write a descriptive essay on the context of socialization

The Impact of Socialization on My Life Essay

Introduction.

Socialization is a process of acquiring other people’s Ideas and norms providing a person with necessary abilities for building him/herself and for societal participatory. On the other hand socialization may not be normative as “it also describes processes which may or may not affect the reflexive agents, and which may or may not lead to desirable or moral outcomes. Individual views on certain issues, such as race may again be socialized within a society” (Mathews, 2002).

Socialization also prepares an individual for the roles he/she is to play, providing him with the necessary repertoire of habits, beliefs, and values, the appropriate patterns of emotional response and the modes of perception, requisite skills and knowledge. It also provides persistence and culture (Chinoy, 1961).

Conformity to socialization is the way a person tends to have the same behaviors of a group of people he or she is attached to. Conformity and obedience to authority in socialization is responsible in shaping or bringing up a morally upright person. The impacts of this can have diverse influences on a individuals in the ways of his/her living. Therefore this paper is going to discuss on the issues of the impact that my socialization in conformity and obedience to authority and how has affected my life. The paper will also show how these issues influenced my attitudes towards the general ways of life, choice of occupation, and other important aspects in my life. The paper will then conclude by highlighting on how socialization affects individuals.

My initial socialization

My first socialization came about when I was still a little kid. I started learning the outlooks, values, and measures needed off me as a member of my family and community. An example of this is when my mother used to guide me in treating other kids as equals and not to show any discriminatory remarks or any other immoral behaviors towards them. These aspects mould me into knowing that it was acceptable and in order to treat the people around me as brothers and sisters. Socialization also taught me to learn from them as they learn from me. In addition these aspects have been permanently put into my conscience as I still have these opinions to date.

Secondary, developmental, anticipatory and occupational socialization

My next step in socialization was in relatives, friends in the neighborhoods, friends at school and people who I interacted with directly. This stage comprised of schooling and learning to get conversant to the important behaviors as an individual in a small group of a bigger community.

In growing development wise my socialization comprised of ways of learning behavior in the several organizations and institution I went through that taught me how to develop my skills socially.

My anticipatory socialization on the other hand covered my social rehearsals for the future occupations that I intended to pursue and the societal relationships that would accompany them.

The choice of occupation in regards to socialization has been positive because I have passed through knowledge-based communities which have influenced the right choice of occupation and modeled my occupational requirements as well. In this capacity, and taking into consideration personal preference about profession and occupations there has been an evident enveloping social effects. “Thus, it is necessary to expand the standard view about the process of occupation choice by adding non pecuniary factors, influence of social networks and the role of information and guidance policies” (Chinoy, 1961). My choice of occupation therefore has been affected by socialization which includes family, friends, the society and economic aspects.

Re-socialization

This process has had a major impact in my life as it has been responsible for the change of my social status. Re-socialization helped me to shade my previous ways of behaviors and come up with new ones to cope up with the ever changing world. “This again occurs throughout a human beings life cycle. Re-socialization can be an intense experience, with the individual experiencing a sharp break with their past making him or her need to learn and be exposed to radically different norms and values” (Schaefer & Lamm, 1992).

Social agents

“Agents of socialization are the people and groups that influence our self-concept, emotions, attitudes, and behavior” (Chinoy, 1961). My family and friends have been on the fore front of determining my attitudes in regards to responsibility, choice of religion and determining my occupational goals. They did this through my education which is an important agent responsible for socializing people in specific values and skills in the community. This is also responsible for my choice of occupation as it shapes an individual towards that direction. They also influenced my choice of religion that is an important aspect in socialization as it makes people obedient to authority when they follow certain rules and principles of religion. My friends have also been very influential; this was brought out through peer groupings when we used to contribute to our social characteristics in the process influencing each other. It is also evident that socialization plays a major role in influencing emotions which comprise of romance and lust. These emotions are in turn responsible for marriage especially when love strikes in a social setting. In the event of such marriages the sustenance and child rearing will be based on the instilled social norms which were shaped by socializing.

The impacts of my socialization

Socialization has evidently influenced my life in the sense that it helped me conform to authority by being shaped towards the right direction from a young age. This brought me up as a morally upright person and also helped me in the selection of an occupation of choice. The realization of this was brought about by socializing with the right people who instill the right characters in individuals. On the other hand socialization can instill the wrong characters in individuals particularly when they socialize with bad characters. This is highlighted by Zimbardo (2007) who says that a good person can be changed by socialization if he/she is not in conformity with social norms. The author gives an example of “Palestine and Iraq, where young men and women become suicide bombers who were initially good people, (Zimbardo, 2007).

Therefore as shown in this paper, new inspirations are brought about by social influence which are instilled in an individual particularly when they are consistent from a young age. It is also true that social influence does not only support moral uprightness but can also produce bad social habits.

• Chinoy, M. (1961). Socialization. New York NY: Oxford University Press.
• Mathews, W. (2002). Society and socialization. Journal for socialization community development 24 (2), 62-69.
• Schaefer, D., & Lamm, T (1992). Re-socialization. Brisbane, QLD: John Wiley & Sons Australia Ltd.
• Zimbardo, P. (2007). The Lucifer Effect : Understanding how good people turn evil. New York: Random House.
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Bibliography

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Psychology Discussion

Essay on socialization.

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Essay on Socialization!

Socialization is the process through which the individual learns to become an accepted member of the society. At birth the neonate is neither social nor unsocial. Because of this helplessness at birth he has to depend on other social beings for his care and welfare. As he grows in a social environment and in a social context, he develops various types of behaviour which are called social and gradually grows to become a social animal.

The interaction of the baby with his environment and particularly mother helps him in the above process. Thus the learning to adopt to the social norms, values and standards is called socialization.

The human organism is a byproduct of the society and social force. The manner in which the human child learns to become an accepted member of the society is called the socialization process. Anyone who does not accept or follow the dos and donots, rules and regulations, values and norms of the society is not called a socialised individual.

The socialization of the child takes place through action and reaction between the child and other individual members of the society. The child begins interaction with his mother first, then with his father and subsequently with other members of the family.

The process of socialization is quite complex. It involves the multiplicity of processes as it involves the multiplicity of social norms. It involves the various roles which the individual has to play in order to fulfil the expectations of the society. Not only the parental influence, and the influence of other adults but also the neighbourhood is of tremendous value in the socialization of the child.

Through the process of socialization the various values, codes, norms and mores of the society become a part of his personality, part of his personal values. When he accepts these willingly rather than as a matter of compulsion he is said to be socialized. The child’s behaviour is modified and remodified to conform to the expectations held by the members of the groups of which he is a member.

During the first three four years and before attending school the child is trained to meet the expectations of family members.

They teach him to follow the socially accepted behavioural patterns which are considered as good and reject unacceptable behavioural patterns which are considered as bad. But when he is admitted to a preschool or a nursery school or a primary school, he is also influenced by teachers and friends.

The child learns to adjust with a wider world of school teachers, class mates and play mates and a host of other persons. He learns the social norms, how to behave with the teachers and show respect to them, how to deal with the class mates. In this way as he grows and grows and reaches adulthood he comes across varied agents of socialization who mould his personality in the manner the society wants.

Not only the parental influence and the influence of the other adults also the neighbourhood is of tremendous value in the socialization of the child. Besides the effects of books, radio, TV and motion pictures are of tremendous value for the moral and social development of the child.

The child is socialized on the basis of his past and present experiences. Thus family, neighbourhood peers, playmates and classmates etc. mould the personality of the child according to the pattern of the society. Fundamentally socialization is possible through affiliation.

The early helplessness of the baby makes him dependent upon others. So he has to affiliate himself with others for his living. Love, comfort, respect, power, achievement and other secondary needs cannot be satisfied in isolation. Hence the child acquires many needs through social and affiliation learning which leads to socialization.

Major Features of the Process of Socialization :

The process of socialization is a continuous one. It continues from birth till death. Results of various experimental studies, observations of children in day-to-day life, interviews with parents, studies in different cultures taken together point out the major aspects of the process of socialization.

The dependency of the new born infant, the need for affiliation, the role of the reference group, the need for education and therefore admission to school, the effect of reward and punishment imposed by the parents, school and the society, delay in fulfilment of needs, desires and wishes, identification with the loved ones all have their respective roles in the socialization of the human infant.

The infant’s dependence upon the mother for food, care and nursing provides the essential condition for socialization of personality. But the help of reinforcement certain responses of the child are rewarded and certain other responses are not rewarded. Sometimes, the child is punished for not following the dos of the society. In this manner the dependent and helpless child is taught to be a member of the society.

The child also learns many values and traditions through imitation and incidental learning since parents do not always teach like a teacher. When a child sees that his mother is lying at the feet of God or Goddess he also does the same. When a child sees his mother showing her respect to a senior person by bowing her head she also learns to do the same.

Sears (1957) is of opinion that through dependence the process of identification develops. The desire to identify occurs when the child is given food and love and such reinforcements are periodically withdrawn so that the child will be rewarded by reproducing the mother’s behaviours.

The child also depends upon his parents and close family members for various informations about his surrounding and about the world at large. He also needs their help to clarify certain matters and to fulfil his curiosity. For this he has to obey them and follow what they say.

The need for affiliation also develops out of dependency. The desire to remain with others and be happy when one is in a group is an outcome of the helplessness of the child during early period. The desire to remain with others throughout one’s life has a direct link with the process of socialization.

Schachter (1959) found that isolation produces fear and affiliation reduces fear. Thus he concluded that persons with higher fear would affiliate more than those with low fears as through affiliation man tries to reduce his emotion of fear.

When a child grows up his socialization process is subject to the influence of outside agents of the society like the play group, teachers and peers. Now he becomes a member of several groups and clubs. Those groups which strongly influence the child are called the reference groups. The individual evaluates himself through the reference groups which serves as the standard for him.

New Comb (1943) while finding out the changes in the attitude of students that accompanied socialisation in a college observed the important role of reference group on socialisation. Sherif and Sherif (1964) also observe that like the family group, the reference groups influence the conduct of the individual.

The reference group serves as a norm, standard or model for the individual. The growing children and adolescents become a member of many groups and are influenced by the action, model ideal and values of such groups. A reference group serves as a standard for evaluation.

Out of the socialisation process the ‘self’ develops. The individual then learns to perceive himself and his self concept affects his social behaviour. A person perceives himself from three aspects i.e. from the cognitive, effective and behavioural components. His self concept becomes ultimately a source of motivation to him. The self concept develops out of the interaction of the individual with others.

When others say some one beautiful, sincere and intelligent, he develops a positive self concept and when people start saying negative things about one’s action and behaviour, he develops a negative self concept. A person who becomes regularly unsuccessful in examination perceives himself as academically poor. Thus the self concept develops through the process of social interaction and socialization.

