Socialization of an individual is a person’s mastery of basic social norms, values, culture, standards of relationship models in the society to which the individual belongs. It consists of accepting and mastering the values, morals, norms of behavior, and knowledge prevailing in society. Socialization contains agents and institutions that specialize in the processes of introducing an individual to society.
Socialization is divided
:
- Primary – mastery of a basic set of values and behavior patterns in society by a child;
- Secondary – mastery of a new value-normative basis by an adult individual.
Levels of Socialization
Primary socialization | - includes children under 6 years of age. It occurs among family and relatives, based on cognitive development, which is much more active in a child than in an adult. Through play activities, the perception of language, roles, and the world as a whole occurs. Role-playing activity is represented by signals that are reflected in consciousness, expressed by talents for the humanities, music, sports, etc. |
Secondary socialization | – includes people 18-22 years old. The second circle of socialization takes place through education, which shapes personality and self-development, the acquisition of new values, and more difficult social roles. |
Tertiary socialization | – the stage concerning the formed and educated individual. The stage is characterized by the creation of a mindset, emotional characteristics and value base, social statuses and roles. |
Agents of Socialization
– specialized persons responsible for mastering cultural characteristics, values, and norms prevailing in society.
Socialization institutions
– education designed to influence the integration of the individual into society.
Agents of primary socialization
– family members, friends, acquaintances, teachers, neighbors, groups.
Family
- chief agent. The position of parents in society determines the status of a child under 20 years of age. The family’s work activity determines the cultural and educational level.
Sport
– has a positive effect on physical and spiritual fitness, develops the will and discipline of the individual, ensures a healthy psyche and vigor.
School
- a similar agent to the family, but the differences lie in the emotional level, where the child is assessed objectively, according to his level, potential and qualities. School teaches victories, defeats, and overcoming difficulties. During the educational period, self-esteem is formed, which often determines later life.
Socialization in the family and school, in addition to being purposeful, is unregulated and spontaneous. The child observes and adopts the level of communication between teachers and peers, and peers among themselves. Experience has a positive connotation (when it meets the goals and methods of education) and negative
Internet
– an agent of socialization that has a strong impact on the worldview, values and norms of behavior of the individual. Forms Internet addiction, affecting the psyche.
Agents of secondary socialization are specialized individuals in higher educational institutions, law enforcement agencies, and media employees. Agents of secondary socialization are represented by institutions, which include: the state, church, universities, media, etc.
What is socialization of an individual
Social science offers the following brief interpretation of this word. Socialization is the formation of a person as an individual, in the process of which he learns social experience, assimilates social norms and cultural values.
Important! Socialization has no end point of development. It has a continuous course, lasting from birth to death.
In order for a person to most fully adapt to life in the surrounding society, he must know and fulfill its requirements. They can be either formal (prescribed by law) or non-formal (unspoken rules of behavior).
Management methods
Socialization in psychology is a process that plays a decisive role in personality development from an early age. Socialization management methods are most often used in education; comparison of the features of the socialization process and the possibilities of education allows us to determine the specific functions of educational activities in managing the positive socialization of the child.
Compensation for the shortcomings of primary socialization
It is known that primary socialization plays an important role in the child’s acquisition of first communication skills and his understanding of behavioral norms. The prevalence of child abuse leads to the fact that entire groups of minors become victims of unfavorable socialization conditions.
The decline of the family institution itself, experienced by adults, also has an adverse effect on the socialization of children. Therefore, education must fulfill the task of compensating for the attention that the child did not receive in the family.
It can be performed by the teacher using the following positions:
- accepting the child as he is;
- understanding the reasons for a child’s isolation;
- creating a situation of success for the child;
- inclusion of the child in activity situations where he can feel significant.
Prevention or correction of children's complexes
Children often lack self-confidence due to a feeling of failure in their activities. The child feels discomfort due to the disdainful attitude and hostility on the part of his peers, begins to consider his appearance ugly and find fault with himself.
These processes lead to the formation of complexes and learned helplessness in the child, which subsequently interferes with the realization of the personality and its socialization. Therefore, it is important to create a favorable environment for the child’s development and convince him of his own usefulness and usefulness.
Expanding children's social experience
The formation of healthy socialization can be helped by the use of a set of activities, participation in which allows the individual to broaden his horizons and acquire the experience of humane relations in interpersonal interaction.
