The Individual and Society: Nature and Nurture
As we have learned, sociologists study the influence of society on individuals. This unit will explore the ways that sociologists have researched this influence and some of the conclusions that they have come to.
In order to know how individuals are influenced by society, let's examine what an individual is before society is able to influence that person. In other words, when humans are born into the world, what are we before society can influence us? The influence of society on an individual is what sociologists call socialization. One way to examine this is to study babies. In our class, we are going to do a qualitative, cross-cultural examination of babies using the 2010 documentary called, Babies.
Socialization before birth
Before babies are even born, I would argue that they are being influenced. Desmond Tutu once said that "A solitary individual is not possible. We come into this world because a community of people came together." Even before birth, a baby is dependent on its parents for its genes. And then, it depends on its mother to make the baby's life viable; A prenatal infant can be impacted by the stress that the mother feels as well as the nutrition she gets, and the medical care she receives. All of these are related to culture.
Another example of prenatal socialization 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 quickly 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.
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.
There is even more recent research that has found that the experiences 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 link to a PBS program called The Ghost in your Genes about epigenetics. 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," explained on the BBC here.
Human Nature
Despite being socialized before birth, babies are born with human nature. They have genes that include both programming to tell babies how to instinctively react as well as programming about how babies can grow and develop. This nature is what nearly all babies are born with. It is biological and innate. This biology includes the aptitude to talk, walk, read, process information and move physically. However, it is interesting to note that with this biology and genes, babies have only an aptitude to develop all of those abilities. It will take time and nurture to reach their potential. In the meantime, babies are still not able to survive on their own in the world that they are born into. They are intimately dependent on others to survive. They must rely on another aptitude that they are born with: the aptitude to connect with other humans. It is our human nature is to be nurtured. We need others to survive and thrive. We are innately social beings. For more on socialization, aptitude and nature-nurture, see this post.
There are many ways in which human biology was made to be social:
- • mirror neurons
- • vagus nerve
- • facial recognition - For more on how we have an ability to interpret and remember human faces checkout this link to see a story on 60 minutes.
- • oxytocin
All of these are a part of the human biology. So, babies are born helpless in their ability to survive but they are born with a biological aptitude to be social. And these are a part of adult biology as well. Adults that see tiny helpless infants are drawn to connect with them reciprocally. Babies will grasp adult fingers and clothes, and make eye contact. They desire to be held. They will imitate adults and smile back at them. Adults have mirror neurons that make them sympathetic to the crying and distress of babies. These biological connections draw babies and adults together, providing for the survival and growth of the infant. As the infant develops, it starts to learn from the adults who have helped it survive. The understanding that the infant gets from the adults is a shared meaning between the two. In this way, culture is taught to the baby even before the baby is conscious of it. Babies will learn the significance of material things as well as the significance of gestures, words, behaviors, expectations and values. Some examples of babies learning shared meaning include 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 and here are two babies learning to converse.
Besides having an aptitude to connect with other humans, babies also have an aptitude to develop consciousness. Consciousness is an awareness of yourself as a sentient being. We develop an identity of ourselves, sometimes called a "self," such as in the ideas of self-image, self-reliance, self-pity or Charles Horton Cooley's looking-glass self and Erving Goffman's Presentation of Self. Our idea about who we are as individuals comes from the most prominent people/groups who interact with us as we grow. In the U.S., sociologists generally agree that these groups are: Our culture, family/caregiver, school, peers and media. These are known as agents of socialization. These agents of socialization intimately shape us. This unit will examine the ways that sociologists have studied these agents, but first, let's explore the evidence that supports the idea that we need to be nurtured to reach our potential as human beings.
What happens when human do not get the nurture that they inherently desire? There is quite a bit of evidence about cases like that, some of it particularly sad. See the evidence below from feral kids, isolated kids, to a study about institutionalized kids to medical research.
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 living with dogs.
Isolated kids:
Danielle, found in 2004.
She had very little socialization from her mother who was later arrested.
Here is an update from the Tampa Bay Times.
Genie, found in 1970, isolated in an upstairs bedroom until she was 12 years old!
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 her story.
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.
Skeels and Dye Study
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:
Institutionalized Children
Orphanage 12 kids Home for Special Needs 13 kids
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 3rd grade ed - avg. of 12th 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
Medicine, Research and Nurture
From Our World in Data,
Dr. Vivek Murthy, former Surgeon General of the United States, recently wrote: “Loneliness and weak social connections are associated with a reduction in lifespan similar to that caused by smoking 15 cigarettes a day”.
From the National Institutes of Health,
Social relationships—both quantity and quality—affect mental health, health behavior, physical health, and mortality risk. Sociologists have played a central role in establishing the link between social relationships and health outcomes, identifying explanations for this link, and discovering social variation (e.g., by gender and race) at the population level. Studies show that social relationships have short- and long-term effects on health, for better and for worse, and that these effects emerge in childhood and cascade throughout life to foster cumulative advantage or disadvantage in health. This article describes key research themes in the study of social relationships and health, and it highlights policy implications suggested by this research.
From Harvard Medical School,
Social connections like these not only give us pleasure, they also influence our long-term health in ways every bit as powerful as adequate sleep, a good diet, and not smoking. Dozens of studies have shown that people who have social support from family, friends, and their community are happier, have fewer health problems, and live longer.
Dr. Dean Ornish, a cardiologist who found through research that patients with medical issues, including surgeries like bypass surgery or masectomies, healed quicker and more thoroughly if they had meaningful relationships in their lives.
From Dr. Ornish's website;
https://www.ornish.com/proven-program/love-support/,
At the Heart of Healing: Connection
Loneliness and Isolation
Medicine today tends to focus primarily on the physical and mechanistic: drugs and surgery, genes and germs, microbes and molecules. However, there isn’t 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 than loneliness and isolation.
Love and intimacy — our ability to connect with ourselves and others, is at the 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 his or her 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.
There is a deep spiritual hunger in this country. The real epidemic in our culture is not only physical heart disease, but also what I call emotional and spiritual heart disease. The profound sense of loneliness, isolation, alienation, and depression that are so prevalent in our culture with the breakdown of the social structures that used to provide us with a sense of connection and community. It is, to me, a root of the illness, cynicism, and violence in our society.
We are creatures of community. Those individuals, societies, and cultures who learned to take care of each other, to love each other, and to nurture relationships with each other during the past several hundred thousand years were more likely to survive than those who did not. Those people who did not learn to take care of each other often did not make it. In our culture, the idea of spending time taking care of each other and creating communities has become increasingly rare. Ignoring these ideas imperils our survival.
Awareness is the first step in healing, both individually and socially. Part of the value of science is to increase the level of awareness of how much these choices matter that we make each day. Not just a little, but a lot, and not just to the quality of life but also the quantity of life – to our survival. When we understand how important these issues are, then we can do something about it. These include:
- • spending more time with our friends and family
- • communication skills
- • group support
- • confession, forgiveness, and redemption
- • compassion, altruism, and service
- • psychotherapy
- • touching
- • commitment
- • meditation
When we increase the love and intimacy in our lives, we also increase the health, joy, and meaning in our lives.
(Finish this post by Leading up to culture - winnow culture down to one day)
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