When others say that he is an excellent boy he perceives himself as such and tries to repeat these characteristics in future which have brought him praise and reward. Those actions which bring him blame are given up and unlearned. A person who continuously become unsuccessful in an interview also develops negative self-image and inferiority complex.

The development of self therefore depends on continuous learning unlearning and releasing. Through the process of adjustment and readjustment the individual’s self is socialised.

Some have tried to compare the process of socialization with the procedures by which many human beings using raw materials construct automobiles. Many human beings interacting with the raw organism, the human infant, turn him to a socialized personality.

Nevertheless personality is not a mechanical by product of the society. Socialization is never a passive process and no personality is a mechanical by product of the society. A number of automobiles of similar type are produced using raw materials.

But no two human personalities are equal. Every personality is unique by itself. Every in the same family two brothers may have totally different personalities. One brother may have a very high social status while the other may be a delinquent and disgrace to the society.

Since no two personalities in the world are identically equal it would be erroneous to compare living human infants with the raw materials of automobiles which are dead materials.

When an infant undergoes the process of socialization he reacts in diverse ways. Sometimes he resists rules, regulations, traditions and customs of the society. At home, during training of feeding habits, there may be conflict between the child and the mother.

The child may resist to take certain types of good, to wear dresses of certain designs, he may like to go naked in summer, he may not like to follow certain traditions and customs which do not give him pleasure.

Sometimes a child may find it difficult to adjust with the demands and the needs of the society. He may find it difficult to control his emotions. If he is scolded by parents he is adviced to remain silent. He is not allowed to react. When he feels hungry he is not allowed to eat. He is allowed to eat only at a scheduled time and place.

Thus, the more rules and regulations he has to obey, the more disciplines, he has to follow, the more resistances are found. Since he has to meet a great deal of difficulty to conform to the expectations and norms of the groups he often resists conformity to social norms during infancy when it is mostly ‘id’.

But gradually when the ego develops, training of socialisation becomes stronger than the resistances and when he accepts the social values and norms as a matter of principle as his own values rather through compulsion, the conflict in the process of socialization is reduced and the person is said to be socialized.

The individual and society mutually respond to the process of socialization. The society tries to mould the individual through its rules, regulations, traditions and customs and the individual while trying to belong to the group, sometimes tries to modify the social standard as far as practicable.

A sense of belongingness helps one to feel secured and satisfied. Thus the process of socialisation helps one to develop a normal personality. One who is properly socialized, when he becomes a parent he undertakes the responsibility of socializing his own children and at this time, his attitude towards the prevalent social norms undergoes tremendous change.

With the change in the socio-cultural values and spirit of time, there is always a continuous change in the rules, regulations, standards, customs and traditions of the society. As a result, there is change in the socialisation of the human personality.

The socialization process is therefore never rigid but dynamic. It varies and changes from time to time and generation to generation. The parents, teachers and individuals have to adjust with the changing social customs and values and socialize their children accordingly.

They have to develop proper social attitudes and behaviours appropriate to his particular society. Otherwise there will be conflict due to generation gap. The child must behave in such a way which is approved by the group or society. Since the aim of socialization is to induce the individual to conform willingly to the ways of the society and the groups to which he belongs, parents and teachers should see that his personality is built up accordingly.

Otherwise in future there may be tremendous adjustment problems. Since socialization is a dynamic process a person who rigidly conforms to the rules and regulations of the society is not an ideal product of socialization.

A properly socialized person should be flexible and dynamic in approach to conform to the changing social standards of the society and culture. A person who is unable to adjust with this is therefore said to be unsocial or a social.

As previously indicated, the socialization practices change constantly. Social class has also an important role to play in this regard. Middle class mothers in comparison to working class mothers are more permissive towards the child’s expressed needs and wishes, are more equalitarian in their handling of the child and are less likely to use physical punishment.

Early learning experiences have a lasting impact on personality and socialization. In various studies of socialization process child psychologists have tried to investigate the effects of infant disciplines, child care programmes and post childhood discontinuities on adult personality. They have found that during the early years the parental influences on child is maximum and have powerful impact on socialization.

But during the later stage to reshape the unsatisfactory and socially inappropriate behaviours found in many adolescents, application of desocialization and resocialization processes are found essential.

Desocialization attempts to remove the previous attitudes and habits which are not conducive to proper socialization. Many had habits, antisocial and irresponsible, socially unacceptable behaviours can be reduced by this technique.

Resocialization on the other hand is a process by which the group induces a person to adopt one set of behaviour standards as a substitute for another. Sometimes after desocialization resocialization may be a necessary consequence. While removing the old values new values are to be substituted in their place.

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Understanding Socialization in Sociology

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Socialization is a process that introduces people to social norms and customs. This process helps individuals function well in society, and, in turn, helps society run smoothly. Family members, teachers, religious leaders, and peers all play roles in a person's socialization.

This process typically occurs in two stages: Primary socialization takes place from birth through adolescence, and secondary socialization continues throughout one's life. Adult socialization may occur whenever people find themselves in new circumstances, especially those in which they interact with individuals whose norms or customs differ from theirs.

The Purpose of Socialization

During socialization, a person learns to become a member of a group, community, or society. This process not only accustoms people to social groups but also results in such groups sustaining themselves. For example, a new sorority member gets an insider's look at the customs and traditions of a Greek organization. As the years pass, the member can apply the information she's learned about the sorority when newcomers join, allowing the group to carry on its traditions.

On a macro level, socialization ensures that we have a process through which the norms and customs of society are transmitted. Socialization teaches people what is expected of them in a particular group or situation; it is a form of social control .

Socialization has numerous goals for youth and adults alike. It teaches children to control their biological impulses, such as using a toilet instead of wetting their pants or bed. The socialization process also helps individuals develop a conscience aligned with social norms and prepares them to perform various roles.

The Socialization Process in Three Parts

Socialization involves both social structure and interpersonal relations. It contains three key parts: context, content and process, and results. Context, perhaps, defines socialization the most, as it refers to culture, language, social structures and one’s rank within them. It also includes history and the roles people and institutions played in the past. One's life context will significantly affect the socialization process. For example, a family's economic class may have a huge impact on how parents socialize their children.

Research has found that parents emphasize the values and behaviors most likely to help children succeed given their station in life. Parents who expect their children to work blue-collar jobs are more likely to emphasize conformity and respect for authority, while those who expect their children to pursue artistic, managerial, or entrepreneurial professions are more likely to emphasize creativity and independence.

Gender stereotypes also exert a strong influence on socialization processes. Cultural expectations for gender roles and gendered behavior are imparted to children through color-coded clothes and types of play. Girls usually receive toys that emphasize physical appearance and domesticity such as dolls or dollhouses, while boys receive playthings that involve thinking skills or call to mind traditionally male professions such as Legos, toy soldiers, or race cars. Additionally, research has shown that girls with brothers are socialized to understand that household labor is expected of them but not of their male siblings. Driving the message home is that girls tend not to receive pay for doing chores, while their brothers do .

Race also plays a factor in socialization. Since White people don't disproportionately experience police violence, they can encourage their children to know their rights and defend them when the authorities try to violate them. In contrast, parents of color must have what's known as "the talk" with their children, instructing them to remain calm, compliant, and safe in the presence of law enforcement.

While context sets the stage for socialization, the content and process constitute the work of this undertaking. How parents assign chores or tell their kids to interact with police are examples of content and process, which are also defined by the duration of socialization, those involved, the methods used, and the type of experience .

School is an important source of socialization for students of all ages. In class, young people receive guidelines related to behavior, authority, schedules, tasks, and deadlines. Teaching this content requires social interaction between educators and students. Typically, rules and expectations are both written and spoken, and student conduct is either rewarded or penalized. As this occurs, students learn behavioral norms suitable for school.

In the classroom, students also learn what sociologists describe as "hidden curricula." In her book "Dude, You're a Fag," sociologist C.J. Pasco revealed the hidden curriculum of gender and sexuality in U.S. high schools. Through in-depth research at a large California school, Pascoe revealed how faculty members and events like pep rallies and dances reinforce rigid gender roles and heterosexism. In particular, the school sent the message that aggressive and hypersexual behaviors are generally acceptable in White boys but threatening in Black ones. Though not an "official" part of the schooling experience, this hidden curriculum tells students what society expects of them based on their gender, race, or class background.

Results are the outcome of socialization and refer to the way a person thinks and behaves after undergoing this process. For example, with small children, socialization tends to focus on control of biological and emotional impulses, such as drinking from a cup rather than from a bottle or asking permission before picking something up. As children mature, the results of socialization include knowing how to wait their turn, obey rules, or organize their days around a school or work schedule. We can see the results of socialization in just about everything, from men shaving their faces to women shaving their legs and armpits.

Stages and Forms of Socialization

Sociologists recognize two stages of socialization: primary and secondary. Primary socialization occurs from birth through adolescence. Caregivers, teachers, coaches, religious figures, and peers guide this process.

Secondary socialization occurs throughout our lives as we encounter groups and situations that were not part of our primary socialization experience. This might include a college experience, where many people interact with members of different populations and learn new norms, values, and behaviors. Secondary socialization also takes place in the workplace or while traveling somewhere new. As we learn about unfamiliar places and adapt to them, we experience secondary socialization.

Meanwhile , group socialization occurs throughout all stages of life. For example, peer groups influence how one speaks and dresses. During childhood and adolescence, this tends to break down along gender lines. It is common to see groups of children of either gender wearing the same hair and clothing styles.

Organizational socialization occurs within an institution or organization to familiarize a person with its norms, values, and practices. This process often unfolds in nonprofits and companies. New employees in a workplace have to learn how to collaborate, meet management's goals, and take breaks in a manner suitable for the company. At a nonprofit, individuals may learn how to speak about social causes in a way that reflects the organization's mission.

Many people also experience anticipatory socialization at some point. This form of socialization is largely self-directed and refers to the steps one takes to prepare for a new role, position, or occupation. This may involve seeking guidance from people who've previously served in the role, observing others currently in these roles, or training for the new position during an apprenticeship. In short, anticipatory socialization transitions people into new roles so they know what to expect when they officially step into them.

Finally, forced socialization takes place in institutions such as prisons, mental hospitals, military units, and some boarding schools. In these settings, coercion is used to re-socialize people into individuals who behave in a manner fitting of the norms, values, and customs of the institution. In prisons and psychiatric hospitals, this process may be framed as rehabilitation. In the military, however, forced socialization aims to create an entirely new identity for the individual.

Criticism of Socialization

While socialization is a necessary part of society, it also has drawbacks. Since dominant cultural norms, values, assumptions, and beliefs guide the process, it is not a neutral endeavor. This means that socialization may reproduce the prejudices that lead to forms of social injustice and inequality.

