization. - Group socialization
is a process that takes place within a social group. So, if a child spends more time with his peers than in the family, then he more actively adopts the norms and rules inherent in the peer group. - Gender socialization
is a process that involves learning the role of a man or woman in society. At the same time, boys learn to be men, and girls learn to be women. In the past, gender socialization was an important and necessary part of a person's entry into society, but nowadays gender has largely ceased to have any meaning. Equality of rights and opportunities eliminates the need to “command” and “obey”, and representatives of both sexes have the opportunity to master the same professions, occupy the same positions and take on the same social roles (for example, in a family, both parents can take turns working and raising children, either the wife works, and the husband looks after the household and raises the children, or “the old fashioned way” - the husband works, and the wife takes care of the household and children). The principles of gender socialization are still strong in traditional, backward societies (in the countries of Asia and Africa), but even there they are gradually losing their position. - Organizational socialization
is a process in which an individual who is part of an organization learns its norms and rules and masters the skills of his work within its framework. - Early socialization
is the process of mastering norms, rules and skills that do not correspond to the current level of physical, psychological and social development. First of all, this type of socialization is understood as a game - a kind of “rehearsal” for future social activity.
Resocialization
The concept of personality resocialization is closely related to the stages of growing up. In essence, this term denotes the secondary socialization of the individual, which continues throughout life and includes a constant reassessment of previously accepted values.
Resocialization begins with the child going out into the outside world and observing people with different cultural, social and gender stereotypes. The more such observations a child accumulates, the more work happens in his head: he begins to understand that not all the words of mom and dad are axioms, that there are other points of view and a different view of the world. And under the influence of these factors in adolescence, the individual completes the formation of his personality, leaving some of the previous family attitudes, and replacing the remaining attitudes with others accepted from the outside and regarded by him as more suitable for him personally.
Over time, an individual’s social circle expands more and more, goes beyond the boundaries of school and university, and includes colleagues, friends in the gym, acquaintances from different segments of the population, therefore resocialization as an important element of personality formation is an endless process.
Stages of socialization
Socialization is a complex and gradual process that takes place in several stages. The first step should be social adaptation. This is the name given to the active adaptation of an individual to the conditions of the social environment in which he finds himself. It is believed that adaptation takes place at three levels - physiological, psychological and social.
On the physiological
stage, a person explores a new environment for himself, enters into new social connections and studies his capabilities, which will help him to realize himself in a given social group. At this time, the individual actively communicates and gets used to living by new rules, after which he tries to make his own efforts to achieve results that are relevant for the given team.
At the stage of individualization
a person is already firmly aware of himself as a unit of society. In fact, the formation of a personality takes place - an individual who has his own beliefs, abilities, skills, and his own assessment of what is happening. If at the first stage of socialization he learns to be like others in everything, then at the next stage he tries to become unlike others, having his own characteristics, which, however, are part of the general system of values and are regulated by it.
However, individualization is a rather subjective process. The assimilation of general rules and common experience and self-realization in a social group occur differently for each person. Some, for example, decide to become as conformal as possible, that is, to follow the norms and rules in everything; Such pedantry in some individuals reaches the point of absurdity. Others, during socialization, overcome stereotypes, break certain rules and behave non-standardly, however, ensuring the overall development of the group. Finally, still others destroy the very foundations of a given social group, resulting in either its disintegration or the expulsion of a given individual from the group.
The next stage of socialization is integration
. This term came to social science from exact and natural disciplines - mathematics, biology, physics; and it means the process of acceptance of personality by other members of a social group. Society reaches some consensus - agrees to at least “tolerate” a newcomer who promises to live at least by basic general rules and not interfere with others. More successful integration occurs if the newcomer is useful in some way to a given social group; For this individual, society is even ready to forgive certain “weaknesses” and inconsistencies.
It should be noted that the complete absence of any discrepancies in socialization is undesirable, at least in developed societies. Absolute conformism is usually perceived as one of the forms of deviant behavior, because a conformist does not bring anything useful to society. The main part of a particular social group has a certain “degree of freedom,” but in such a way as not to violate the foundations of this group. However, in undeveloped, primitive societies, absolute conformism is encouraged; in such societies the slightest deviation from the norm, even if it is beneficial to the entire group, is persecuted and eliminated. In such societies, each person is obliged to hold a spoon in a strictly defined hand at dinner, get out of bed on a strictly defined leg, chew food at a strictly defined speed of jaw movement, etc. An example of such a society is the population of Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world. In developed societies, rules and norms are perceived only as a means to help organize all members of the group into a system; and in primitive societies, norms and rules are an end in themselves, and socialization comes down to memorizing them.
Consciousness of group selection
The choice of social group with which you interact is not always up to you. We make a conscious choice when we decide to take up a particular sport, enroll in a certain university, or move to another neighborhood. In this case, we can prepare ourselves for the norms that will most likely be characteristic of the environment in which we will find ourselves, since we will have time to study the issue, work on our reactions and socialization skills.
But sometimes, due to circumstances beyond our control, we find ourselves in an environment that cannot be called successful, and this is especially dangerous for not fully formed individuals - children and adolescents.
In the event of a forced move to a less favorable area, adult family members are able to distance themselves as much as possible from their neighbors and establish contact with them that does not include accepting their social standards of behavior. But a child or teenager, communicating with classmates and neighbors, does not yet know how to resist someone else’s authoritative opinion, and unconsciously absorbs and adopts those norms of behavior that he should not include in his picture of the world as correct.
This problem of personal socialization cannot always be solved by parents prohibiting the child from communicating with “bad” friends, but the environment in which your child grows up is a very important factor in growing up and shaping his personality.
