Socialization: Lesson 9 Social Structure

Guided Notes for this lesson are here.


We have been learning about how culture shapes people in so many different ways.  Because we are born into a culture we often don't notice its influence.  However subtle the influence of culture is, the effects are profound.  This is especially true regarding values.  The slow process of our being shaped by culture (and other social influences) is called socialization.


Socialization

Socialization is the process by which humans are influenced by their surroundings; how they learn culture and how they learn to think about who they are, their "self".  In the past, there was a debate about whether humans are more influenced by nature (biology/genes) or nurture (socialization/society).
Think about the ways trees grow because of their nurture.  They are influenced by the light, soil and water.

Ash tree growing in Arlington Hts.

Typical Ash Tree.

Both of these ash trees start from ash tree seeds like the ones below. That is their nature which provides an aptitude.  The aptitude is the tree's potential for traits like height, branching, lifespan, etc...  But this aptitude is dependent on the nurture that the tree gets from it's environment.

I think it's easy to understand that a tree is affected by:

• the light it receives
• its surroundings like buildings and other trees
• the soil composition
• pollution
• trucks driving by and scraping against branches
• animals and insects nesting/affecting in the tree

However, Americans tend to look past the enormous effects of environment/nurture on other humans.  But humans are enormously impacted by their socialization/nurture including:

• the culture they are born into.
• the family that raises them
• their school
• their neighborhood
• the peers around them

And, amazingly, for humans, this socialization (nurture) happens before birth!  One example of this is in identical twins who have the same exact DNA and biology.  Because they are exactly the same, nurses will often paint the nails of twins differently so that they can tell them apart.  But, often the parents of these twins can tell them apart from their earliest days because they have already started developing different personalities even before being born.

Another example of babies being socialized before birth is the prenatal experiences of the mother.  The effects of alcohol and drugs on unborn babies are one example of prenatal effects on unborn babies that are well documented.  Additionally, other examples are the effects of prenatal vitamins and stress on the mother.  But another example of socialization happening in utero is that babies are influenced by what mothers eat during their pregnancy.  One study shows that the amniotic fluid around the baby can take on the flavor and smell of certain foods or spices.  Babies show a correlation to those foods after being born.  See more about this study here.

In a more complex example, researchers have found the experiences that a grandmother has can affect the genes that she passes down to her grandchild!  In other words, the nurturing or socialization process that affects you might start decades before you are even born!  This multigenerational effect on genes is known as epigenetics.   Here is a trailer for a show on NOVA that explores the connections between genes and social experiences. The researchers theorize that social experiences can affect the genes of a person and, more amazingly, these genes can be passed down to a generation or two. So the grandchildren may experience the effects of their grandparents' lives on their genes. How amazing is that? They call it the "ghost in your genes".

Don't let these mind-blowing examples complicate things for you. Here is the simple idea:

• Nature provides a starting point or aptitude such as DNA and genes, then nurture (or your socialization) works with your nature to enhance it, repress it or change the nature to something else. The point is that both nature and nurture make us who we are.  If we do not have that nurture we cannot reach our higher power of consciousness and awareness.

Other evidence for the nature-nurture socialization process.

It is amazing to me that so much of what we take for granted as being human (part of our nature) is actually learned from our environment (nurture).

Isolated kids:

• Danielle, found in 2004.

She had very little socialization from her mother who was later arrested.  Watch this video from the Oprah show which summarizes her initial finding and then updates how she is ten years later.   Ten years after she was found, the Tampa Bay Time did an update on her here.  

• Genie, found in 1970.  

The video below is about a girl named Genie that was locked in a bedroom alone for 12 years of her life. Here is what Susan Curtiss wrote about her in her book, Genie; A Psycholinguistic Study of a Modern-Day Wild Child.

Here is a brief clip from a documentary about Genie's story. And below are notes from one of the researchers studying Genie:

Genie was pitiful. Hardly ever having worn clothing, she did not react to temperature, either heat or cold. Never having eaten solid food, Genie did not know how to chew and had great difficulty in swallowing.  Having been strapped down and left sitting on a potty chair she could not stand erect, could not straighten her arms or legs, could not run hop, jump or climb.  In fact she could only walk with difficulty shuffling her feet and swaying from side to side. Hardly ever having seen more than a space of ten feet in front of her she had become nearsighted to exactly that distance....Surprisingly, however, Genie was alert and curious. She maintained good eye contact and...She was intensely eager for human contact. 

Feral Kids

Some people have been found to be living with wild (feral) animals.  These feral people provide more evidence that humans are influenced by their surroundings.  Check out this website for examples of feral children.

Here is video of one of the kids found in the wild with dogs.