Representations of racial minorities in film, television, and advertising tend to be rooted in harmful stereotypes. These portrayals socialize viewers to perceive racial minorities in certain ways and expect particular behaviors and attitudes from them. Race and racism influence socialization processes in other ways too. Research has shown that racial prejudices affect treatment and discipline of students . Tainted by racism, the behavior of teachers socializes all students to have low expectations for youth of color. This kind of socialization results in an over-representation of minority students in remedial classes and an under-representation of them in gifted class. It may also result in these students being punished more harshly for the same kinds of offenses that White students commit, such as talking back to teachers or coming to class unprepared.

While socialization is necessary, it's important to recognize the values, norms, and behaviors this process reproduces. As society's ideas about race, class, and gender evolve, so will the forms of socialization that involve these identity markers.

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Unit 4 – socialization.

Objectives:

At the end of this unit, students will be able to:

1.  Define socialization.

2.  Be able to identify agents of socialization and their impact on the development of the human individual.

3.  Understand some of the mechanisms that agents of socialization use to socialize and control behavior.

4.  Understand and analyze your own socialization with an eye toward identifying the social boxes you have adopted.

5.  Understand the importance of the socialization process to the process of social change.

Core Readings:

Steckley, John and Clark, Arthur (2007). Chapter Four: Socialization.

Commentary:

In this chapter, we get “sociologically serious” and get right down into the heart of society (and sociology for that matter) and take a look at socialization and the socialization process.

And what is the socialization process?

Well, the text authors define socialization as “a learning process; one that involves development or changes in the individual’s sense of self.” For a dry and relatively non-threatening textbook definition, this is fine as far as it goes. Unfortunately, the definition really doesn’t capture the full importance and significance of socialization, nor does it sweep across a broad enough canvas. Yes, socialization is about an individual’s “sense of self,” but it’s really much more than that. In fact, in the study of sociology, the process of socialization is really a big deal and any definition of it should capture the significance.  Given the importance of and significance of socialization, I believe we can better define socialization in the following way:

Socialization is the process by which the social order [1] is involuntarily and (if necessary) coercively transferred onto a clean and shiny newborn baby body and mind.

Now, if you think about it, that’s big and it takes the definition of socialization way beyond the notion of your own sense of self and makes it something that is much more defining of who you are. In this context, socialization becomes the process of molding and forming you into a shape suitable and acceptable to society. We might say that for a sociologist like me, socialization is the manufacturing process and you are the well oiled car engine or the mass produced manikin, well designed, appropriately manicured product, —a human being— fitted into a human society.

Now, being that this may be your first class in sociology, you may have a hard time accepting the idea that you are shaped and molded by a process of socialization in the same way a product is shaped and molded. After all, you are taught from birth that you are an individual personality with individual likes and dislikes and individual expressions in the world. There is, of course, a sense where we do express individual identity. However, our expression of individual identity is always done in the context of the rules and behaviors, mores, and folkways that we learn as part of our socialization process. That is, who we are is conditioned by the social order within which we are raised. It will help us to understand what I am talking about if we illustrate the process with an example.

As the text says, the process of socialization starts at birth. Socialization is initiated when agents of socialization, like the doctors and the nurses and your parents, quickly divide the baby into the two broad “categories of human being, “male” and “female.” The groups are immediately distinguished from each other. One group, the group with the vagina, is given a pink blanket while the other group, the group with the penis,  is given a blue blanket. Following the initial segregation (which continues on throughout the lifespan of the individual), the “boy” and the “girl” group are treated differently. Boys are trained to be “breadwinners,” while girls are primed for their reproductive roles. As documented over and over again by sociologists, each group has a markedly different life path and although in recent decades, there has been a “loosening” of the socialized gender roles (nowadays we see individuals stepping outside of their socialized roles, stay at home dads, moms in the workforce, etc.); nevertheless, the majority of women still bear and are primarily responsible for raising children while the men spend their pre-retirement life time in productive labor. It’s interesting however, that even when women go out into the workforce, they are often also expected to be the primary caregiver for the children as well working a “double day” in order to meet their obligations as mother over and above any financial obligations they may have.

The socialization process continues on in the home where parents become responsible for training the children in the ways of their gender and social class. Parents are, of course, a powerful force for socialization since not only do they generally talk to, treat, and even cuddle their children differently based on their gender, but they also begin the process of labor force socialization and subsequently, reinforce the efforts of the school system as well. For example, working class children are taught the value of punctuality and industriousness as well as the routines of the labor force. Middle class individuals are taught the value of long hours and competitive excellence. [2] Upper class individuals are taught the value of authority and free thinking along with the continual ideological reinforcement of the messages of their genetic, moral, or spiritual superiority (we’ll see more about this in our required assignment section this week).

At approximately the age of five, children are moved out of the home into “schools” where teachers then begin the twelve step process of “educating” (read enforcing) the social order. Once again, the type of socialization you receive depends in a large measure on your social class. Jean Anyon’s study in the Journal of Education is instructive [3] for the way he clearly documents differential socialization. Working class kids get trained one way and elite kids get trained another with the training being primarily designed to fit them into the productive roles (factory worker, middle class manager, elite CEO) that their “birth place” leads them to. Of course, teachers do not go it alone. After a certain age, the children themselves begin to enforce the social order. Around about the age of five or six; for example, children internalize and begin enforcing gender expectations by tittering, laughing, and sanctioning those individuals who step out of the narrow and prescriptive boxes of gender.

The whole process itself goes on for twelve or so years at which point the successful socialization of the individual is marked by a ritualized graduation ceremony where the newly minted “members of society” are passed out into the world where they will take on their productive (as in the case of men) or reproductive (as in the case of women) role.  Interestingly, by the time graduation occurs, nothing is hidden. The school system, and even the students themselves, are self conscious about, and take pride in, the fact that they are graduating into the work force of society. Interestingly, at that point, the values of the system are internalized and accepted to the point where the purpose of socialization no longer needs to be obscured.

And of course, the socialization process doesn’t stop at graduation. When you graduate school, the socialization process is taken over by the media and other “organizations of socialization” like the Freemason or the Shriners or the local chapter of the Better Business Bureau or the Trade Union or whatever. All these organizations are particularly powerful agents of socialization which work very hard to impose and reinforce specific world views and specific patterns of behavior and thought on the adult population. The media is a great example. As communications specialists (i.e., sociologists who study mass media) would tell us, the media is a powerful agent of socialization. Often, when we talk about media influence, we use the example of television games and violence, but for sociologists, it goes much deeper than this. As much as, perhaps more than parents and schools, the media is implicated in the construction of worldviews. The behavior of US media around the last Iraq war is fascinating in this regard (see additional reading section).

Anyway, the point here is not to go into the details of the socialization process. The point here is to emphasize that the process of socialization is what guarantees the replication of the social order from generation to generation. As each new baby enters society, that baby is taught by the agents of socialization how to think, act, and behave in accordance with the expectations of society. As noted above, within our current system, these expectations often revolve around how individuals will “fit” into the productive apparatus of society.

Now you may object to the definition of socialization as involuntary and you may balk at the strong statements of imposition of values that support the productive systems of society, but in fact, at least until your teenage years, socialization is involuntary, generally non-negotiable and powerfully imposed. Nobody asks you if you want to be a “boy” or a “girl” or if you want to go to school or if you want to learn math or reading or writing or whether or not you want to slave away for forty years in a factory or bear children or whatever. It is merely expected of you and you are punished and sanctioned if you do not comply. They make you be a boy and make you be a girl. They make you go to school and learn what the government thinks you should learn [4] and you simply cannot choose not to learn. If you try, socialization is enforced. Parents who keep their kids out of school will have to demonstrate they are still teaching school curriculum, else truancy laws come into effect; a boy that does not conform to gender expectations will be ridiculed and taunted and anybody that steps outside the social expectations will become the victim of ascending social sanctions (i.e., the social sanctions will get worse the longer the violations occur or the more serious they are). This is just the way it is.

Now, is the forced imposition of role, identity, and culture good or bad? Well, it depends on your perspective I suppose. Sigmund Freud, whose entire psychology is based on the premise that society engages in a sophisticated repression of primitive and aggressive sexual and instinctual energies would say yes it is good. He would say that if you didn’t repress the instincts, if you didn’t channel the primitive and instinctual energies into socially acceptable outlets, all hell and chaos would break loose. [5] His is a common perception based on some notion of Darwinian ascent from savagery and the basic irrationality of the human species. That is, Freud assumes we (and by “we”, I mean human beings) are primitive, sexual lunatics. Without repression and the controlling factor of socialization, according to Freud, our primitive instincts would boil to the surface leading us into anarchy and chaos. In this way, Freud justifies repressive socialization.

Of course, many people wouldn’t think about socialization in these terms or wouldn’t go so far as to justify repressive socialization by reference to questionable theories of instinctual madness. Freud had a peculiarly negative view of human nature and many wouldn’t go so far as Freud, preferring a more moderate stance. Still, most people, except maybe the Anarchists [6] out there (and interestingly, even they would have to socialize their children), would come down in favor of some form of socialization process. The reproduction of culture, the passing on of knowledge, even survival depends on the generation-to-generation reproduction of society. Socialization is what makes the social order go around. Babies are born into this world totally helpless and if we didn’t pass on culture to them, they’d die and eventually society would wink out of existence. So, even putting aside Freud’s questionable assumptions of human nature, we still need a socialization process. If we didn’t socialize and train our children, if we didn’t pass on the knowledge and wisdom of the older generation, we’d have to rebuild everything anew every generation and if you had to do that, only the simplest of social and physical orders would be possible. So there is definitely an argument to be made in favor of the socialization process. The socialization is quite literally the core process that enables us, as humans, to create a society over and above what Mother Nature has provided.

Nevertheless, despite the fact that we need a socialization process, we must not forget the fact that the social order does not exist sui generis , that it emerges out of the actions of individuals, that it is imposed, that we are not given a choice, and that there may be other ways of doings things outside of what is commonly accepted as normal social practice. In other words, we do have a right to question the social order and we do have a right to question society’s expectations and it would seem that more and more people are doing that. Ever since the sixties blew open the ridged and box like impositions of the social order, each generation has questioned and whittled away at barriers until the society we live in now is, when compared to the brutally repressed Viennese society which Freud made a scientific study of, nowhere near as rigid and authoritarian as it once was. But, that is North American culture. Even though we do enjoy more ability to question cultural programming and the imposition of the social order, not all countries share in this limited freedom. And there are still restrictions. Witness the ongoing resistance to gay marriage and the moral and legal force with which violations of socially expected reproductive roles are sanctioned.

So to summarize, socialization is the process by which the social order is involuntarily and, (if necessary), coercively transferred onto a clean and shiny newborn baby body and mind. It is the process by which the rules and expectations, the identities and behaviors seen as acceptable to society, are transferred from generation to generation. In the creation of society, it is a necessary process, though we also have to remember it is not a given and we can change it (though it does require significant effort).

In the final analysis, and as pointed out in section one of this course, it’s your actions that create and re-create society. The socialization process is a perfect example of this because it is in the actions of the agents of socialization (parents, the media, our schools, our peer groups, even ourselves) that the social world is re-created from generation to generation. As we can see, the process of socialization is the core process by which society is re-created and if we wish to change society and ourselves, then one of the first places we start is with the socialization process itself.

