Positions On Socialization

Chapter - 3

Social Psychologial

Approaches to Socialization

3.1. Social Psychology

  The individual’s behaviour in society is the focus of study in social psychology-the study of individual’s behaviour, both covert and overt, in thought, deed and worked in relation to the other individuals, groups, and culture. It is also the study of the effects of society, groups and other individuals upon an individuals.  An individual’s behaviour is influenced always by the presence, physical, immediate and/or assumed presence, of the other individuals, social self, institutions, organizations and other cultural determinants.  The motivation, attitude, perception thing king and all the behaviour of individuals occur in a social field.  In the study of the social psychological are incorporated and yet social psychology should not be considered as synonymous to general psychology because the individual’s behaviour, here, is considered in an added context—social context.

 

  The origins of social psychology must be found in various disciplines, of which the early masters of sociology who expounded the concepts of social, collective—consciousness, etc., must be considered a major source.  Modern social psychology explores the inter-relationships between the individuals and society, mainly and largely through an adoption of the designs of experimental psychology.  Just as general psychology, the social psychology is a field of diverse schools, approaches, and methods, although the concern of all these is the behaviour of individual in a social context. 

 

  In the earlier chapter, we saw how sociological approaches—approaches that emphasize the predominance of society over the individual—would view socialization.  We derived from the various concepts regarding society, its structure and organization and its demands on individuals the sociological content of socialization.  This chapter also continues, more or less, to accept the dominance of the society over the individual, but proposes to discuss the various approaches suggested to account for the individual’s behaviour of and participation in, or, rather partaking of socialization in social context.  It discusses how an individual comes to make a compromise or adjustments between the physical and psychical conditions he is in, and the social collectivity that he should absorb and be a part of.

 

  An individual gets socialized to become a member of a society.  In this, he is conditioned, guided and led by the society; the individuals themselves may come ultimately to modify the socialization process adopted by the society.  What is more important here is that the socialization processes guide the interpersonal interaction at various levels-individual, group, institutional and other structures and processes; in other words, the behaviour of an individual in a social context in relation to other individual, institutions, etc. If this were so, it is quite clear that the socialization process should form a major part of the investigations in social psychology.  It does, indeed, form an important part of social psychological investigations, along with diverse areas such as motivation, attitude change, perception, personality, aesthetics, leadership, language acquisition, mental health, etc.

 

3.2. Psychosexual Basis of socialization

 

  The overt behaviour is only a tip of the iceberg. There is a need to distinguish between the conscious and the unconscious in analyzing individual behavior.  Generally, psychology studies, (or psychology, until recently, has studied) the conscious psychology of the individuals and has ignored the unconscious underlying variables of the conscious behaviour.  The psychosexual approach emphasizes the importance of the study of the unconscious in interpreting the overt behaviour of an individual. L an individual is a power-house of sexual urges and aggressive forces.  The Freudean depth psychology made the distinction between the surface manifestation of a behavior and its underlying controlling variables.  Under the latter come the sexual urges and aggressive forces. 

 

  More than any other approach to the study of human behaviour, the psycho-analytic method of Freud exploited language as an effective tool to unravel.  The mystery of human behaviour.  Freud explored the unconscious by the method of free association.  He allowed and asked his patients to talk anything about their pathological conditions and to talk about, in fact, technique—a method by which the patient was cured of symptoms by talking about them. 

 

  An individual may be considered a bundle of three inter-connected systems.  These are id, the ego, and the superego.  The id covers man’s instructive sexual urges and suppressed tendencies.  It consists of everything psychological that is inherited at birth.  This includes the instincts.  The id is governed by the notion of tension reduction or pleasure principle.  The id aims at avoiding pain and obtaining pleasure though two processes, namely, the primary processes and reflex actions.  The reflex actions are inborn like sneezing and blinking. These reflex actions are resorted to reduce tensions immediately then and there, when a tension is built up.  The primary process, however, tries to reduce tension not by itself, but forming an image of an object which could remove the tension.  In other words, the primary process must be viewed as a symbolic process.  By arriving at the symbols alone one cannot have his/her tension reduced at the concrete level.  So, a secondary process is caused and this brings out the ego.  The ego is required because the needs of the organism require appropriate transactions with the objective world of reality.  Where id knows only or concentrates only on the subjects related of an inborn nature, the ego knows only or concentrates only upon the external world. L the ego is found to have an ability to distinguish between the subjective and objective realities.  The ego is not satisfied until an appropriate tension reduction has been achieved with the external world, for a particular phenomenon through the secondary process which is realistic thinking.

 

  The super ego is an internal representative or rather the internal representation of the social ideals, and norms of society as imparted to the child by its parents and the environment.  The super ego is considered the moral arm of personality.  The main functions of the super ego are threefold.  It inhibits the impulses of the id.  This inhibition is carried out mainly on the sexual and aggressive nature.  This is so because these impulses are most severely condemned once in any society.  The second function is the moral control of the ego which goes for realistic goals.  The third function is to enable the individual for perfection.  In other words the super ego is in conflict with the id and the ego.  The super ego also aims at making the individual in its own image.

 

  Freud and many other psycho-analysts believe that the future behaviour of an individual is already determined by the end of the 5th year of life of that individual.  The subsequent growth is mainly an elaboration.  Accordingly, the super ego must be viewed as coming to dominate and suppress the id and the ego even before the 5th year.  In other words, the fundamentals of socialization have already taken place by the 5th year.

 

 

Socialization must, be viewed as a process of conflict, as a process or efforts to suppress the original nature of the id, and the ego, and to impose on these two the feature of the super ego, and to impose on these two the features of the super ego, that is, the social values, etc.

