Socialization involves the process learning and internalization of the ideologies and norms of the society hence the reason as to why the socialization process is highly associated with developmental psychology. Every individual in every society is expected to live in a certain way, from childhood stages, individuals learn norms, values, culture, dress code and behaviors that are supposed to be portrayed in accordance to a specific culture. There are generally five types of socialization which include primary, secondary, resocialization and anticipatory. When people learn the ways of living of a certain culture, the culture of that specific society becomes a way of life and behaving centrally to the expected way of living is framed makes on character questionable.
The paper aims to describe and analyze the socialization process, by first answering the question “who am I?” in the description of the socialization process the paper will incorporate the concept of nature and nurture. The paper will focus on analyzation of the agents of socialization which have affected a person as an individual, mainly during the childhood socialization and adult socialization. On analyzation of the socialization and the development process of an individual, agents of socialization like family, media, peers, and education will also be discussed.
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The Process of Socialization
Culture and Socialization are two different terms with interchanging meanings, where culture means the customs, ideas and the social behavior of a certain society which guides their everyday existence. Socialization, on the other hand, involves the act of adapting the culture of a certain society and embracing the behaviors.
All infants are born without any particular cultural identity. It is through the socialization process that the children are transformed into the individuals from a specific society, a specific social class, with certain roles accorded to them. During the socialization process, children learn the language and are made to believe that they come from a particular culture (Damon, 2017) . The question of "who I am" can be manifested through the process of socialization as individuals learn their social and cultural identities; that they are somebody’s sister, they are the daughters of the king, and that they conform to certain societal roles. In the socialization process, the concept of "who I am" changes as the individual’s age increases, the roles of individuals in the society have their titles and responsibilities change. At the adult stage, most of the individuals are fully socialized and completely understand the ways of living of a certain culture and are thus able to pass the knowledge to other individuals too. The process of socialization is also referred to as enculturation and assists individuals to be who they are by the development of certain personality traits. Other socialization processes in some cultures encourage aggressive and violent personalities; hence others promote calmness and less aggressive behaviors.
Agents of Socialization
The socialization process can be affected by some which constitute the agents of socialization. According to Prot, et al., (2015), the four main agents of socialization which have a great impact on an individual’s life include my family, school, peers and mass media. The family as an agent of socialization is where the person's values are set, the self-image and underlying attitudes (Bales & Parsons, 2014). The working environment of a person can also shape the person socially due to the responsibilities accorded to a person and the way the work environment is formulated. The peers shape a person’s social constructs through how they deal with conflict and compete with each other. Mass media has currently been the most powerful way of socialization in the current world; school teachers ensure students learn to be orderly and cooperate in different ways of doing things.
The four agents of socialization have created a huge impact since my childhood and are responsible for the character traits in me. I come from a family which strongly embraces Christian values and morals, so all my undertaking and reasoning is guided by Christian values and morals. Even how I dress has all be from the concepts learned in the church and taught from the Christian biblical teachings. In my school, our teachers from childhood used to emphasize much on discipline and respect among the rest of the students.
Students who did not adhere to morals and rules in the school were punished. Failure to change the erratic behavior after subsequent punishments and warnings resulted in expulsion. The rules in the school shaped my morals and socialized me to be a responsible individual. Most of my peers were aggressive in the manner in which they dealt with conflicts, they would fight in school, and the teachers would need to intervene through punishments to reduce aggressive behavior. Though I intended to copy the behavior from my peers at first, my upbringing and family values change my perception of violence and aggressive behavior; that aggressive and violent behavior is unacceptable in society. Even to date, I find myself competing with my peers in different instances; some of my peers who have already gotten married while young tend to make me think of marrying sooner than I had planned. Mass media had a great impact on how so many people in the world dress and behave. I find myself adopting the behavior, accent, and even the lifestyle of most celebrities as depicted by mass media which have played a great role in the person I am today.
In the socialization process of individuals, there are various concepts which can be associated with how individuals get enculturated. One of the ideas of socialization theories is nature vs. nurture. The theory of nature vs. nurture postulates that there are social environment and heredity or biological factors which contribute to the acculturalization of individuals (Grusec & Hastings, 2014) . The issue is whether is our personality trait as a result of nature that is our genetics or is because of nature which is the social environment. I believe that most of my character and personality traits are based on nurture, the environmental exposure that I have been put in rather than my genetic composition. The environment in which I have been brought up, the exposure to the mass media content, what I have been taught in school and my interaction with friends have all contribute to who I am as a person. My perception of socialization is contingent on nurture.
Conclusion
Socialization process aims at creating an upbringing of responsible and acceptable characters in society. Every society thrives on promoting their existence to the next generation with responsible individuals who can lead a society according to the norms and values of the society. Socialization enables individuals' preparation to participate in a particular group according to the group expectation. The process of socialization is known to occur throughout life with the family stated to be the most important agent of socialization. Individuals known to engage in socialization are identified to have good physical health since interacting with people is known to raise mood and lower the chances of depression.
References
Bales, R. F., & Parsons, T. (2014). Family: Socialization and interaction process . Routledge.
Damon, W. (2017). Socialization and individuation. In Childhood socialization (pp. 23-30). Routledge.
Grusec, J. E., & Hastings, P. D. (Eds.). (2014). Handbook of socialization: Theory and research . Guilford Publications.
Prot, S., Anderson, C. A., Gentile, D. A., Warburton, W., Saleem, M., Groves, C. L., & Brown, S. C. (2015). Media as agents of socialization. Handbook of socialization: Theory and research , 276-300.
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