Additional Reading.

Pentagon, media agree on Iraq war censorship http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/mar2003/med-m05.shtml

Media Coverage of Iraq. http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/medindex.htm

Assignment.

This week’s assignment is a required assignment. You must hand this assignment in to receive credit.

In this section, we looked at the socialization process with specific reference to gender and the system of production of our society. I suggested that socialization is, among other things, the process whereby society imposes “the system” on fresh individuals. Within this socialization process, girls are primarily socialized to take on the role that reproduce the labor force while boys are socialized to become breadwinners (i.e., laborers, managers, executives, etc.) in the productive apparatus of society. This may sound outrageous to some, but nowhere is this made more clear than studies on what sociologists and educational specialists call the hidden curriculum.

Read the following article; Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work, JEAN ANYON (From: Journal of Education, Vol. 162, no. 1, Fall 1980. See http://www-scf.usc.edu/~clarkjen/Jean%20Anyon.htm) and note how different schools, which cater to different social classes, socialize different type of behaviors in their students. Notice; for example, how upper crust schools emphasize free thinking and train students to disagree and discuss. Notice how lower class schools emphasize routine and conformity and rule following.

Now, take a look at your own education and the schools you went to and identify the social class of your primary and secondary school. Was it working class, middle class, or upper class. Provide examples of the types of skills, values, and behaviors that were imposed upon you as a result of your socialization process and that therefore became part of your identity.

Study Questions:

Distinguish between primary and secondary socialization.

What is ‘determinism’? How does it compare with what sociology believes?

Briefly explain Thorndike’s ‘Law of Effect’. What are the two component parts of this theory?

Demonstrate an understanding of Freud’s concepts of the id, the ego, and the superego.

Briefly discuss Mead’s three stages of social development.

In your own words, describe the three different aspects of Cooley’s ‘looking-glass self’.

How might Gilligan’s analysis of self-image apply to the development of eating disorders in young women?

What is the ‘culture and personality’ school of thought?

What are the positive and negative aspects of peer socialization?

Why might teens be particularly susceptible to the influence of peer pressure?

Why is the mass media generally viewed as being a negative source of socialization?

How can education be a negative source of socialization?

Distinguish between the notions of narrow and broad-based socialization.

What is re-socialization? Provide at least two examples as to where it might occur in Canadian society.

What is a total institution? Why do they often use degradation ceremonies?

[1] I The social order is the sum total of all the things that humans have created for themselves over and above what is provided by nature. In this sense, the social order encompasses everything that is human, past and present. This would include things like our Material Culture (i.e., our clothing, our housing, the props for our leisure activity, etc.), our Ideal Culture (our stories and traditions, our educational system, and such), and our Institutions including our philosophical, religious, and scientific belief systems.

It is important to note that the social order is not a random manifestation of human activity. Humans think, plan, and create and their intentions (sometimes unconscious, sometimes conscious) manifest themselves in the social order around them. The social order is; thus, the result of the (more or less) coordinated activities of human beings. Of course, Power is a salient favor in the manifestation of the social order. People with more power and resources have more influence on the manifestation of reality and the social order than those who do not. A black South African living in a shack outside Johannesburg has limited ability to influence the social order of his country and is; thus, a victim of the social order already in place.

[2] For example, in the middle class area where I live, parents place much emphasis on training their kids to work from morning until night. They put them in multiple activities throughout the week, encourage constant study, and expose them to activities which reward competition and success while punishing those who are lazy and lose.

[3] See http://www-scf.usc.edu/~clarkjen/Jean%20Anyon.htm

[4] As you may or may not be aware, education is a governmental concern and curriculum is set and enforced at the level of government.

[5] Sigmund Freud Civilization and it’s Discontents.

[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism

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4.2 Explaining Socialization

Learning objective.

• Describe the theories of Cooley, Mead, Freud, Piaget, Kohlberg, Gilligan, and Erikson.

Because socialization is so important, scholars in various fields have tried to understand how and why it occurs, with different scholars looking at different aspects of the process. Their efforts mostly focus on infancy, childhood, and adolescence, which are the critical years for socialization, but some have also looked at how socialization continues through the life course. Let’s examine some of the major theories of socialization, which are summarized in Table 4.1 “Theory Snapshot” .

Table 4.1 Theory Snapshot

Sociological Explanations: The Development of the Self

One set of explanations, and the most sociological of those we discuss, looks at how the self , or one’s identity, self-concept, and self-image, develops. These explanations stress that we learn how to interact by first interacting with others and that we do so by using this interaction to gain an idea of who we are and what they expect of us.

Charles Horton Cooley

Among the first to advance this view was Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929), who said that by interacting with other people we gain an impression of how they perceive us. In effect, we “see” ourselves when we interact with other people, as if we are looking in a mirror when we are with them. Cooley (1902) developed his famous concept of the looking-glass self to summarize this process. Cooley said we first imagine how we appear to others and then imagine how they think of us and, more specifically, whether they are evaluating us positively or negatively. We then use these perceptions to develop judgments and feelings about ourselves, such as pride or embarrassment.

Sometimes errors occur in this complex process, as we may misperceive how others regard us and develop misguided judgments of our behavior and feelings. For example, you may have been in a situation where someone laughed at what you said, and you thought they were mocking you, when in fact they just thought you were being funny. Although you should have interpreted their laughter positively, you interpreted it negatively and probably felt stupid or embarrassed.

Charles Horton Cooley wrote that we gain an impression of ourselves by interacting with other people. By doing so, we “see” ourselves as if we are looking in a mirror when we are with them. Cooley developed his famous concept of the looking-glass self to summarize this process.

Helena Perez García – The Looking Glass – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Whether errors occur or not, the process Cooley described is especially critical during childhood and adolescence, when our self is still in a state of flux. Imagine how much better children on a sports team feel after being cheered for making a great play or how children in the school band feel after a standing ovation at the end of the band’s performance. If they feel better about themselves, they may do that much better next time. For better or worse, the reverse is also true. If children do poorly on the sports field or in a school performance and the applause they hoped for does not occur, they may feel dejected and worse about themselves and from frustration or anxiety perform worse the next time around.

Yet it is also true that the looking-glass-self process affects us throughout our lives. By the time we get out of late adolescence and into our early adult years, we have very much developed our conception of our self, yet this development is never complete. As young, middle-aged, or older adults, we continue to react to our perceptions of how others view us, and these perceptions influence our conception of our self, even if this influence is often less than was true in our younger years. Whether our social interaction is with friends, relatives, coworkers, supervisors, or even strangers, our self continues to change.

George Herbert Mead

Another scholar who discussed the development of the self was George Herbert Mead (1863–1931), a founder of the field of symbolic interactionism discussed in Chapter 1 “Sociology and the Sociological Perspective” . Mead’s (1934) main emphasis was on children’s playing, which he saw as central to their understanding of how people should interact. When they play, Mead said, children take the role of the other . This means they pretend to be other people in their play and in so doing learn what these other people expect of them. For example, when children play house and pretend to be their parents, they treat their dolls the way they think their parents treat them. In so doing, they get a better idea of how they are expected to behave. Another way of saying this is that they internalize the expectations other people have of them.

Younger children, said Mead, take the role of significant others , or the people, most typically parents and siblings, who have the most contact with them. Older children take on the roles of other people and learn society’s expectations as a whole. In so doing, they internalize the expectations of what Mead called the generalized other , or society itself.

This whole process, Mead wrote, involves several stages. In the imitation stage, infants can only imitate behavior without really understanding its purposes. If their parents rub their own bellies and laugh, 1-year-olds may do likewise. After they reach the age of 3, they are in the play stage. Here most of their play is by themselves or with only one or two other children, and much of it involves pretending to be other people: their parents, teachers, superheroes, television characters, and so forth. In this stage they begin taking the role of the other. Once they reach age 6 or 7, or roughly the time school begins, the games stage begins, and children start playing in team sports and games. The many players in these games perform many kinds of roles, and they must all learn to anticipate the actions of other members of their team. In so doing, they learn what is expected of the roles all team members are supposed to play and by extension begin to understand the roles society wants us to play, or to use Mead’s term, the expectations of the generalized other.

Mead felt that the self has two parts, the I and the me . The I is the creative, spontaneous part of the self, while the me is the more passive part of the self stemming from the internalized expectations of the larger society. These two parts are not at odds, he thought, but instead complement each other and thus enhance the individual’s contributions to society. Society needs creativity, but it also needs at least some minimum of conformity. The development of both these parts of the self is important not only for the individual but also for the society to which the individual belongs.

Social-Psychological Explanations: Personality and Cognitive and Moral Development

A second set of explanations is more psychological, as it focuses on the development of personality, cognitive ability, and morality.

Sigmund Freud and the Unconscious Personality

Whereas Cooley and Mead focused on interaction with others in explaining the development of the self, the great psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) focused on unconscious, biological forces that he felt shape individual personality. Freud (1933) thought that the personality consists of three parts: the id , ego , and superego . The id is the selfish part of the personality and consists of biological instincts that all babies have, including the need for food and, more generally, the demand for immediate gratification. As babies get older, they learn that not all their needs can be immediately satisfied and thus develop the ego, or the rational part of the personality. As children get older still, they internalize society’s norms and values and thus begin to develop their superego, which represents society’s conscience. If a child does not develop normally and the superego does not become strong enough, the individual is more at risk for being driven by the id to commit antisocial behavior.

Sigmund Freud believed that the personality consists of three parts: the id, ego, and superego. The development of these biological forces helps shape an individual’s personality.

Wikimedia Commons – public domain.

Freud’s basic view that an individual’s personality and behavior develop largely from within differs from sociology’s emphasis on the social environment. That is not to say his view is wrong, but it is to say that it neglects the many very important influences highlighted by sociologists.

Piaget and Cognitive Development

Children acquire a self and a personality but they also learn how to think and reason. How they acquire such cognitive development was the focus of research by Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget (1896–1980). Piaget (1954) thought that cognitive development occurs through four stages and that proper maturation of the brain and socialization were necessary for adequate development.

The first stage is the sensorimotor stage, in which infants cannot really think or reason and instead use their hearing, vision, and other senses to discover the world around them. The second stage is the preoperational stage, lasting from about age 2 to age 7, in which children begin to use symbols, especially words, to understand objects and simple ideas. The third stage is the concrete operational stage, lasting from about age 7 to age 11 or 12, in which children begin to think in terms of cause and effect but still do not understand underlying principles of fairness, justice, and related concepts. The fourth and final stage is the formal operational stage, which begins about the age of 12. Here children begin to think abstractly and use general principles to resolve various problems.