 

 The child goes through a series or source of psycho-sexual stages, all these stages are connected with the obtaining of sexual or erotic pleasure by stimulating the various zones of his body.  The first is called the oral stage.  It lasts from birth into the second year.  During this stage stimulation of the mouth is the primary focus.  Excessive optimism, sarcasm and cynicism were attributable to incidents of this stage.  The second phase is the anal stage phase.  The child derives pleasure from anal zone.  The later style of life—dirty, wasteful, extravagance or near, clean and complacence—may be related to this stage.  In the next stage, phallic stage, which begins about the end of the third or fourth year, the genital region is the primary focus.  Attachment to the parent of the opposite sex and fear of the parent of the same sex take place at this stage.  The child overcomes this complex in most bases, however, his attitude to the opposite sex in future is determined by this stage.  The next stage is the stage of latency from 5 to 12 years.  After the latency stage, the genital stage begins.  This begins with the start of the adolescence.  The heterosexual behaviour is evident now. 

 

  Thus, in essence, there are three elements found to be in interaction here—the organism, operations performed on itself by the organism and the conjunction between the operations and consequences at the external world or the social consequences of he personal operations performed on the organism.

 

3.3. Psychosocial Bases of Socialization

  there has been a progressive disinclination to emphasize sexual basis for all human behaviour and an inclination to focus on the psychosocial basis of it within a general psychoanalytic theory.  Erikson suggests ‘a mutual fit of individuals and environment—that is, of the individual’s capacity to relate to an every expanding life space of people and institutions, on the one hand, and, on the other, the readiness of those people and institutions to make him part of an ongoing cultural concern’.  Erikson seeks the fit between ‘the approximate sequence of stages when the nervous excitability as well as the co-ordination of the organs in question and the selective reactivity of significant people in the environment are apt to produce decisive encounters’.  Erikson identifies eight stages of man, with each stage as a conflict or a binary opposition of concepts.  The resolution of the conflict result in proper growth.  The result of the conflict determines the ultimate personality of the individual.

 

  In Erikson’s first stage (in Freudian framework, oral sensory stage), the conflict is essentially between the acquisition of trust or the lack of it (‘the basic mistrust’).  Trust means rather the confidence of the organism—the recognition by the organism of the correlation or transfer of the outer population or familiar and predictable things and people to (the evolution of) an inner certainty in the form of consistency, continuity and sameness of the two.  (A functional characteristic of language—usability of language with variation in time, space that is, the use of language to refer to things and events of past, present and future, and of physical, immediate and imagined presence, may be compared with this.)  The state of trust has another function as well—that of gaining confidence in the capacity of one’s own organs to cope with urges.

 

  The second stage is the stage of autonomy vs. shame and doubt (in the Freudian framework, the anal-muscular stage).  The gradual and well-guided autonomy of free choice or the meaningless and arbitrary experiences of shame and of early doubt is the dichotomy at this stage.  While autonomy concentrates on keeping potential rival out, in the third stage (genital loco motor stage of Freud) initiate brings with it anticipatory rivalry with those who have been there first.  The child is in the process of becoming a carrier of tradition.  The child develops a sense of paternal responsibility.  This helps him gain some insight into the institutions, functions, and roles for responsible participation.  He finds pleasurable accomplishment in wielding tools and weapons and in caring for young children.  The danger of this stage  is a sense of guilt over the goals contemplated and the acts initiated in one’s exuberant enjoyment of locomotor  and mental power.  The fourth stages (latency period in Freudian framework) is industry vs. inferiority.  He adjusts himself to the inorganic laws of the tool world.  His danger lies in a sense of inadequance and inferiority.  The fifth stage (adolescence) is the stage of identity vs. role diffusion.  Here childhood proper ends and youth begins.  Now the organisms are primarily concerned with what they appear to be in the eyes of others as compared with what they feel they are and with the question of how to connect the roles and skills cultivated earlier with the occupational prototypes of the day.  The danger of this stage is role diffusion (an inability to settle on an occupational identity).  The sixth stage (young adulthood) is the stage of intimacy vs. isolation.  Intimacy is the result of the ability to face the fear of ego loss.  Ego loss leads to intimacy between individuals.  Avoidance of such a loss leads to a sense of isolation and consequent self-absorption.  The next stage is that of generativity vs.  stagnation (the stage of transmission of social values in Freudian work).  Generativity is primarily the interest in establishing and guiding the next generation, whereas a regression from generatively leads to a pervading sense of individual stagnation and inter-personal impoverishment.  The eighth stage is the stage of ego integrity vs. despair.  This is the stage of the ego’s accrued assurance of its proclivity for order and meaning.  Ego integrity implies an emotional integration which permits participation by fellowship as well as acceptance of the responsibility of leadership. 

 

  Note that the consecutive stages are not a chronological schedule.  Each stage gets integrated into next stage and contributes to the formation of the succeeding stage.

 

3.4. A Brief Critique of  Psychosexual theories vis-à-vis Socialization

 

 
Within the above two approaches, the revolution of the conflict caused by diverse goals of psychosexual determinants and social compulsions must be considered as the socialization process.  The psychosexual determinants get ultimately repressed or have a manifest existence only in a manner, space and time the society allows for their play and display.  The successful repression means the expression of psychosexual elements as given above, while the unsuccessful repression leads to abnormally in individuals.  The socialization processes must be sought, then, in the successful repression of the psychosexual elements in all or major part of behaviour.  It should also be sought in the canalization of the psychosexual elements in a manner, space and time allowed by the society for their play and display.