Stages of personality socialization
It has been noted that one of the main goals of socialization is to overcome one’s egocentrism. Entering any social group requires an understanding that “you are not alone.” This is considered one of the signs of growing up. It is known that a child up to a certain age perceives himself as the center of the universe, and this is his natural state. Subsequently, we observe what is called youthful maximalism: the teenager continues to consider himself “the very best,” the one and only, but is faced with an abundance of the same “one and only” around him. This leads to conflicts, often serious ones.
Individuals who have not undergone socialization for some reason retain for a long time the characteristics characteristic of children or “newcomers.” Those around them perceive them as infantile and narrow-minded people, but in reality everything is more complicated. If in adulthood the passion inherent in adolescents for learning new things, active communication, and mastering new skills and abilities remains, then this can only be welcomed. At the same time, egocentrism and difficult experiences of one’s failures are clearly undesirable signs for a mature personality.
An example of insufficient socialization in adulthood is belief in “alternative histories” - the writings of Nosovsky and Fomenko, Chudinov and other pseudoscientific freaks. The point here is not only about political, “patriotic” and selfish motives. It’s just that a child, just starting to explore the world and discovering something new, strives to share his discovery with others; parents and other older members of society, to play along with him, share his joy.
During his school years, a teenager is faced with the impossibility of being a pioneer in the modern world: everything he learns about has already been discovered by someone, and his “discovery” is no longer of great value to others. A mentally healthy person gradually gets used to this situation and finds unexplored areas where he can show his skills and give something new to society. And a mentally disabled person experiences rejection from this situation; Instead of searching for unexplored areas, he is eager to “rediscover” what has already been discovered, to create a sensation and receive the laurels of a discoverer, which, as he is sure, simply must belong to him.
The biography of Anatoly Fomenko, the author of the famous pseudoscientific “New Chronology,” very clearly presents us with just such a person - an unsocialized intellectual who, for the sake of the honor of being a discoverer, is ready to commit any lie and achieve his goal by any means. For a long time he eked out the life of a “lesser” mathematician, compiled standard textbooks on geometry for students and was content with a modest salary. In the end, he got tired of it, he realized that the modest and routine work of teaching did not bring happiness, and decided to do something loud and sensational. In his native field, geometry, it is very difficult to become a discoverer, but history is a different matter. Written in collaboration with the equally unsocialized intellectual Gleb Nosovsky, “New Chronology” instantly became a bestseller; Many uneducated readers of this work seriously call Fomenko a “prophet.”
It was said above that school becomes an important environment for primary socialization. Indeed, the task of school is not only to provide some knowledge on various subjects, but also to teach how to live in society. In many countries, special techniques are used for this purpose. For example, in the United States, schools do not have stable classrooms; When a student enrolls in school, he chooses which subjects he will study, and at each lesson he finds himself in a new classroom, in a completely new team. Such socialization is very useful, especially in the USA, because a significant part of the population of this country lives in very small settlements where “everyone knows each other,” but excessive attachment to “one’s own corner” can create problems in the future when it is necessary to change place of residence (in connections with study, work, etc.).
Most Russians live in cities and towns with significantly larger populations, so they do not feel an urgent need for this type of school in our country. At the same time, another type of socialization is required - the ability to work in a stable team, which a Russian-style school can handle quite well.
Desocialization
The concept of desocialization of the individual is closely related to resocialization, and means the destruction of previously mastered and accepted norms and rules of behavior, the destruction of previous attitudes. What is it and why is this process needed?
This process is used by psychologists when a person’s learned norms of behavior prevent him from successfully fitting into society. In this case, a person must desocialize - abandon previous attitudes, and then resocialize - accept new rules of behavior adopted in the group.
Desocialization is necessary for victims of domestic violence, people who went through wars and lived in combat zones, as well as those who moved to other countries with a different cultural heritage or when re-educating individuals suffering from deviant behavior - alcoholics, drug addicts, criminals. “Reconfiguration” of the head in such cases is necessary, and the process plan usually begins with an assessment of the attitudes that the individual sees as unshakable, and proof that this unshakability is apparent.
What does it contribute to?
Socialization and adaptation make it possible to form in a person’s brain the necessary set of values and rules that he will subsequently apply to the world. These processes begin in childhood, when the parents of a young child begin to lay the foundation for the first mental and physical skills. After this, the person undergoes training in kindergarten, school and college. During this period, he gains more knowledge from other people, continuing to explore the world. Thanks to this, a person learns to communicate with the individuals around him and understands that the form of interaction with them can be different.
In addition, the socialization of the child is very important, as it teaches him self-control. Gradually, a person begins to learn how to react to certain events in his life. Thanks to this, he learns to distinguish between the internal and external worlds.
Mechanisms
Every society has socialization mechanisms through which people convey information about social reality to each other. In sociological terms, there are some “translators” of social experience. These are means that transmit accumulated experience from generation to generation, contributing to the fact that each new generation begins to socialize. Such translators include various sign systems, cultural elements, educational systems, and social roles. Socialization mechanisms are divided into two categories: socio-psychological and socio-pedagogical.
Socio-psychological mechanisms:
- Imprinting is the imprinting of information on the receptor and subconscious levels. More common in infancy.
- Existential pressure - the assimilation of language and norms of behavior at an unconscious level.
- Imitation is following a model, voluntary or involuntary.
- Reflection is an internal dialogue during which a person critically thinks about and then accepts or rejects certain social values.
Social and pedagogical mechanisms:
- Traditional - a person’s assimilation of prevailing stereotypes, which occurs, as a rule, at an unconscious level.
- Institutional - triggered by a person’s interaction with various institutions and organizations.
- Stylized - functions when included in any subcultures.
- Interpersonal - turns on whenever there is contact with persons who are subjectively significant to a person.