Skeels and Dye and Institutionalized Children

From Henslin's Sociology; A Down To Earth Approach, Skeels and Dye's study of institutionalized children (1939) and Skeels follow-up study in 1966 found that children given love, affection, stimulation and intimacy are able to be more independent, socially-attached, more successful adults later in life.  Look at the difference between the children that stayed behind at the orphange receiving proper care, but little stimulation, love and affection versus the children who went to a home where adults with special needs could show them love, attention, nurture and stimulation:

Orphanage 12                                  Home for Special Needs 13           __   

More functional at first                           More severely dysfunctional

Proper care, but no stimulation               Stimulation, play, challenge and affection
-30 IQ pts                                             +28 IQ pts

- avg. less than 3^rd grade ed                 - avg. of 12^th grade 5 complete 1+ years of college    

- 4 live in institutions                           -  all 13 were self-supporting or homemakers

- low level jobs                                     - 1 grad school

 - 2 marry                                              - 11 marry

Dr. Dean Ornish, research on relationships and health.

There is a power in our interaction with other people that is difficult to measure.
Dean Ornish M.D. writes about this force in his book, Love and Survival. Checkout the excerpt below:

Love and survival.
What do they have to do with each other?
This book is based on a simple but powerful idea: Our survival depends on the healing power of love, intimacy, and relationships. Physically. Emotionally. Spiritually. As individuals. As communities. As a country. As a culture. Perhaps even as a species....I have no intention of diminishing the power of diet and exercise or, for that matter, of drugs and surgery....As important as these are, I have found that perhaps the most powerful intervention-and the most meaningful for me and for most of the people with whom I work, including staff and patients--is the healing power of love and intimacy, and the emotional and spiritual transformation that often result from these.

In this book, I describe the increasing scientific evidence from my own research and from the studies of others that cause me to believe that love and intimacy are among the most powerful factors in health and illness, even though these ideas are largely ignored by the medical profession. As I review the extensive scientific literature that supports these ideas, I will describe the limitations of science to document and understand the full range of these implications--not only in our health and illness, but also in what often brings the most joy, value, and meaning to our lives. I give examples from my life and from the lives of friends, colleagues, and patients.

Medicine today tends to focus primarily on the physical and mechanistic: drugs and surgery, genes and germs, microbes and molecules. I am not aware of any other factor in medicine--not diet, not smoking, not exercise, not stress, not genetics, not drugs, not surgery that has a greater impact on our quality of life, incidence of illness, and premature death from all causes.

Cholesterol, for example, is clearly related to the incidence of illness and premature death from heart disease and stroke. Those with the highest blood cholesterol levels may have a risk of heart attack several times greater than those with the lowest levels and lowering cholesterol levels will reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke. However, cholesterol levels are not related to such diseases as complications during pregnancy and childbirth, the incidence of illness and premature death from infectious diseases, arthritis, ulcers, and so on, whereas loneliness and isolation may significantly increase the risk of all these. Something else is going on.

Smoking, diet, and exercise affect a wide variety of illnesses, but no one has shown that quitting smoking, exercising, or changing diet can double the length of survival in women with metastatic breast cancer, whereas the enhanced love and intimacy provided by weekly group support sessions has been shown to do just that, as I will describe in chapter 2. While genetics plays a role in most illnesses, the number of diseases in which our genes play a primary, causative role is relatively small. Genetic factors--even when combined with cholesterol levels and all of the known risk factors--account for no more than one-half the risk of heart disease.

Love and intimacy are at a root of what makes us sick and what makes us well, what causes sadness and what brings happiness, what makes us suffer and what leads to healing. If a new drug had the same impact, virtually every doctor in the country would be recommending it for their patients. It would be malpractice not to prescribe it--yet, with few exceptions, we doctors do not learn much about the healing power of love, intimacy, and transformation in our medical training. Rather, these ideas are often ignored or even denigrated.

It has become increasingly clear to even the most skeptical physicians why diet is important. Why exercise is important. Why stopping smoking is important. But love and intimacy? Opening your heart? And what is emotional and spiritual transformation?

I am a scientist. I believe in the value of science as a powerful means of gaining greater understanding of the world we live in. Science can help us sort out truth from fiction, hype from reality, what works from, what doesn't work, for whom, and under what circumstances. Although I respect the ways and power of science, I also understand its limitations as well. What is most meaningful often cannot be measured. What is verifiable may not necessarily be what is most important. As the British scientist Denis Burkitt once wrote, "Not everything that counts can be counted."

We may not yet have the tools to measure what is most meaningful to people, but the value of those experiences is not diminished by our inability to quantify them. We can listen, we can learn, and we can benefit greatly from those who have had these experiences. When we gather together to tell and listen to each other's stories, the sense of community and the recognition of shared experiences can be profoundly healing.

Examples of Socialization in Kids

Lastly, check out this post from the Society Pages, called the baby preacher.  It shows a young baby who is influenced to behave like a preacher even though he can't even talk yet!  This illustrates the socialization influence on kids that happens at a young age.  Here is a baby rapper video.  Here are two babies learning to converse.

Summary

After this lesson, you should be able to:

1.  Explain what socialization is.

2.  Explain the significance of Danielle or Genie or other isolated kids.