 

How do societies bring about this?  In every society we notice an assignment of distinct roles for both the sexes, even through there could be some merger and identity of roles at some level.  Cultures prescribes different types of dress for men and women.  Societies prescribe different games and plays for them.  These games an plays help the organisms in taking roles appropriate to their sex within their cultural group.  There are rituals, festival and religious activities prescribed for organisms of each sex.  These have the function not only to distinguish members of one sex from those of another but also act as stages for becoming full members of the particular sex by providing participatory opportunities.  In some societies, a clear-cut cleavage between man’s and woman’s speech is maintained, whereas in most societies the manner of speech of one sex (in terms of the choice of words, address terms, taboos of expression, etc.)  is different from that of the other sex.  In the former, man’s speech and woman’s speech must be considered  as the different dialects, with women or both men and women having knowledge of both the dialects.  In the latter category., what as a taboo for one sex is taken even to be a symbol of (highly admired, in some sense) full and virile membership of the other sex.  Expectations, an permissibility in term of verbal expressions could be different for different sexes, many a time functional discriminations in terms of social behaviour and sometimes and means of aesthetic discrimination between men and women, based on how a particular society holds the women in its view.  For instance, in the Malagasy language, men are expected to be skilled in speech, to adopt indirect minas of expression o\t0 blame and accuse and to be very subtle in all the verbal expressions.  Women, however, are expected to express directly and are given for open expression of all sort.  White men hesitate to initiate speech with the others, women and expected to start the speech encounters even with strangers.  In general, the differences between men’s and women’s speech are sometimes reflected in choice of vocabulary items and sometimes in the pronunciation of particular words.  Some linguists have found it easier to set up the forms used by men as derivatives form the forms used by women.  Perhaps children acquire the forms used by mothers earlier than they acquire the forms used by male parents.  Differences are found also in the verbal paradigms.  While quoting each other’s speech the men may use women’s forms and women may use the men’s forms.  In the socialization process, it is also found I these communities that the parents correct the speech of children of either sex to enable them to acquire the correct speech behaviour appropriate to the sex of children.

 

  It would be interesting to see how mastery of these dialects is achieved and how this mastery is interlinked with the mastery of separate and distinct rules for each sex.  Can here be common social roles for children of both sexes in the beginning, with progressive discrimination built into the processes of socialization?  Is the commonness of roles similar in its function to that of the core language structures?

 

  That sexes has a dominating influence in our behaviour is not questioned, but that sex is the basis of all behaviour is taken now generally with a pinch of salt, even when one does not attack the various psychoanalytic theories for their methodological infirmities.  This relationship is more or less similar to the relationship between language, though and culture.  While language and culture condition thinking, man can still go beyond them and think interculutrally, without language, and in languages other than his own.  As has been said, resolution of psychosexual conflicts is made by assigning separate roles in society, the play and display of sexual behaviour in the manner, space and time prescribed for the same by society and by awarding punitive measures for not following the permitted manner, time and space.  That resolution of psychosexual conflict is aided by language in “abnormalcy” is evident in the method of talk-cure of psychoanalyst.  But the point that language does play a significant role in the resolution of the psychosexual conflict in normal socialization process is often missed.  Language is a manifest symbol shared by both men and women and, thus, it is, indeed, a symbol and hope of resolution in a sense.  The   psychosexual manifestation of language use must be sought in two directions—in the expression and suppression of abusive terms and nuances in day to day language firstly and, secondly, in opposition to the first, in the elevation of the reference to and description of sexual organs and sexual play in literature which crowns the aesthetic function of languages use.  The language use in myth and reality is rich with imagerie4s, metaphors and expressions relating to the psychosexual bases—endearments, querulous abuse, jokes are and post coitus talk, stand bagging, bringing together the newly wedded through verbal games and songs, graphic description of body parts in details in literary works, metaphors and imagery based on sexual acts, sexual organs an body parts an feel, classification of grammatical gender on the basis of sexual organs, the use of grammatical gender itself, the concept of Arthanaareeswara as the model of the resolution of psychosexual conflict, the higher intensity and incidence of insults through abusive phrase indicating  sexual relationship between tabooed categories of individuals and knsolk, and the Nayaka.  Nayaki bhava in literature as the sublimation of psychosexual conflict at a higher level of human experience.

 

  The interplay of psychosexual elements in socialization and the role of verbal art in this interplay is well seen in the Koya community of South India.  From the time of their early childhood, children of cross-sex siblings understand that they are to be wed and behave toward each other in specified ways.  This behaviour includes a certain amount of deference toward and avoidance of each other in the presence of adults (especially their parents), as befits their future relationships as husband and wife.  But it also includes…sexual joking and battering … (Brukman, 1973).

 

  In every society one could identify this interplay in various and differing manifestations.

 

3.5. Normative-Maturational  Characteristic of Socialization 

 

  The normative-maturational approach to the study  of  the emergence behaviour  is very ancient, indeed.  In recent times, its revival was due mainly to Gesell’s prolific writings which instigated the atheoretical descriptive study of children’s behaviour.  This revival resulted in a sound body of enormous facts providing norms useful to clinical work.  Its decline was due mainly to its overemphasis on its domineering construct maturation, the prime lever of growth in this framework, and also due to its atheoretical basis which provided labels for particular norms but no explanations.  Several of its methods of description and data collection are now an internal part of almost all the approaches to the study of human behaviour.

 

 

  Gesell said that the psychologist’s task was to point out the influence of age on the growth of behaviour.  The psychology of a child is determined by his maturity and by his experience.  The experience, in turn, is determined by his maturity as well as by the culture in which he lives every child is born with potentialities, which are peculiar to him, or her and each child has a unique pattern of growth determined by these potentialities and by environment.  In spite of this uniqueness, the outward manifestations of mental growth fall in a set of lawful patterns—basic traits and growth sequences—shared by all children.  These are the normative-maturational and adulthood for participation as member of a social group.

 

  Gesell adopted a biographic-clinical approach to the study of child development.  He suggested that a knowledge of dynamic morphology of behaviour could be gained by intimate, consecutive, individualized contacts, rather than mass studies.  The method was longitudinal.  The progressive stages in the growth of the child’s mind were identified by means of a series of cross-sectional characterizations.  The case records included psychological examinations based on some established/tentative developmental schedule, performance tests, reading readiness tests, visual skill tests including pursuit, fixation, fusion, acuity, etc., naturalistic observations of the child’s play behaviour, and incidental, postural and tensional behaviour, and interviews with the mother.  Records were analyzed age by age, situation buy situation, and child by child.  The major question raised was ‘Does the given behaviour have an assignable status for a growth schedule?

