1. Socialisation TWO KEY QUESTIONS… How does socialisation lead to:
1) the development of identity?
2) social control?

2. Exam question
Explain the role socialisation plays in determining how an individual’s sense of identity is presented. Using the stimulus material and information from the course, evaluate alternative viewpoints in relation to the development of self.

3. Roles
“…Our sense of self seems to derive primarily from the social roles we play.”
Identity

4. Psychological behaviourism
Positive/negative reinforcements

5. Interactionism (symbolic interactionism)
We only know the self (our identity/who we are) through social interactions/through communicating with others.
“But I don’t care what others think…”

6. Erving Goffman (Interactionist)
Interactionist theorists believe that human behaviour is learnt as an outcome of social interaction. Through relationships individuals can start to imagine themselves from another’s viewpoint.
The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959)
We are social actors.
Read the section ‘Erving Goffman and the sociology of everyday life’ on pg of your textbook.
Write down any KEY concepts and provide brief definition.

7. Key concepts Dramaturgy Impression management
‘front-stage’ and ‘back-stage’
Actors/audience
Situational properties
Civil inattention

8. When writing about theorists/theories…
ONLY use the last name…
Goffman’s theory….
As Goffman explains…

11. Celebrities – Instagram

12. Situational properties
We adapt who we are depending on who we are interacting with…
Situational properties
1) Think of three situations, you regularly experience, which have different ‘properties’ that you must adapt to. Explain how adapt your behaviour accordingly.
Example…
Job interview
At friend’s house, watching TV series (difference between friends too!)
With your grandparent

13. Juggling masks…
For example: when we encounter friends from very different social groups.

14. When in public…
Communication strategies change when interacting with strangers
Goffman class this “dimming the lights”
Inattention, especially in dense places, makes social life possible

15. No true self (behind the roles)
He challenged the idea that each of us, more or less, has a fixed character.

16. George Herbert Mead
The Self
Society
Mead focused on the importance of gestures and language for human interaction.
We think of ourselves as individuals, but we are only able to do so because we are part of a larger social community (i.e. society)

17. Mead explains that The self is a reflective process.
The communication process involves TWO phases:
1. “Conversation of gestures”
2. “Conversation of significant gestures”
Mead explains that The self is a reflective process.

18. Mead Three stages: Language, play and the game.
Social interactions that take place via shared symbols such as words, definitions, roles, gestures, rituals etc.
Stage one: language (responds to her own gestures in terms of the symbolised attitudes of others)

19. Mead Stage two: Play - role-playing
- in play, the child takes the role of another and acts as though she were the other (e.g. mother, doctor, builder and various other symbolised roles)
-This form of role-playing involves a single role at a time. Thus, the other which comes into the child’s experience in play is a “specific other”

20. Mead
Stage 3 – The game
- Also involves role-play (but more complex form)
- The individual is required to internalise, not merely the character of a single and specific other, but the roles of ALL others who are involved with him in the game.
- He must also comprehend the rules of the game, which condition the various roles. This shared understanding/unity of understanding between all the game players is the “generalised other”

21. George Herbert Mead
Significant others – individuals close enough to us to have a strong capacity to motivate
Reference groups – consist of others whose social positions and preferences make them especially relevant to our sense of worth
Often share commanlities of age, tastes, status, and interests
Generalised other - Any time that an actor tries to imagine what is expected of them, they are taking on the perspective of the generalized other

22. Textbook questions
Read ‘Cooley and Mead: The development of self’ on pg
Answer the following questions:
What is meant by Mead’s ‘I’ vs ‘Me’?
What is the ‘generalised other’?
How does it relate to identity formation AND social control?

23. The self and social control
The self is of great value to organised society: the internalisation of the conversation of significant symbols allows for the “superior coordination” of “society as a whole” and for the “increased efficiency of the individual as a member of the group” (Mead, 1934)

24. Charles Cooley “Looking glass” self
We know ourselves through the “looking glass” of others that mirrors back to us impressions we create.

26. “Looking glass” self I am not I think I am
I am not what others think I am
I am what I think others think I am

27. Seeking approval…(Cooley)
Looking for approval is a motivational, fundamental human instinct.
Positive approval contributes to our sense of self and social belonging.
Spitz orphanage study
Haney prison study
Other examples…