Recent research supports Piaget’s emphasis on the importance of the early years for children’s cognitive development. Scientists have found that brain activity develops rapidly in the earliest years of life. Stimulation from a child’s social environment enhances this development, while a lack of stimulation impairs it. Children whose parents or other caregivers routinely play with them and talk, sing, and read to them have much better neurological and cognitive development than other children (Riley, San Juan, Klinkner, & Ramminger, 2009). By providing a biological basis for the importance of human stimulation for children, this research underscores both the significance of interaction and the dangers of social isolation. For both biological and social reasons, socialization is not fully possible without extensive social interaction.

Kohlberg, Gilligan, and Moral Development

An important part of children’s reasoning is their ability to distinguish right from wrong and to decide on what is morally correct to do. Psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg (1927–1987) said that children develop their ability to think and act morally through several stages. In the preconventional stage, young children equate what is morally right simply to what keeps them from getting punished. In the conventional stage, adolescents realize that their parents and society have rules that should be followed because they are morally right to follow, not just because disobeying them leads to punishment. At the postconventional stage, which occurs in late adolescence and early adulthood, individuals realize that higher moral standards may supersede those of their own society and even decide to disobey the law in the name of these higher standards. If people fail to reach at least the conventional stage, Kohlberg (1969) said, they do not develop a conscience and instead might well engage in harmful behavior if they think they will not be punished. Incomplete moral development, Kohlberg concluded, was a prime cause of antisocial behavior.

Carol Gilligan believes that girls take personal relationships into account during their moral development.

Vladimir Pustovit – Girls – CC BY 2.0.

One limitation of Kohlberg’s research was that he studied only boys. Do girls go through similar stages of moral development? Carol Gilligan (1982) concluded that they do not. Whereas boys tend to use formal rules to decide what is right or wrong, she wrote, girls tend to take personal relationships into account. If people break a rule because of some important personal need or because they are trying to help someone, then their behavior may not be wrong. Put another way, males tend to use impersonal, universalistic criteria for moral decision making, whereas females tend to use more individual, particularistic criteria.

An example from children’s play illustrates the difference between these two forms of moral reasoning. If boys are playing a sport, say basketball, and a player says he was fouled, they may disagree—sometimes heatedly—over how much contact occurred and whether it indeed was enough to be a foul. In contrast, girls in a similar situation may decide in the interest of having everyone get along to call the play a “do-over.”

Erikson and Identity Development

We noted earlier that the development of the self is not limited to childhood but instead continues throughout the life span. More generally, although socialization is most important during childhood and adolescence, it, too, continues throughout the life span. Psychologist Erik Erikson (1902–1990) explicitly recognized this central fact in his theory of identity development (Erikson, 1980). This sort of development, he said, encompasses eight stages of life across the life course. In the first four stages, occurring in succession from birth to age 12, children ideally learn trust, self-control, and independence and also learn how to do tasks whose complexity increases with their age. If all this development goes well, they develop a positive identity, or self-image.

The fifth stage occurs in adolescence and is especially critical, said Erikson, because teenagers often experience an identity crisis . This crisis occurs because adolescence is a transition between childhood and adulthood: adolescents are leaving childhood but have not yet achieved adulthood. As they try to work through all the complexities of adolescence, teenagers may become rebellious at times, but most eventually enter young adulthood with their identities mostly settled. Stages 6, 7, and 8 involve young adulthood, middle adulthood, and late adulthood, respectively. In each of these stages, people’s identity development is directly related to their family and work roles. In late adulthood, people reflect on their lives while trying to remain contributing members of society. Stage 8 can be a particularly troubling stage for many people, as they realize their lives are almost over.

Erikson’s research helped stimulate the further study of socialization past adolescence, and today the study of socialization during the years of adulthood is burgeoning. We return to adulthood in Chapter 4 “Socialization” , Section 4.4 “Socialization Through the Life Course” and address it again in the discussion of age and aging in Chapter 12 “Aging and the Elderly” .

Key Takeaways

• Cooley and Mead explained how one’s self-concept and self-image develop.
• Freud focused on the need to develop a proper balance among the id, ego, and superego.
• Piaget wrote that cognitive development among children and adolescents occurs from four stages of social interaction.
• Kohlberg wrote about stages of moral development and emphasized the importance of formal rules, while Gilligan emphasized that girls’ moral development takes into account personal relationships.
• Erikson’s theory of identity development encompasses eight stages, from infancy through old age.

For Your Review

• Select one of the theories of socialization in this section, and write about how it helps you to understand your own socialization.
• Gilligan emphasized that girls take social relationships into account in their moral development, while boys tend to stress the importance of formal rules. Do you agree with her argument? Why or why not?

Cooley, C. H. (1902). Social organization . New York, NY: Scribner’s.

Erikson, E. H. (1980). Identity and the life cycle . New York, NY: Norton.

Freud, S. (1933). New introductory lectures on psycho-analysis . New York, NY: Norton.

Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women’s development . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Kohlberg, L. (1969). States in the development of moral thought and action . New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self, and society . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Piaget, J. (1954). The construction of reality in the child . New York, NY: Basic Books.

Riley, D., San Juan, R. R., Klinkner, J., & Ramminger, A. (2009). Intellectual development: Connecting science and practice in early childhood settings . St. Paul, MN: Redleaf Press.

Sociology Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Socialization — Stages of Socialization

Stages of Socialization

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Published: Feb 12, 2019

Words: 1987 | Pages: 4 | 10 min read

• Oral Stage.
• Anal Stage.
• Latency Stage.
• Adolescence Stage.

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Socialization in Context: Exploring Longitudinal Correlates of Mothers’ Value Messages of Compassion and Caution

Laura wray-lake.

Claremont Graduate University

Constance A. Flanagan

University of Wisconsin – Madison

Jennifer L. Maggs

The Pennsylvania State University

This study examined correlates of mothers’ value messages using mother and adolescent reports across three years ( N =1638 dyads). Two fundamental socialization dimensions were assessed: compassion messages (e.g., caring for others) and caution messages (e.g., being wary of others). Multilevel models revealed distinct between-person and within-person correlates for mothers’ compassion and caution messages. Individual differences in compassion messages were predicted by family context (e.g., mothers’ knowledge of friends and concerns for their child’s future) and neighborhood cohesion. Within-person effects demonstrated that compassion declined in concert with adolescents’ experiences of being bullied. Caution messages were predicted by mothers’ education levels, race/ethnicity, and marital status, and increased in relation to mothers’ concerns and perceptions that illegal substances were easily attainable in the community. Tests of age, period, and cohort effects unexpectedly revealed that longitudinal changes in compassion and caution were best explained by period effects. Consistent with new developments in value socialization theory, results suggest that mothers place emphasis on certain values based on their backgrounds, their children’s characteristics, and the broader social context.

Parents are primary socialization agents: In addition to their roles as relational partners and opportunity providers, parents are instructors who communicate values, norms, and rules to children ( Parke & Buriel, 2006 ). Recent value socialization theory argues that parenting strategies are altered by the child and situation and that socialization is content-specific ( Grusec, Goodnow, & Kuczynski, 2000 ). Given little empirical work in this area, we explored correlates of mothers’ value socialization messages of compassion and caution in a three-year longitudinal sample of mothers and adolescents. Compassion (e.g., caring for others) and caution (e.g., being wary of others) represent two fundamental value messages that mothers communicate to children regarding how to treat others ( Flanagan, 2003 ). We hypothesized that mothers’ emphasis on compassion and caution likely varies based on mothers’ background, adolescents’ age and gender, and adolescents’ peer, family, and neighborhood contexts.

Value Socialization: Process and Content

According to person-environment fit and value socialization theories, parents adapt strategies for raising children to the context and the child’s developmental stage ( Belsky, 1984 ; Dix, 1992 ; Grusec & Goodnow, 1994 ). Although socialization processes likely differ depending on the specific values being communicated ( Boehnke, 2001 ; Knafo & Schwartz, 2003 ), only a small body of work has examined value socialization content (e.g., Kohn, 1995 ; Pinquart & Silbereisen, 2004 ), and these link parents’ and children’s values without attention to communication about values.

Grounded in the theoretical tenets that value socialization processes are context-dependent and content-specific, we examined individual differences and dynamic change in the values mothers emphasize about how one should treat others. Compassion value messages communicate that all people should be treated with respect and kindness; caution messages urge guardedness lest others take undue advantage ( Flanagan, 2003 ). Socializing compassion is conceptually similar to constructs of other-oriented induction ( Hoffman, 1977 ) and care reasoning ( Gilligan, 1982 ) that sensitize children to the concerns of others and promote prosocial behavior ( Eisenberg & Morris, 2004 ), moral reasoning ( Pratt, Skoe, & Arnold, 2004 ), and political views ( Flanagan & Tucker, 1999 ). Caution messages stem from strategies of ‘cocooning,’ shielding children from negative influences, and ‘prearming’ them to defend themselves ( Goodnow, 1997 ). For example, research on ethnic–racial socialization shows that ethnic minority parents brace children to be wary of others’ prejudices ( Hughes et al., 2006 ). Such cautions reflect a healthy skepticism, alerting children that sometimes guardedness about others is warranted ( Flanagan, 2003 ). The messages reflect distinct content, yet may not be mutually exclusive, as both are important for learning how to navigate complex interactions with others ( Flanagan, 2003 ).

Mother, Child, and Contextual Correlates

Parenting is multiply determined by parent, child, and contextual characteristics ( Belsky, 1984 ). Thus, we examined mother demographics, child characteristics, as well as peer, family, and neighborhood factors as contextual correlates of compassion and caution messages.

Mother Demographic Characteristics

Socioeconomic status (SES) plays a role in parenting behaviors; more educated parents tend to be more authoritative and communicative ( Conger & Dogan, 2007 ). Previous work linking social class with compassion and caution is lacking. Higher SES mothers may report more compassion and caution messages as they tend to be more communicative. Alternatively, given its social desirability, compassion may be highly endorsed by all groups. Mothers raising children in less privileged circumstances may employ more pre-arming, urging greater caution.

Diverse family forms have been understudied with respect to value socialization. If two parents working together is more effective ( Boehnke, 2001 ), divorced parents may have less influence ( Bengtson, Bilbarz, & Roberts, 2002 ). Alternatively, when fathers are not present, mothers may intensify all communication or urge more caution. Consistent with ethnic-racial socialization research ( Hughes et al., 2006 ), we hypothesized that African-American mothers would report greater caution messages than White mothers.

Child Characteristics

Socialization goals change as children develop ( Grusec & Goodnow, 1994 ) and, for several reasons, mothers’ compassion and caution messages may decrease as adolescents age. First, there may be fewer communication opportunities as adolescents spend more time away from parents ( Larson, Richards, Moneta, Holmbeck, & Duckett, 1996 ). Second, as older adolescents have had more years to internalize values, mothers may take a softer approach. Thus, we hypothesize a linear age-related decline in mothers’ value messages.