 

  Gesell envisaged growth as a concrete process which produced patterns of behaviour.  These patterns can be arranged in growth gradients—series of stagers of maturity.  A child progresses towards a higher level of behaviour in a developmental sequence.  All growth is based on previous growth. The growth process is a paradoxical mixture of creation and perpetuation.  The action system of a child develops as a unitary whole.  In general, its generalization proceeds from the central axis outward.  As it matures, the action system reconciles and counterbalances a host of opposites.  Gesell suggested that he self—regulatory fluctuation and reciprocal interweaving were outstanding methods of child development.  ‘The growing action system is in a stage of formative instability combined with a progressive movement towards stability.  Growth gains are consolidated in periods of relative stability’.  The trends of developments tend to repeat themselves at ascending levels of organization in a spiral fashion.  It is an onward spiral but the child at a given stage may show a strong resemblance to what he was at an earlier stage.

 

 

  Gesell identified  seven stages apart from the stages of senescence and senectitude.  These are the stage of the embryo (0-8 weeks), the fetus (8-40 weeks), the infancy (from birth to 2 years), the preschool stage (2 to 5 years), childhood  (5 to 12 years), adolescence (12 to 20-24 years) and adult maturity.  The maturity traits are looked at from ten angles : motor characteristics, personal hygiene, emotional expression, fears and dreams, self and sex, interpersonal relations, play and pastimes, school life, ethical sense, and philosophic outlook.  The ages assigned to the growth gradients represent a verge normative trends and are not absolutes.  Gesell believed that the ground plan of growth is a given one, that it is beyond our control and that ‘it is too complex and mysterious to be altogether entrusted to human hands.

 

  The normative-maturational approach has been criticized on varies counts: for its belief that intervention is useless and unnecessary because growth is governed essentially by endogenous regulation, for its notion that environment has only a marginal role in the developmental process, for its minimization of the individual experiece to ontogeny while overemphasizing the role of phylogeneritc memory of racial culture for development, for its overemphasis on the importance of permissiveness and self-direction in growth, for its failure to seek highly representative experimental population for arriving at basic trays and norms, for its conception of maturation as a process of internal ripening, for its overemphasis on the psychology of embryology as basis for later behaviour and for its general lack of controlled observation which imposed only general kinds of constraints upon behaviour of the organism observed.

  As regards socialization,  the emphasis of the normative-maturational approach on internal ripening indicated that the ground plan for socialization is rather laid out much earlier than even the birth of the organism; the ground plan is rather a psychological one than a social psychological plan.  It has some connection with the environment and the cultural experience of the organism, but only in some small measure, as this connection cannot alter the basic features of the already laid out ground plan. Note that Gesell did not justify, by such an emphasis on the ground plan, any social-economic oppressions, discriminations and exploitations.  His was an effort to study the basic traits of maturity of human children.  ‘If we wish to do justice to the child’s personality, we must think in terms of growth in terms of his developmental maturity.  The controls of our culture must be based on a more widely disseminated knowledge of child development… Developmentalism is the very opposite of fascism, for it acknowledges the individuality of the child mad wisely concedes that all his behaviour is subject to the natural laws of growth.

  This view of socialization, however, has several severe limitations, apart from the inadequacies of methodology and coverage.  The over-emphasis on internal ripening has led to a lack of interest in fellow actors of the social drama and the developmental schedule has thus only short and grief references to others, while the development of the historical self of the self receives some attention, the formation of the social self in the self cannot be said to have received adequate attention.  Major aspects of social self do not receive pointed reference.  The influence of physical, immediate and assumed presence of others is largely ignored.  The cross-cultural variations are not emphasized and cross-cultural validations are not sought.  The emphasis on embryo psychology should be pursued in relation to the interaction of genetic factors with environment, social organization and roles of individuals encountered.  Moreover, the approach does not emphasize the need to take into account what the children say and how they view others, much as it emphasized the perception of mothers and others about the children.  Information given in schedules is based very little on the verbal utterances of children.

A more serious inadequacy is its lack of emphasis on language acquisition or its role in the acquisition and exhibition of maturity traits.  The language acquisition is treated largely as yet another behaviour, rather than as an integrated part of all behaviour.  Language acquisition is dealt with here and there in relation to acquisition of certain cognitive elements such as the growth of ethical sense and philosophical outlook.  It is not deals with as a process of becoming a member of a social group or even as a tool to acquire the social self and cognitive elements.  While acquisition reading and writing is inquired into, at least partly, the comprehension and speaking are hardly touched upon.  The latter are every important process to acquire the social self, to acquire social roles and to perceive correctly the social roles of others.

 

3.6. Learning Theory Approaches to Socialization

 

  The learning theories approach the learning processes,  and consequently the socialization processes, with an environmentalistic bias and basis rather than the naturalistic ones.  They are behaviour-oriented and they view behaviour as something conditioned by stimulus-response configurations.  Various contingencies such as reward, reinforcement and punishment may sustain the stability an occurrence of behaviour.  -The lawful relations between the responses emitted by the child and the various stimulus configurations that surround and precede these responses form the focus of their study.  Behaviour is, thus, a function of forces applied to child. Learning theorists assume that the same underlying processes are operative throughout the life cycle.  That is, the principles of learning they identity are applicable equally to every ontogenetic level of an individual’s life.  They may, however, change the values of the parameters from age to age.  Maturation is simply a biological given which has nothing to do with the learning growth of an organism.  They also believe that man’s diverse human behaviour is all learned.  Furthermore, a study of animal learning behaviour is taken relevant for understanding and explaining human behaviour, including verbal behaviour.  Learning theorists do not usually recognize any qualitative difference between the nonverbal and verbal behaviour.  They view the move responses as utilization of learned behaviour, in some sense generalization of a behaviour already learn.  They believe that an organism relies on its old habits for the solution of a problem, basing its decision on common elements between the new and old problems or on the similarity between the new situation as a whole and the one already met with.  When an organism fails in its efforts following the above steps, it resorts to trial and error until an appropriate solution is hit upon.