Such events include:
- excursions to museums, art galleries;
- communication with institutions of additional education and culture;
- socially oriented activities (improvement of the architectural and spatial environment, performance of concerts in front of the population);
- meetings with representatives of different professions.
The process of personal socialization is an important phenomenon that begins to manifest itself from childhood. Psychology distinguishes forms, types and stages of socialization, knowledge of which, along with correct diagnosis, can help to promptly identify problems in interaction with society and correct them in a timely manner using methods for managing the socialization process.
Author: Anna Fleyman
Factors influencing the socialization of an individual
Political socialization - what it is, how it can be defined
The process of socialization for an individual is an action that can be influenced from the outside by a number of conditions. Circumstances that contribute to the opportunity to master socialization include:
- family - life experience and knowledge acquired by a child in the family form the basis on which all further socialization of the individual is based;
- educational environment - the correct organization of pedagogical work affects not only socialization, but also the development of individual creative qualities of the individual;
- work is an activity that requires the use of all personal qualities of a person and fosters responsibility for the result of collective work in which he takes part;
- collective - the infusion of an individual into collective relations - a complex action, not always predictable, the result can be both the impact of the collective on the individual, and vice versa.
Individuals who are capable of permanent socialization, who also have charisma and leadership qualities, can easily change collective plans, views and principles.
Factors influencing the socialization of an individual
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The essence of socialization
The need for socialization is determined by human nature itself. He is a unique phenomenon, because he is the only living creature that has virtually no innate forms of behavior. A child who has not undergone socialization is unable to communicate as a person, establish relationships with relatives, or behave as is customary in society. It is a cat or a dog that has innate programs of species behavior, but a person needs to learn everything.
Socialization, in essence, is the process of human adaptation in society. But this is not just knowledge of how to behave in a given situation. Knowledge of social norms does not guarantee compliance with them. For example, a criminal does not steal because he does not know that it is illegal. He knows this very well. But the norm “don’t steal” did not go through the process of socialization, was not appropriated by him, and did not become his intrapersonal norm of behavior. The phenomenon of transition of a social norm or meaning from the external to the internal level is called internalization.
This is the basis of socialization, its basic process. Initially, all norms of behavior and methods of social activity are external for the child. Parents, sometimes through persuasion and sometimes through coercion, instill in their child the habit of performing certain actions, making assessments of their own actions and the actions of others. For example, a small child does not feel any need to eat with a spoon, fasten buttons on his blouse, brush his teeth, say hello, much less put away his toys. But if the parents are persistent and patient enough, then these actions become habitual, and in a similar situation the child himself will feel the need for them. So, we, adults, will experience obvious discomfort if we have to eat salad with our hands or go out to strangers casually dressed.
The complexity of socialization also lies in the fact that a person is a member of different social groups with different norms and rules. We have to undergo additional socialization in every society we happen to find ourselves in.
Functions and role
Socialization in psychology is a phenomenon that performs the following functions:
- normative and regulatory function. It shapes human activity with the help of certain influences on him from social institutions that regulate the social way of life;
- personal-transformative function. It consists of individualizing a person through the formation of his need-motivational sphere, as well as a system of values and ideals;
- creative function. At the stage of its implementation, a person has a need for self-realization through creative activity, solving situations in non-standard ways;
- communication and information function. It ensures a person’s relationship with society, gives the individual information about the characteristics of interaction and the desired lifestyle;
- procreative function. Consists of generating a willingness to act in a certain way;
- value-orientation function. It forms a system of values that determine a person’s lifestyle;
- compensatory function. Replenishes the deficiency of necessary physical, mental and intellectual properties and qualities of a person.
The role of socialization is:
- self-disclosure of personality (society is given indirectly, through a set of individual life programs);
- adaptation of the individual to the social environment (individuality adapts to external conditions, maintaining the initially specified essential parameters);
- mastering a certain set of patterns (the individual is ready to accept some proposed patterns of behavior);
- building a personality according to a given prototype (the individual is completely subordinate to the society that creates him according to a certain plan).
When the process of personality socialization is completed
It is impossible to name a specific age at which a person would fully adapt to the world around him. This assessment is highly subjective. Some go through all stages of socialization quite quickly and painlessly, others cannot learn any norm over a long period of time.
From a subjective point of view, the socialization process can last throughout life. Some stages of formation end at a certain period of life, others begin. Recently, you can notice that the norms and laws of the public are constantly changing. At the same time, people are trying to adapt to new rules and meet social requirements.