Parents are more likely to discuss emotions and relationships with daughters than sons ( Kochanska & Thompson, 1997 ), which may facilitate compassion. Yet in one study, boys reported hearing more moral value messages ( Pratt, Hunsberger, Pancer, & Alisat, 2003 ). We expected that mothers of daughters would report more emphasis on compassion than mothers of sons. Given that parents of daughters are generally more restrictive ( Madsen, 2008 ), we expected mothers of daughters to emphasize caution more than mothers of sons.

Peer, Family, and Neighborhood Contexts

Peer bullying has become common, especially during middle school and may provide a “teachable moment.” Specifically, we expected that mothers would urge greater caution in response to adolescents’ reports of being bullied. Regarding compassion, mothers may deemphasize helping others; alternatively, mothers may stick to the Golden Rule to treat others “as you want to be treated.”

Mothers’ value messages also may vary based on knowledge about her child’s friends, concerns for the child, and the family’s religiosity. First, parents who know more about children’s activities tend to be more successful in socialization ( Grusec, 2002 ). Familiarity with the child’s friends may bolster compassion and decrease caution messages unless mothers are concerned about the peers’ characteristics or behaviors, in which case mothers may urge more caution. Second, mothers’ concerns for children may be a proxy for socialization goals, and concerned mothers should be more likely to talk with their children. We hypothesized that maternal concerns would predict more compassion and caution messages. Third, religiosity is positively associated with compassion ( Sprecher & Fehr, 2005 ), yet the role of maternal socialization remains unspecified. We expected a positive association between religiosity and compassion messages.

Cohesive neighborhoods where residents are mutually supportive facilitate prosocial interactions ( Parke & Buriel, 2006 ; Putnam, 2000 ). In contrast, risky neighborhoods where substance use is common likely engender parent vigilance. We hypothesized that neighborhood cohesion would positively predict mothers’ compassion and negatively predict caution messages and that ease of attaining substances would positively predict caution messages.

Separate longitudinal multilevel models examined between- and within-person predictors. The former reflect relatively stable individual differences and the latter dynamic change in a characteristic or context relating to change in socialization messages. A priori predictions primarily related to level differences. Where possible, we used adolescent data to eliminate shared method variance of mothers’ reports.

In a three-year longitudinal study of adolescents and parents, adolescents were surveyed annually in 90 5 th – 12 th grade social studies classrooms across eight school districts in the northeast and midwest. Districts reflected regional diversity in ethnicity, size, and urbanicity. Adolescents and parents actively consented to participate, resulting in a wave 1 adolescent response rate of 79% ( N = 2558). At wave 2, researchers surveyed adolescents who participated in wave 1 and were still in the school system, and recruited new students, with a 54% response rate ( N = 2644). At wave 3, only prior participants were sought, resulting in a 65% response rate ( N = 1933).

Parents/guardians of participating adolescents were recruited via mailed surveys. Two were mailed to each home; parent participants were compensated $20. No other follow-ups or incentives encouraged participation. Parents were similarly recruited annually, regardless of previous participation; new parents were added at each wave. In most cases, only one parent (84% mothers) participated. Wave 1 response rate for one parent per family was 40%, and was similar for waves 2 and 3 (44% and 41%).

We used data from 1638 biological or adoptive mothers (26 were stepmothers, 8 were guardians) who participated in at least one wave. Due to low participation rates ( n = 627 at any wave, n = 57 across waves), father data were not used. The sample was socioeconomically diverse, with 25% reporting family income lower than $30,000 and 5% reporting more than $100,000; 85% of mothers were White, 10% Black or African American, and 5% of another ethnicity. Adolescents’ age ranged from 10 to 19 at wave 1 ( M = 13.13, SD = 2.03), and 55% were female.

Most mothers (56.4%) completed one wave, 27.8% completed two, and 15.8% completed three. Appendix A summarizes missing data patterns and attrition analyses. To reduce bias to inferences due to missing data, multiple imputation was employed using SAS PROC MI. Forty datasets were imputed; relative efficiency estimates for all multilevel models were above 98%, demonstrating imputation acceptability. Descriptive statistics were derived from an expectation maximization (EM) dataset, which provides excellent maximum likelihood estimates for descriptive parameters ( Graham, 2009 ).

We measured the extent to which mothers agreed that they communicated each value message, and factor analysis revealed two distinct factors. Response options were Strongly Disagree (1) to Strongly Agree (5). Figure 1 shows means plotted by wave and age. Six items measured mothers’ value messages of compassion. Items began with “I tell my children…”; content was: “respect people no matter who they are,” “not to judge people before you get to know them,” “treat everyone equally,” “stand up for others, not just yourself,” “be helpful to others, especially the less fortunate,” and “be aware of other people’s feelings” (α =.77, .74, .78). Five items measured mothers’ value messages of caution. Items began with the same stem as above; content was: “people sometimes take advantage of you,” “you can’t always trust people,” “stay away from the wrong crowd,” “be careful who you are kind to”, and “be careful in dealing with people” (α = .64, .63, .71). Items were adapted from Katz and Hass (1987) .

Mothers reported education levels using a 5-point scale: Didn’t finish high school (1), High school diploma or GED (2), Some training after high school or community college degree (3), Bachelor’s or 4-year degree (4), and Master’s, Ph.D. or professional degree (5). Mothers’ marital status was dichotomized, Married (1) or Other (0); other statuses included divorced or separated, single, and widowed. Mothers’ race was dummy-coded into Black and Other Minority , with White as the reference. Comparisons focused on Black versus White participants.

Bullying was measured in the first two waves by asking adolescents whether they or a friend had been bullied in school, Yes (1) or No (0). At wave 3, adolescents were asked if any friends had been bullied in school, and then if it happened to them. An affirmative response to either question was coded into one variable to mirror previous waves. Four items measured mothers’ knowledge of friends, including how well mothers knew the child’s best friend, best friend’s parents, most of the child’s friends, and most parents of the child’s friends. Response options were Not at All (1), Somewhat (2), and Very Well (3) (α = .83, .87, .81). Mothers’ concerns for their child included six items assessing concerns about getting involved with the wrong crowd, violence and drugs in the community, getting into a good college, getting a job that pays well, and finding steady work. Response options were Not at All Concerned (1), Somewhat Concerned (2), and Very Concerned (3) (α = .77, .76, .76). Family religiosity was measured by mothers’ report of whether they considered their family religious, Yes (1) or No (0).

Adolescents reported on neighborhood cohesion using eight items, such as people in the neighborhood feel safe, trust each other, and work together (α = .85, .86, .88). Mothers reported ease of attaining substances in the community using three items about whether adolescents could get access to cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs if desired (α =.93, .93, .95). Response options for both scales ranged from Strongly Disagree (1) to Strongly Agree (5).

Analytic Plan

Separate unconditional growth models were estimated using SAS PROC MIXED to understand how mothers’ compassion and caution messages changed over time. Our accelerated longitudinal/cohort-sequential design (see Figure 1 ) reveals developmental patterns across 10 years with data for only three consecutive years ( Raudenbush & Chan, 1992 ). Given this complexity, changes over time could represent age, period, or cohort effects, which we estimated using multilevel models with waves of data nested within individuals (see Appendix B for details). After selecting best-fitting growth models for compassion and caution messages, predictors were simultaneously entered into the two models to examine unique effects. Mothers’ education, marital status, and race, adolescent gender, and family religiosity were level-2 (time-invariant) predictors. All other variables were entered as level-1 (within-person) and level-2 (between-person) predictors.

Table 1 displays means and correlations among longitudinal variables. Compassion and caution showed small, positive correlations across waves (range .07 to .13, p ’s < .001).

Means and Bivariate Correlations for Longitudinal Study Variables

Note . Means (SDs) and correlations come from the EM dataset.

Knowledge = Mothers’ Knowledge of Friends. Concerns = Mothers’ Concerns. Cohesion = Neighborhood Cohesion. Ease of SU = Ease of Attaining Illegal Substances in Community.

Age, Period, and Cohort

Three separate models estimated combinations of age, period, and cohort effects for compassion and caution messages, respectively (see Appendix B). A period only model was selected as most parsimonious for compassion messages: Mothers’ compassion messages declined consistently across the three occasions, regardless of adolescents’ age or age cohort, a pattern consistent with means in Figure 1a . The most parsimonious model for mothers’ caution messages was period and age: Mothers’ caution increased at wave 2 and also showed linear age-related decline.

Full Models

Period effects remained significant and mothers’ compassion messages decreased between wave 1 and later waves (see Table 2 ). Neither mother nor child characteristics predicted compassion messages. Adolescents’ experiences of bullying predicted within-person change in mothers’ compassion messages: On occasions when adolescents reported that they or their friends were bullied, mothers de-emphasized compassion. Mothers with more knowledge of children’s friends reported more compassion messages. Mothers with greater concerns and more family religiosity reported greater compassion messages. Within-person effects for family context were not significant. Regarding neighborhood context, only the between-person effect of neighborhood cohesion positively predicted compassion messages: When adolescents reported more cohesion mothers reported more compassion messages.

Full Multilevel Models of Correlates for Mothers' Compassion and Caution Messages

Note . Linear age centered at age 14.

Mothers’ caution messages increased at wave 2 and declined marginally at wave 3, yet the age-related decline was no longer significant (see Table 2 ). As expected, social class, race, family structure, and gender predicted caution messages: Mothers who were less educated, Black, and unmarried emphasized greater caution. Mothers of daughters reported greater caution messages. Experiencing bullying was not associated with caution messages. Regarding family context, neither mothers’ knowledge nor religiosity predicted caution messages. However, both between- and within-person effects were found for mothers’ concerns for the child: On average, more concerned mothers urged greater caution and, as mothers’ concerns increased, caution messages correspondingly increased. Within-person, when mothers’ felt it was easier to obtain alcohol, cigarettes, or drugs in the community, caution messages correspondingly increased. Neighborhood cohesion was not associated with caution messages.

Complex longitudinal models with multiple predictors and reporters were tested to understand mothers’ value socialization messages. Unique predictors emerged for mothers’ compassion and caution messages: Whereas family context primarily predicted compassion, demographic characteristics predicted caution messages.

Advancements in Socialization Research

Past research has largely considered associations between parents’ and adolescents’ personal values a proxy for socialization ( Boehnke, 2001 ); we add precision by focusing on the value content that mothers communicate. Results suggest that value socialization is both context-dependent and content-specific. Results from within-person analyses revealed ways that mothers dynamically adapt value messages over time: Compassion messages changed in concert with adolescents’ experiences of bullying and caution with changes in mothers’ concerns and perceived ease of obtaining substances. Despite modest effect sizes, dynamic relationships with compassion messages were particularly intriguing, given arguments that parental socialization of moral development is rather inflexible and socially desirable ( Kuczynski & Grusec, 1997 ). Compassion messages were sensitive to mothers’ concerns about the child, knowledge of children’s friends, children’s experiences of bullying, and reports of neighborhood cohesion. In contrast, predictors of caution messages were less fluid; Black, working-class, and unmarried mothers communicated more caution across time. These demographic characteristics are proxies for contexts that demand more cocooning.