 

 

  More than the other approaches, the learning theory approaches are followed in the study of socialization processes.  However, many students of socialization within this framework employ only an eclectic learning theory approach, in the sense that they generally apply a mixture of ideas to describe and explain the social processes and not stick on strictly to any single school of learning theory.

 

  The characterization given above of learning theories in general covers the various stimulus—response theories.  The characterization should not be taken to mean that various learning, and consequently the socialization processes for out purposes here, in identical terms.  The fact that there are several learning theory stimulus-response models should indicate that there are differences among them (even though they share certain features, and hence may be grouped under a common category).  When the basic notion are interpreted for an implication to socialization processes, the differences among them become clearer.

 

  Within the framework of learning theories, socialization has to be viewed as having an environmentalist basis.  The child gets socialized in a manner arranged by society and desired by parents, through stimulus—response configurations.  Various contingencies of reward, reinforcement and punishment play a crucial role in the socialization process and influence the quality of socialization.  The stimulus—responses configurations form the basis of socialization all ontogenetic levels, both childhood, and adulthood, and in all circumstances.  The basic principles and elements of human socialization could be found even in animals and in laboratory conditions.  The novel responses one may notice in the socialized individuals reflect only the utilization of a learned behaviour, generalization of a behaviour already learnt

 

The mastery of socially accepted behaviour is explained differently by various learning theorists within the overall implications we have derived above for socialization from the general characteristics of learning theories.  Form Thorndike’s scheme, mastery of socially accepted behaviour must be seen as a trial and error effort leading to a selection of appropriate responses form among the many, and connect the same to the social norm.  from Pavolvian scheme, the mastery must be viewed as linking the stimulus with response through rewards or punishments.  In Guthrie’s learning theory, no importance is attached to practice. It is the association between the stimulus and response and not the motivation of the learning organism which is considered important.  The function of reward is to distinguish the correct response.  Within this learning theory, then, mastery of socialization processes does not depend either upon practice or upon the motivation of the individual who is being socialized.  The reward, both verbal and nonverbal, has the function of the distinguishing/identifying the correct and socially acceptable behaviour from other.  The individual is seen pursuing the socially acceptable behaviour with the help of the identification and not through rewards.  In the Hullian theory, an organism has sets of innage general responses.  These sets are activated by the needs of the organism.  When a stimulus and a response occur in close ontiguity and when the drive (need) of the organism is reduced by this occurrence, the habit strength (a given stimulus evoking a given response) of the organism is increased.  This is taken as learning.  Socialization, thus, takes place when the needs of the individual are met by a contiguous occurrence of a stimulus and the response behaviour, response towards the stimulus by the individual.  Socialization is meeting the drives of the individuals which activate the innate general responses.  Form the set of innate general responses, that which occurs most contiguous to the stimulus will be strengthened and symbolic constructs that tie the stimulus and response are developed.  Socialization must be seen in the emergence and mastery of the symbolic constructs that tie stimulus and response.  Skinner distinguished between elicited and emitted responses.  Emitted responses are called operant.  These may be considered as responses with unknown stimuli.  Skinner believes that stimulus conditions are not necessary or are irrelevant for an understanding of operant behaviour.  Operant conditioning is favored because of complexities in human learning situations in which the stimuli cannot be specified on many occasions.  The condoning of operant behaviour takes place when, the response is correlated with reinforcement.  Thus, in the process of socialization, the consequences of the response behaviour are more important, for Skinner, than what induces or stimulates the social behaviour.  The relationship between response and reward (the reinforcement of the response) is more important than that between stimulus and response. An elaborate system with details of operant conditioning is arrived at within the Skinnerian frame.  These could be interpreted for aspects that underline socialization.  For instance, rather strengthening and sustaining of one socially accepted behaviour as opposed to the eliminating of socially censured behaviour is explained through the processes of extinction.  The emitted response is assumed to be already in the repertoire of the organism before it is conditioned to a stimulus.  As such, extinction of a behaviour would mean that the behaviour is brought to its original preconditioned stage.  Skinner recognizes that most of the time we act only indirectly (symbolically) upon the environment.  From this indirect act upon the environments, the ultimate consequences emerge.  For instance, instead of going to a water fountain for water, we may ask for a glass of water and get the same. There is no geometrical or mechanical relation between the behaviour of asking for water and getting it.  Social behaviour is just the same.  The socialization process, then, must be viewed as the acquisition of symbolic behaviour through operant conditioning.  Within skinners frame work socialization must be seen as based on operant conditions and as the acquisition of a series of rather interconnected operant.  Extrapolating from Skinner’s work on verbal behaviour, we could suggest that the key to the entire analysis of socialization processes is the identification of a unit of behaviour, namely, operant.  This unit should consist of a response of identifiable form functionally related to one or more independent variables.  The main condition is that is response must appear before it is strengthened by any reinforcement.

 

  The approach of learning theories to socialization of humans is criticised for several reasons.  These include the generalization done by learning theorists for human socialization on the basis of their studies on animal behaviour and on single human subjects, generalization of the findings obtained in restrictive laboratory studies to freer contexts of human conditions, failure to account for the emergence and use of novel behaviour which is not easily relatable to conditions to which the individuals have been exposed, failure to take into account for the emergence and use of novel behaviour which is not easily relatable to conditions to which the individuals have been exposed, failure to take into account and integrate one of the very few distinguishing mark’s of humans, namely, the verbal symbols, failure to approach the problem on the basis of the facts revealing that humans are the creators and user s of various intricate symbols, failure to view the learning processes, and consequently the socialization processes, in a context of humans, for assuming that the contribution of the individuals being socialized in defining the quality of and success in socialization processes as trivial, for failure to weave a coherent whole emphasizing in good measure the knowledge of the external stimulation, internal structure of the organism, and the ways in which it processes input information and organized its own behaviour, failure to relate the socialization process in some appropriate manner to the inborn structure, the genetically determined course of maturation and pasts experience, for the claim that instruction and imparting of information are matters of conditionings which, indeed , ignores matters of learning relatively uninfluenced by contingencies of conditioning, for over –emphasizing reinforcement while minimizing the role of casual observation, natural inquisitiveness, the capacity of the child to generalize, hypothesize and process information in a variety of ways and for their conflicting emphases on individuals stages in learning on some occasion and on others the need for careful arrangement of contingencies of reinforcement by the community.

