1. The Social Self
Socialization

2. Socialization
Interactive human process through which people learn basic skills, values, beliefs, and behavior patterns of society
Self: Conscious awareness of possessing a distinct identity that separates you and your environment from other members of society.

3. Theories of Socialization
John Locke: Tabula Rasa
Charles Cooley: Looking-Glass Self
George Mead: Role Taking

4. Locke’s Tabula Rasa
Newborns are a tabula rasa (clean slate) for which anything can be written.
Humans are born without personality; receive personality through social experiences.
Believed (like John Watson later) he could shape any human’s personality through socialization.

5. Cooley’s Looking-Glass Self
Interactive process by which we develop an image of ourselves based on how we imagine we appear to others.
Other people act as a mirror; we project through their reactions to our behavior.

6. 3 Step Process to Looking-Glass Self
We imagine how we appear to others
We attempt to determine whether others view us as we view ourselves based on their reactions to us.
Use our perceptions of how others judge us to develop feelings about ourselves.
This 3 step process begins early in childhood with influence of primary group and continues throughout one’s life.

7. Mead’s Role Taking Agreed with Cooley for the beginning of life
Later in life we take on roles based on what we think others expect of us.
Two aspects of Self: “I” and “Me”
“I”: unsocialized, spontaneous, self interested
“me”: aware of attitudes and expectations of society- socialized self.