As suggested by their positive, albeit small correlation, compassion and caution messages are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Associations may result from shared method variance among mother reports and suggest a common factor of maternal communication. Items in both measures urge adolescents to pay attention to and be aware of other people. Future research should examine how compassion and caution messages work in concert to influence adolescents’ values and behaviors.

Period, Not Age

Despite age-related hypotheses, we concluded based on careful tests of age, period, and cohort that period effects best explained the longitudinal changes: Value messages changed in the same way over time for mothers regardless of adolescents’ age. Patterns could reflect measurement artifacts (e.g., regression to the mean, practice effects). Period effects also call for contemplating the historical milieu, although explanations must be generated post hoc . Data were collected shortly after the September 11 th , 2001 terrorist attack on the U.S. which may have sparked family conversations about compassion and caution toward others. In developmental research, age effects need to be rigorously evaluated against rival hypothesis of period and cohort effects ( Raudenbush & Chan, 1992 ).

Mother and Child Characteristics

More vulnerable groups may espouse greater caution messages: Here they were emphasized among less educated, unmarried, and African American mothers. Smith (1997) has referred to “groups at the periphery” of society who typically report lower levels of trust in others. Consistent with racial socialization literature ( Hughes et al., 2006 ), Black mothers were more likely to urge caution, warning children to be careful and that people aren’t always trustworthy. Future research should identify characteristics of families who face similar challenges in raising children that may reflect a common need to pre-arm them ( Goodnow, 1997 ). This interpretation is consistent with the greater caution messages reported by mothers of daughters; no similar gender of child effect was found for messages of compassion. Mothers may worry more about daughters’ safety and thus offer more verbal strategies for daughters’ protection.

Peer Family and Neighborhood Contexts

Strikingly, adolescent reports of themselves or friends being bullied predicted within-person change in mothers’ compassion messages. Although a small effect needing replication, this suggests that mothers may limit compassion communication when adolescents experience run-ins with bullies. Unexpectedly, being bullied did not prompt greater caution messages. Perhaps increased vigilance may not necessarily help one avoid bullies; some evidence suggests that social fear is related to increased victimization ( Rubin, Coplan, & Bowker, 2009 ). Future studies should tease apart bullying experiences of adolescents and their friends.

As hypothesized, mothers with greater knowledge of children’s friends reported greater compassion messages. Parental knowledge has wide-ranging implications for adolescent outcomes, yet few studies examine the role of knowledge in value socialization. Parental knowledge may facilitate adolescents’ internalization of socialization messages, particularly when children voluntarily disclose information, as disclosure suggests a positive parent-child relationship ( Grusec, 2002 ).

Mothers’ concerns positively related to compassion and caution messages. The construct captured various worries that parents have for children from negative peer influence to future jobs. Concerns may prompt maternal caution messages, an idea supported by within- and between-person effects. Both compassion and caution messages prepare children for interactions with others; these communications were heightened for more concerned mothers. High concerns may be tapping into overprotection or maternal anxiety, or could reflect anxieties of adolescents, who may initiate conversations about values by communicating concerns to parents ( Parke & Buriel, 2006 ).

As expected, family religiosity was positively associated with compassion messages. Compassion messages may be bolstered by religious teachings. Religious connections may also offer supportive bonds with others that encourage mothers to view humanity positively and thus communicate compassion to children.

Neighborhood cohesion was related to greater compassion messages, a finding strengthened by our reliance on adolescent reports. Positive bonds with others may engender feelings of trust and connectedness, and thus reflect social capital ( Putnam, 2000 ). The within-person association of ease of attaining substances on caution messages suggests that mothers may adapt messages with shifting perceptions of neighborhood risk. When risks to adolescents heighten, mothers likewise may respond by heightening caution messages.

Limitations and Conclusions

Several limitations are noteworthy. Fathers were not studied, leaving unknown whether fathers’ value messages are determined by the same factors. Potential correlates were unmeasured, such as mothers’ own values and parenting style. Internal reliability for caution messages was low, potentially explaining small effect sizes and unsupported hypotheses regarding caution. In using multiple imputation, we assumed data were missing at random (MAR); the extent of violations to this assumption cannot be fully known. Although within-person effects give some insights into co-occurrence of factors, we did not test causal determinants. Finally, it was beyond the scope of our study to link value socialization messages to adolescents’ values and behaviors, but this is an important next step.

This study offered new empirical information about individual differences in mothers’ value messages and insight into adolescent experiences and contexts that correspond with dynamic change in value messages. Our findings of different correlates associated with the two types of value messages suggest that mothers’ communication of certain values may be motivated by different factors and thus, parenting processes may vary by content and context. Despite limitations, this study empirically advances contextual perspectives on parenting and content-specific approaches to value socialization ( Belsky, 1984 ; Grusec et al., 2000 ). Further examining contextual influences on socialization messages may bring important insights into contextual and cultural variations in parenting and adolescent development. Developmental scientists have only reached the tip of the iceberg in studying the exciting theme of bidirectional, transactional developmental processes.

Acknowledgments

Data collection was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse [R01 DA13434; PI Constance Flanagan], and the first author’s time was supported by a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse [F31 DA024543]. We thank Ann C. Crouter, Wayne Osgood, and John Graham for comments on previous drafts, and we are grateful to the adolescents and parents who participated in the study.

Publisher's Disclaimer: The following manuscript is the final accepted manuscript. It has not been subjected to the final copyediting, fact-checking, and proofreading required for formal publication. It is not the definitive, publisher-authenticated version. The American Psychological Association and its Council of Editors disclaim any responsibility or liabilities for errors or omissions of this manuscript version, any version derived from this manuscript by NIH, or other third parties. The published version is available at www.apa.org/pubs/journals/dev .

A longer version of the manuscript was part of the first author’s doctoral dissertation, and portions were presented as a poster at the meeting of the National Council on Family Relations, San Francisco, California in 2009.

Contributor Information

Laura Wray-Lake, Claremont Graduate University.

Constance A. Flanagan, University of Wisconsin – Madison.

Jennifer L. Maggs, The Pennsylvania State University.

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• How to write a descriptive essay | Example & tips

How to Write a Descriptive Essay | Example & Tips

Published on July 30, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on August 14, 2023.

A descriptive essay gives a vivid, detailed description of something—generally a place or object, but possibly something more abstract like an emotion. This type of essay , like the narrative essay , is more creative than most academic writing .

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Descriptive essay topics, tips for writing descriptively, descriptive essay example, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about descriptive essays.

When you are assigned a descriptive essay, you’ll normally be given a specific prompt or choice of prompts. They will often ask you to describe something from your own experience.

• Describe a place you love to spend time in.
• Describe an object that has sentimental value for you.

You might also be asked to describe something outside your own experience, in which case you’ll have to use your imagination.

• Describe the experience of a soldier in the trenches of World War I.
• Describe what it might be like to live on another planet.

Sometimes you’ll be asked to describe something more abstract, like an emotion.

If you’re not given a specific prompt, try to think of something you feel confident describing in detail. Think of objects and places you know well, that provoke specific feelings or sensations, and that you can describe in an interesting way.

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

The key to writing an effective descriptive essay is to find ways of bringing your subject to life for the reader. You’re not limited to providing a literal description as you would be in more formal essay types.

Make use of figurative language, sensory details, and strong word choices to create a memorable description.

Use figurative language

Figurative language consists of devices like metaphor and simile that use words in non-literal ways to create a memorable effect. This is essential in a descriptive essay; it’s what gives your writing its creative edge and makes your description unique.

Take the following description of a park.

This tells us something about the place, but it’s a bit too literal and not likely to be memorable.

If we want to make the description more likely to stick in the reader’s mind, we can use some figurative language.

Here we have used a simile to compare the park to a face and the trees to facial hair. This is memorable because it’s not what the reader expects; it makes them look at the park from a different angle.

You don’t have to fill every sentence with figurative language, but using these devices in an original way at various points throughout your essay will keep the reader engaged and convey your unique perspective on your subject.

Use your senses

Another key aspect of descriptive writing is the use of sensory details. This means referring not only to what something looks like, but also to smell, sound, touch, and taste.

Obviously not all senses will apply to every subject, but it’s always a good idea to explore what’s interesting about your subject beyond just what it looks like.

Even when your subject is more abstract, you might find a way to incorporate the senses more metaphorically, as in this descriptive essay about fear.

Choose the right words

Writing descriptively involves choosing your words carefully. The use of effective adjectives is important, but so is your choice of adverbs , verbs , and even nouns.

It’s easy to end up using clichéd phrases—“cold as ice,” “free as a bird”—but try to reflect further and make more precise, original word choices. Clichés provide conventional ways of describing things, but they don’t tell the reader anything about your unique perspective on what you’re describing.

Try looking over your sentences to find places where a different word would convey your impression more precisely or vividly. Using a thesaurus can help you find alternative word choices.

• My cat runs across the garden quickly and jumps onto the fence to watch it from above.
• My cat crosses the garden nimbly and leaps onto the fence to survey it from above.

However, exercise care in your choices; don’t just look for the most impressive-looking synonym you can find for every word. Overuse of a thesaurus can result in ridiculous sentences like this one:

• My feline perambulates the allotment proficiently and capers atop the palisade to regard it from aloft.

An example of a short descriptive essay, written in response to the prompt “Describe a place you love to spend time in,” is shown below.

Hover over different parts of the text to see how a descriptive essay works.

On Sunday afternoons I like to spend my time in the garden behind my house. The garden is narrow but long, a corridor of green extending from the back of the house, and I sit on a lawn chair at the far end to read and relax. I am in my small peaceful paradise: the shade of the tree, the feel of the grass on my feet, the gentle activity of the fish in the pond beside me.

My cat crosses the garden nimbly and leaps onto the fence to survey it from above. From his perch he can watch over his little kingdom and keep an eye on the neighbours. He does this until the barking of next door’s dog scares him from his post and he bolts for the cat flap to govern from the safety of the kitchen.

With that, I am left alone with the fish, whose whole world is the pond by my feet. The fish explore the pond every day as if for the first time, prodding and inspecting every stone. I sometimes feel the same about sitting here in the garden; I know the place better than anyone, but whenever I return I still feel compelled to pay attention to all its details and novelties—a new bird perched in the tree, the growth of the grass, and the movement of the insects it shelters…

Sitting out in the garden, I feel serene. I feel at home. And yet I always feel there is more to discover. The bounds of my garden may be small, but there is a whole world contained within it, and it is one I will never get tired of inhabiting.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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The key difference is that a narrative essay is designed to tell a complete story, while a descriptive essay is meant to convey an intense description of a particular place, object, or concept.

Narrative and descriptive essays both allow you to write more personally and creatively than other kinds of essays , and similar writing skills can apply to both.