 

3.7. Cognitive Theories of Learning and Socialization

 

  While, between stimulus and response, the S-R theorist posits no more than muscular movements, the cognitive learning theorist posits a mental operation between the two.  While the S-R theorist believes that what are learned are habits, the cognitive theorist believes that what are learned are cognitive structures, a scheme.  Another difference is related to the position assigned to trial and error and insight in problem solving.  S-R theorists believe that an organism relies on its old habits for the solution of a problem, basing its decision on common elements between the new and old elements or on the similarity between the new situation as a whole and the one already met with.  The cognitive learning theorist does not consider that past experience has anything to do with the solution of a present problem.  It is the form in which the problem is encountered that matters.  Contemporary structuring of the problem is an important one as it helps to development insight into the inter-relationships which ultimately lead to proper solution.  In essence, the cognitive learning theorist believes that learning is insightful and that trial and error is only derivative of this insightful affair.

 

 

  Tolman, cognitive learning theorist, suggested that behaviour is initiated by environmental stimuli and physiological states.  There are certain processes which intervene before the emergence of behaviour.  Our problem is to infer the intervening processes.  Tolman considered these intervening processes.  Tolman considered these intervening processes as psychobiological in nature which include cognition and purpose.  What the organism learns in reality are signs.  They learn sign-significant relations.  An organism has capacity to hypothesize several ways and means to solve a problem.  The cognitive field is a result of its hypotheses and when a hypothesis corresponds to reality, it achieves success and establishes the cognitive field which in turn will be available to the organism to meet the requirements of altered conditions.  Tolman, while emphasis zing the importance of cognitive fields, did not ignore the relevance of exercise and the frequency with which the sign, the significant and the behaviour relation between the two have been presented.  But exercise has nothing to do with the selection of correct response.  It helps in making a response firmly established after its due selection.  Rewards and punishments tend a regulate the field rather than influence the acquisition.

 

 

  The organism which is being socialized must be seen striving to acquire gestalts within the gestalt theory of learning.  Gestalt means a unified whole, a configuration or pattern, having specific properties that cannot be derived from the summation of its component parts.  In a gestalt, the parts are distinguishable and yet it will have some characteristics not originally found, through the formation of a gestalt.  The gestalt itself may have characteristics not exhibited by any part of the entity.  Gestalt psychologists find that this situation permeates all human behaviour and that the universe consists of gestalts.  The psychological organization moves always in a general direction.  This general direction is towards the state of pragnanz.  This state has  properties like4 regularity, simplicity, stability, etc. the configuration around the organism is considered to be always dynamic and as such maintenance of equilibrium is very important.  But a learning situation leads to disequilibria.  However, once learning is over, equilibrium is restored, to be disturbed again by further learning situations.  Socialization, then, is seen as the acquisition of a series of gestalts governed by laws of similarity, proximity, closure (the principle that completed action brings in the closure of events) and good continuation (the principle that when an event or object is defective, the perceptual organization tends to make the event object a wholesome affair or thing).  As learning is considered an insightful affair, the organism is viewed as an active participant, guiding his own sociazlition process rather than being awayed and shaped by outside forces.  He is not also governed by negative orientations and deprivations, as visualized in S-R theories.  He  is governed by a tendency to strive towards a positive and good organization.  This is an contrast to the position of S-R learning theorists who rather visualize the organism that is being socialized as governed by negative orientations and deprivations and is shaped by the external forces.

 

 

  3.8. Social Learning Theory and Socialization

 

 

  Social learning theorists emphasize the influence of social variable sin learning.  They avoid the generalizations based only on laboratory studies of animal behaviour and human subjects.  Learning takes place in a social context that has striking differences from the laboratory controlled conditions.  In the learning in social context, there are several important social variables, such as those in a verbalizing model, which make the difference between social learning theorists emphasize that learning can take place through observation of the behaviour of others even when the observer does not reproduce the model’s responses during acquisition and, therefore, received no reinforcement. Acquisition of novel responses is seen related to this. 

 

 

  Social learning takes place through a combination of variable-ratio and variable interval schedules.  In the former, the experimenter varies the ratios around some mean valued instead of reinforcing every n-th response.  This results in the occurrence of a varying number of unreinforeced responses between the presentation of successive reinforces.  In the latter, the experimenter varies the interval between the presentation of successive reinforces.  That is, in social learning, social reinforces are dispensed on combined schedules by which the number of unreinforced responses and the time interval between the presentation of reinforces and the time interval between  the presentation of reinforces are both allowed to vary.  As a result, no direct reinforcement is easily discernible while a “novel” response occurs.  The complexity of social demands are the reason for the occurrence and maintenance of the mixed schedules of reinforcement in social situations.  The social learning context requires more than one participant. Even when the adult is consistent in his behaviour and is in a position to moderate all the child’s responses, his schedule of reinforcements is dependent on the form, timing, intensity and objects of child’s behaviour.  Specificity on every count is not possible easily and directly.

 

 

  Social learning theorists focus their attention on the roles of imitation and reinforcement patterns on the development of socially acceptable/censured patterns of behaviour.  The emergence, development and acquisition of self-control is seen playing a key role in the stability of  patterns of behaviour and the maintenance of special control.  Imitation plays is very important role in the acquisition of conforming as well as deviant behaviour.  Observations learning has an important place in all cultures.  Models are utilized to promote the acquisition of socially acceptable behaviour patterns.

