Throughout the life long process of developing a sense of self the there are two factors that shape an individual. Who we are internally and who we present ours self to others and have conformed to social norms through the context of socialization. Within the process of socialisation, social structure and social interaction are both essential ingredients in an individual’s day-to-day life. This is because humans have the need to interact with each other for survival needs and furthermore maintain existence. According to the Macionis and Plummer, socialisation is defined as; “The lifelong social experiences by which individuals develop their human potential and learn patterns of their culture (Cited in Macionis & Plummer, 2012, p. 695).” Socialisation establishes the importance of an individual’s social identity through both aspects of social structure and social interaction.
Modelling, also known as social learning is where a child engages in gender role behaviour through observation of same-sex models, internalizing and imitating their behaviours and attitudes. However a child must be able to differentiate between gender role models in order to learn what is right or wrong to do in terms of gender appropriate behaviours. The key to social learning theory is that our understanding of gender comes from our social environment. Often it is our parents who are our main role models from a young age as they are with us from birth. Based on their understanding of their gender will then influence the behaviours and
Although the question that sociologist ask themselves are the same, their answers and theories can be completely opposite. One of the main concerns in sociology is the debate between structure and agency, concerned about the amount of individual choice we have over our behaviour related to our position in the society. Using different approaches, they aim to understand and explain how a society is created and what position our behaviour takes in it. Some consider our behaviour a result of social “norms”, other consider it as a personal choice, and recent theories consider a combination of both. According to the Structure side of the debate, we have no such thing as personal or individual choice, we are defined and controlled by factors of influence such as
Social action theorists believe that illusion of a stable and constant society is slightly more than hundreds of individual interactions each carried out by choice and interpretation. Max Weber a famous social action theorist put forward his view that humans are fundamentally different from the subject of matter of the natural sciences, due to the fact that they have free-will; in that they make decisions, attach meanings, hold intents and harbour motives. Therefore, the ultimate aim of sociology should be inevitably to individual decision and thoughts, rather than social structure. Weber takes on a completely different viewpoint from Durkheim, who put forward his theory that individual behaviour is constrained by determined by natural laws. Nevertheless, one major criticism of these structuralist approaches, i.e.
TMA04 – Introduction to Social Science Question: Compare and contrast two social science views about the ordering of social life Understanding social order is central to social sciences as it largely determines human behaviour and allows individuals live together, sharing a common space. As a concept, social order can be interpreted as a social condition in which stability and consistency are maintained through a set of rules of conduct, often implicit, inducing people exercise self-control within life situations. It differs over time and place, and tends to be restored immediately when it is breached I looked at the main differences and similarities between the two theorists Michel Foucault and Erwing Goffman? If we now compare and contrast Goffman’s and Foucault’s explanations of how social order is made and remade. I looked at Goffman’s theory, he believes social order is produced through actions of individuals and their practises through living there lives.
First, we would like present the accepted definition of sociology, and then relate it to our lives. Sociology, according to Henslin, is the scientific study of society and human behavior. With this definition of sociology, we can now relate it to our own lives. Many people, including ourselves have been brought up and raised with a certain set of values. This upbringing is called our culture.
Maccoby (1980 as cited in: Ding and Littleton 2005, p131) pointed out that a sense of self development by degrees. This process can usefully be thought of in terms of the gradual emergence and elaboration of two somewhat separate features; the self as a subject of experience and the self as an object of knowledge. Through gaining knowledge of one’s self and how we are perceived by our peers, we build up a sense of who we are and how we fit into our social surroundings. Cooley and Mead (ref) theorised that there may be a close connection between how a person understands their own identity
Myers (2010) provides an example as to how behavior is shaped by social influences making humans social creatures, “We speak and think in words we learned from others (Social psychology, p. 7). At times social environments or situations manipulate behaviors contrary to emotions, overpowering feelings and allowing the situation to guide behaviors. Another ideas of social psychology is that personal attitudes and depositions shape behavior, this describes the belief that inner attitudes and personalities
Social Influences on Behavior Social psychology represents the branch of psychology that examines how a social phenomenon influences people’s interactions with those around them. Social psychology not only often times influences our decision making and actions but also affects how we view our selves and those around us. When applying social psychology the following concepts are examined self-concept, social cognition, attribution, social influence, group processes, prejudice and discrimination, interpersonal processes, aggression, attitudes and stereotypes. Most of us can think of at least one time where we choose our behavior based on the fact that we wanted to maintain status, attract social relationships, protect ourselves or to simply just feel fulfill a goal or need. The feeling to fulfill a need or goal is based on the concept that behavior is goal oriented and makes us feel obligated to conform to social standard.
Does play matter for social development? If so, why? Play is a means by which children acquire the social skills and social knowledge needed to develop into fully functional, social beings (Feng, 1987). Therefore, it can be argued that play is critical for becoming socially adept, and matters greatly for social development. Whilst this may appear to be a broad statement, the work of psychiatrist Stuart Brown (1969) supports such a claim.