If you’re not given a specific prompt for your descriptive essay , think about places and objects you know well, that you can think of interesting ways to describe, or that have strong personal significance for you.

The best kind of object for a descriptive essay is one specific enough that you can describe its particular features in detail—don’t choose something too vague or general.

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Concepts of Socialization, Essay Example

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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.

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Socialization

Introduction, general texts and overviews: childhood in cultural context.

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Socialization by Bambi Chapin , Christine El Ouardani , Kathleen Barlow LAST REVIEWED: 26 September 2018 LAST MODIFIED: 21 January 2016 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199766567-0133

Socialization refers to the process through which people develop culturally patterned understandings, behaviors, values, and emotional orientations. The meaning of the term overlaps with “enculturation” (the process through which children first internalize culture), “acculturation” (the process through which people adopt new cultural models and ways of behaving), and “subject formation” (the process through which subjectivity is shaped). Although much of the literature on socialization has focused on childhood and adolescence, the development and socialization of the individual continues throughout the life course—a life course in which stages such as childhood, adolescence, and adulthood are themselves culturally variable. Early work on the topic of socialization attended to what was done to novices in order to mold their behavior and instill cultural beliefs and values. More recent work has recognized that socialization is an active process through which children and other novices develop particular patterns of thinking, behaving, and feeling in interaction with others. In this process, novices are active agents, interpreting, developing responses, and pursuing their own goals, although this work is not necessarily done consciously. The interactions through which people are socialized may occur as part of marked rituals, structured institutional involvement, or informal everyday activities. They may produce outcomes that socializers desire, but this is not always the case. Recent work has also emphasized the way in which these socializing interactions are historically situated within changing social, economic, and political processes. While anthropologists have done much work investigating and conceptualizing socialization as a process that varies across cultural contexts, developmental psychologists, educators, and sociologists—some of whom are included in this article—have also contributed to this effort. In what follows, significant works on socialization within anthropology are grouped according to central themes. Issues of gender, race/ethnicity, and class are addressed in many of the texts and cut across thematic groupings. Some of the authors of the texts included here would not necessarily position themselves as studying “socialization”; however, they all provide important accounts of how people are shaped through interaction in a necessarily social world.

While there are no significant comprehensive texts that review the anthropological literature or approaches to socialization, there are several recent overviews of anthropological work on children and childhood, including Lancy 2008 , Montgomery 2009 , and Schwartzman 2001 . Other work such as Shweder, et al. 2009 documents the diversity in children’s lives across the world. Examining these lives in diverse contexts has long been a focus of ethnographic work, as Levine 2007 documents and discusses in its relationship with theories from developmental psychology. Such cross-cultural work offers a more comprehensive view of the potential paths of human development and its cultural shaping, as described in work by both anthropologists (in LeVine and New 2008 ) and psychologists (in Göncü 1999 ). Other anthropological work on children, such as that included in Stephens 1995 has focused on the political dimensions of children’s lives. Recent anthropological work with children and youth has increasingly recognized children as cultural actors and agents in their own rights, something Montgomery 2009 highlights. In addition to these general texts on childhood, there are texts that focus on specific aspects of socialization included under more focused sections below. One of these is Duranti, et al. 2012 , which presents work within the field of language socialization (cited under Language Socialization ). Another is Konner 2010 (cited under Perspectives from Biological Anthropology ), which provides an overview of the evolutionary dimensions of human development as responsive to social interaction. The books in the Childhood Studies series from Rutgers University Press and the listings in the Oxford Bibliography in Childhood Studies are excellent resources for further work on children, youth, and childhood. The Anthropology of Children and Youth Interest Group of the American Anthropological Association may also serve as a resource and reflects emergent interest in children and youth.

Anthropology of Children and Youth Interest Group .

This interest group of the American Anthropological Association was formed in 2007, bringing together anthropologists from a range of subdisciplines whose work focuses on children and youth.

Childhood Studies Book Series . 2003–. Rutgers Univ. Press.

This series includes peer-reviewed books written from a variety of disciplinary perspectives that investigate the lives and perspectives of children and youth in diverse cultural settings, both past and present.

Göncü, Artin, ed. 1999. Children’s engagement in the social world: Sociocultural perspectives . New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.

This volume of essays by psychologists and others presents research from a range of societies. They examine cultural influences on child development as expressed through parental values and in various social contexts such as family, home, play, and preschool.

Lancy, David. 2008. The anthropology of childhood: Cherubs, chattel, changelings . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.

Lancy draws together key findings from anthropological research on children and childhood around the world, establishing that the way children are understood and treated in the contemporary West is but one variant of a much larger set of possibilities enacted in societies across time and space.

LeVine, Robert A. 2007. Ethnographic studies of childhood: A historical overview. American Anthropologist 109.2: 247–260.

DOI: 10.1525/aa.2007.109.2.247

LeVine surveys ethnographic research literature on childhood in the 20th century, and theoretical approaches that were sometimes incorporated into and also critiqued through ethnography. LeVine points to the ongoing problematic relationship between ethnography and developmental psychology and calls for theory building that draws substantially on cross-cultural comparison.

LeVine, Robert A., and Rebecca S. New, eds. 2008. Anthropology and child development: A cross-cultural reader . Malden MA: Blackwell.

This edited volume offers an excellent selection of early seminal works in the field complemented by contemporary contributions from diverse cultural contexts. The sections are organized according to three phases of childhood and deal primarily with work, play, language and caregiving by parents and siblings.

Montgomery, Heather. 2009. An introduction to childhood: Anthropological perspectives on children’s lives . Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Blackwell.

Montgomery provides overviews of different dimensions of childhood and the range of cultural variation presented in the ethnographic literature. Through cultural and historical perspectives on meanings and contexts that shape children’s lives, she develops a larger framework for the current focus on children’s perspectives on their own lives.

Schwartzman, Helen B., ed. 2001. Children and anthropology: Perspectives for the 21st century . Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey.

This edited volume brings together work on children by anthropologists writing from a range of interests and drawing on diverse ethnographic and material evidence. Together, these chapters argue that the study of children is a particularly promising way to address key questions in contemporary anthropology.

Shweder, Richard A., Thomas R. Bidell, Anne C. Dailey, Suzanne D. Dixon, Peggy J. Miller, and John Modell, eds. 2009. The child: An encyclopedic companion . Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.

DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226756110.001.0001

This encyclopedia covers a broad range of subjects having to do with children, childhood, and parenting. This includes forty-one “Imagining Each Other” essays, which are cross-cultural vignettes of different socialization contexts and strategies.

Stephens, Sharon, ed. 1995. Children and the politics of culture . Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.

This edited volume calls anthropological attention to the ways that children’s lives are shaped by the political actions of adults and state policies, economic orders, transnational flows, rights discourses, and identity movements that children are also subject to.

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4.14: Descriptive Essays

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Learning Objectives

• Describe techniques for writing effective descriptive essays or effective passages with description

Description

Description is a rhetorical mode you’ll want in your toolbox because it places your reader in the scene you’re describing. You’ll likely relate this tool to fiction, because the best novels use description to capture our imagination. But description can be important in a personal narrative, a compare and contrast essay, and even a research paper.

Take a look at the detailed imagery in this example from Between the World and Me , by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

It was always right in front of me. The fear was there in the extravagant boys of my neighborhood, in their large rings and medallions, their big puffy coats and full-length fur-collared leathers, which was their armor against their world. . . . I think back on those boys now and all I see is fear, and all I see is them girding themselves against the ghosts of the bad old days when the Mississippi mob gathered ’round their grandfathers so that the branches of the black body might be torched, then cut away. (14)

Coates does so much work in this description of the young men in his neighborhood. Their coats and rings are not literally armor, but the descriptive language allows us to see these things as their armor against a fear driven by a history of lynching. In just a few carefully chosen descriptive words and images, Coates makes an emotional appeal for a different way of seeing these “extravagant boys.” He takes us both to the streets of Baltimore where these boys walk and to the “bad old days” of Mississippi where African-Americans could be lynched with impunity. Clearly, Coates’s use of language transports his reader with compelling, sensory language.

The following passage, for example, could be used in a petition to give the Jemaa el-Fnaa, a marketplace in Marrakesh, protected UNESCO status:

Vivid description can help your audience make an emotional connection to your subject, which is where the true power of the written word lies.

Like many rhetorical strategies for writing essays, description rarely stands alone. So you will be called upon to use your descriptive writing skills in many different kinds of essays.

You can’t compare two items unless you describe them. You can’t illustrate abstract concepts or make them vivid and detailed without concrete description.

We have five senses: touch, taste, smell, sight, and sound. So, what does it look like, feel like, smell like, or taste like to be hot?

• “The sweat mixed with its salt stung my eyes, and it dripped from my forehead and slid down my brow.”

In concrete “show, not tell” description, leaves are not “soft” but “velvet”; sirens are not “loud” as much as they “start my Labrador to howling and vibrate the glass panes in my front door.”

Show, Don’t Tell

Russian short story author and physician Anton Chekhov succinctly demonstrates how to show rather than tell in the following quote:

Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on the broken glass.

The following illustrates a progressive improvement in description:

• My friend is big.
• My friend Jamie weighs 320 pounds and is 5’10”.
• Since he would never let me risk danger on my own, Jamie scrunched his 5’10’’ frame and all 320 pounds through the narrow cave entrance and into the black tunnel behind me.

Descriptions when using abstract words or concepts are even more important when using concrete objects. For example, your instructor crooks her arm and cups her right hand, stating, “Pretend I am holding a grapefruit. Describe it.” You and your classmates shout out words: “yellow,” “juicy,” “softball-sized,” “pink and pulpy,” and so on. She then cups the left hand and says, “Pretend I am holding love. Describe it.” What would you say? And how do you qualify love and make it distinct? Yes, love is “patient” and “kind,” “sexy” and “luscious,” but these are still abstract words that can have differing meanings to different people. Does love “warm me like a cup of hot chocolate by a fire”? Does it “get up first on a cold morning to make coffee”?

Description is about creating pictures; words are your paint.

Sample Descriptive Essay

Here you’ll see a traditional or typical sample descriptive essay from a beginning writing class. In this assignment, the student was asked to write an essay describing an important day, such as a first date, and to follow MLA guidelines in the essay.

Contributors and Attributions

• Modification, adaptation, and original content. Authored by : Audrey Fisch for Lumen Learning. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
• Description Essay. Provided by : Boundless. Located at : courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-writing/chapter/types-of-rhetorical-modes/. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Descriptive Essay. Provided by : Excelsior College Online Writing Lab. Located at : https://owl.excelsior.edu/rhetorical-styles/descriptive-essay/ . License : CC BY: Attribution
• The Chronicles of Narnia book series. Authored by : MorningbirdPhoto. Provided by : Pixabay. Located at : pixabay.com/photos/books-reading-series-narnia-1141911/. License : Other . License Terms : pixabay.com/service/terms/#license