 

 

  The symbolic models are presented though oral or written instructions, pictorially or though a combination of verbal and pictorial devices.  The recreational and aesthetic forms exploited in a culture also provide models. Verbal instructions are widely used.  Rate and level of learning can depend upon the mode by which the models are presented.  This could also be a function of the age.  The provision of models accelerated learning and avoids costly and dangerous errors.  The social learning theorists suggest that social response patterns can be transmitted though the influence of a model and that imitation is facilited if the model received rewards.  If the model is know to receive punishments, the observer may refrain from imitating the model.  It does not mean, however, that the social learning theorists view imitative view imitative modeling related only to deficits in the organism.  They, in fact, suggest this as part of cognitive components.  Bandura and walters, this as part of cognitive components.  Bandura and Walters, the leading social learning theorists, distinguish three possible effects of exposure to a model: ‘(a) a model ling effect, involving the transmission of precisely imitative response patterns not previously present in the observer’s repertory, (b) a inhibitory or disinhibitory effect, reflected in an increase or decrease in the frequency, latency, or intensity of previously acquired observer responses that are more or less similar to those exhibited by the model, and (c) a possible eliciting effect, in which the observation of a model’s responses serves as a cue for realizing similar observer that are neither entirely novel or inhibited as a result f of prior learning.

 

 

  Social learning theorists accept, however, that not all learning is accounted by imitation and models. The consequences to the modeling agent largely determine whether these responses are strengthened, weakened or inhibited.  (Note that these consequences pre-exist the individuals; they are part of the society.  The observations of the consequences to the modeling agents, then, becomes a primary function of the socialization process.)  Experimental exposure and direct training though reward, aversive stimulation and other disciplinary procedures also play an important role in shaping and in maintaining patters of social behaviour. Positive reinforcements in the forms of verbal approval or material reward will increase the frequency of children’s particular behaviour.

 

 

  Social control in society and in individual is maintained though both external and internal sanctions.  Soon a period comes in the life of a child when the spends more time in the company of people away from his parents and others whose direct influence of him is much less then.  And yet what he has acquir4ed earlier through parental training continues to the maintained.  Self-generated stimuli now begin to outweigh the influence of external stimuli.  The emergence an ramifications of this self-control is an important aspect of study by social learning theorists.  The roots of self-control are identified in the very early stages of the life history of a young child when he begins to adjust himself to, what it would appear from his biological needs, the delayed schedules of feeding and other vicarious matters.  Thus, according to Banudura an Walters (Banudra, 1977), even the basic socialization processes involve the acquisition of a certain degree of self –control and the observing of social prohibitions and requirements.  Resistance to deviation from the norm, the regulation of self-administered rewarding resources and the postponement of immediate reinforcements in favour of other highly valued but delayed rewards are some major forms of self-control.  The acquitting and maintenance of self–control are influenced also by direct reinforcement, which generally takes the form of disciplinary interventions.

 

 

  The social learning approach lays stress on inter-individual differences and on intra-individual continuities, unlike the stage theories ‘which emphasize inter-individual variability over time and similarities among individuals at specifiable age periods.  The approach emphasize the continuity of behaviour rather than its discontinuity.  Very rarely one notices marked/abrupt changes in the behaviour of an individuals in a given age.  Whenever such changes occur they will be found related to abrupt alternations in social training and other related biological and environmental variables.  Constitutional factors influence social learning only insofar as they have been attributed esteem by societies and considered as instrument in the acquisition of rewarding resources.  ‘within a society that sets high value on the possession of certain physical attributes, the frequency with which social reinforcements are dispensed is partly dependent on the extent to which these cultural ideals are met’.

 

 

  Within the social learning theatrical framework, we suggest then, that socialization is based mainly on imitation and modeling.  The manner and intensity of social reinforcement of a response decides the character and the sustenance of sociazlition.  While modeling and imitation are important for the socialization process, self-control/interval regulation soon comes to play a major role in further socialization processes.  Though self-control is found to have its roots even in early infancy, its full play is generally taken to occur in later childhood.  This is a much more conscious effort than other socialization processes, which demands conscious participation on the part of the individual self.  In fact it appears to be a major factor in the formation of the individual self itself.  A progression from the social to the individual seems to be suggested there.

 

  As regards the modeling and imitation in the language component of the socialization process, the right model is chosen on various counts—with emphasis on in-group membership, children are insisted upon imitating the speech forms of the group; where parents highly value membership in a social class they may encourage imitation of the speech of that highly valued social class.  At times this could lead to a  communication barrier between the two; imitation of a right model is detected also by the social perception of what is the appropriate manner and content of speech for an age group, sex, and social status.  The manner of speech covers intonation patterns, length of sentences, address terms, lexical choice, length of speech, context in which a particular item is uttered,  etc.  Children  are reprimanded when they speak “like adults”.  They are also reprimanded when the content of their speech is not appropriate to their age—the content here could include the use of abusive terms.  Children are also reprimanded when they imitate deviant being a member of a social class other than the class of the child; when the model belongs to the same class, sex, etc., the utterances of the (wrong) model must have been considered deviant for some reason.  From language to language, modeling plays a crucial role in filling the gaps in expression systems.  The loan  blends and loan translations, apart from direct borrowings, are a result of modeling of one language expressions on the basis of another.  Need –filling and presige motives have been identified as basis for imitation of expressions within and across languages.  That  the socializing agents view lack of proper labesl and reluctance and failure to give a proper description and reason for the availability an duse of albes, as means of postponing socializing in certain in compartments of life is seen clearly in many societies when it comers to the description and explanation of sexual acts and organs.  Even when the objects are before them, the children are not given the linguistic tools and comprehension.  The children can understand and engage in verbal communications.  Since parents fail to label, and most of the time, they mislabel, only in later childhood come to identify certain behaviors as sexual and palace them in an appropriate place in the social pattern.

 

 

  A series of related concepts may be inspected here.  These are the concepts of satelization, non-satelization and the exploratory orientation.  These concepts have been suggested by Ausubel and others in connection with the different ways of interiorizing the values of other persons or of groups. A  satellitizing individual simply habitués  to a given set of norms; he accepts the norms as axiomatic.  Acquisition takes place through a simple mechanical type of imitation.  The nonstatellitizing individual interiorizes the values, the given set of norms, not blindly and uncritically but with an aim to use them for a purpose, for obtaining the status advantages of group reference or membership rather than as a reflection of a need for sefl-subsevient belongingness or “we-feeling”.  The individual with an exploratory orientation acquires a set of given norms with a problem-solving approach, placing emphasis on matters such as objective evidence, logical validity and assessment of the acceptability of different value position.  Divorcing these concepts wholly form their psychological and social psychological implications, we suggest that the first language acquisition or rather the acquisition of the vernacular (the mother tongue/native dialect) be considered a stagellitizing phenomenon and that the acquisition of facility in other dialects for instrumental purposes be considered a non-satellitizing phenomenon.  More often than not, adults learning a second and/or foreign language are guided by an exploratory orientation which leaves a trace of interference from the previously learnt languages.

 

 

3.9. Cognitive Developmental Approach and Socialization

 

 

  The sequential  changes that one notices in the psychological structure of the child form the focus of study by develop mentalists.  These scholars do not seek a correlation between the responses and specific environmental stimuli, even though there is recognition of the functional activating role of the environment on other quality and stages of the emergence of psychological structures in the child.  They believe that child behaviour is mediated by different processes at various stages (whereas the S-R theorists believe that some principles govern the learning at various stages). Maturation is not simply a function of age; it is not simply a biological given which gas no bearing on the principles and strategies of learning adopted by an organism.  Maturation is a complex process which is wholly integrated with all aspects and levels of human behaviour.  It required an in-depth study of its own.  Maturation and consequent growth are a concern of cognitive developmentalists.  The transition from one stage to another.  The content of each stage, internal factors that influence the developmental process and insightful interactions/experimental exploration, rather than past experience, form the primary attention of the approach.  The developmentalists of the cognitive-maturational school, particularly Piaget, believe that the differences between the child’s and adult’s thought processes and also t6he differences between the thought processes of younger and older children are qualitative.  These thought processes of younger and older children and adults are not a simple extension from the young children to adults.  Accordingly they view development in terms of an evolution through qualitatively different stages.

 

 

  Piaget at first aimed at discovering the stages of this evolution in social factors which included language, contact with peers and parents, etc.  He soon came to emphasize child’s own activity as the basis for any development, while not ignoring the social factors.  Piaget’s genetic epistemological work analyzes aspects of the acquisition and use of knowledge in terms of the relation between the individual , rather individual’s action and his environment.  The knowledge thus acquired includes, ‘as a particular instance of biological adaptation, the form of equilibrium towards which the successive adaptations and exchanges between the organism and his environment are directed. ‘ A system of living and acting operations. And intellectual competence (what the intellectual can do and not what he actually does.)

 

 

  Piaget’s theoretical framework of development accepts the roles played by biological  factors in guiding the developmental stages, while emphasizing experimental factors.  The organism’s own activity is governed in many respects by the biological factors.  These factors would decide the hereditary transmission of physical structures, which in their turn, decide the particular courses the organism can or cannot take. These factors provide the organism with automatic behavioral reaction, reflex responses.  They also decide the physical maturation, in additions, Piaget suggests that the species are provided with two basics tendencies, namely, organization and adaptation.

 

 

  The tendency for organization helps all species to systematize or organize their processes into coherent physical and/or psychological systems.  The tendency for adaptation helps the species to adapt themselves to the environment.  A very important observation of Piaget for characterizing the socialization processes is regarding adaptation.  He sees inter, interspecies and individual differences in adaptation processes

Engaged.  He also finds differences in adaptation processes from stage to state in the developmental processes of an individual.  Adaptation as an invariant function has tow complementary processes, namely, assimilation and accommodation.  The process of accommodation describes the individual’s tendency to change in response to environmental demands.  When a person eats something his digestive system reacts to the substances incorporated by the contraction of the muscles of the stomach, by release of acids, etc.  In the  process of assimilation the individual deals with an environmental event in terms of current structures.  In case of digestion the acids transform the food into a form which the body can use.  Accommodation and assimilation involve a series of actions on the part of the organism.  Piaget suggests that although organization and adaptation are inherited tendencies, ‘the  particular ways in which an organism adapts and organizes its processes depend also on its environment, and its learning history.  These tendencies lead to a number of psychological structures which take different forms at different stages.  Development proceeds through a series of stages with each stage characterized by a different kind of psychological structure and a different type of interaction between the individual and the environment.  An individual of any stage must adapt o the environment and must organize his response continually, but the instruments by which the person accomplished this-psychological structures—change from one age level to another.  Both the infant and adult organize and adapt, but the resulting psychological structures are quite different for the two  periods.  Piaget further proposes that organisms tend toward equilibrium with the environment.  The organism—whether a human being or some other form of life—tends to organize structures into coherent and stable patterns. 

  Piaget identifies four developmental stages—infancy, the preoperational period, the period of concrete operations and the period of formal operations.  The first stage is from birth to two years and is called the sensor motor period.  The second stage is from two to seven years and is called the preoperational period.  Concrete operations characterize the third stage which is from seven to eleven years.  The fourth stage sees the acquisition of formal operations beginning at age eleven.

  While piaget includes the emergence of social self and socialized speech form the ego and egocentric speech, the focus is on the individual only.  From the egocentric speech the attempts to derive the socialized speech.  The is has been criticized by Vygotsky who rightly points out that even in the very early stages of human organism socialized speech and socialized thinking regulate the behaviour of the organism.  Piaget’s works have been criticized  as badly controlled experiments, for presenting only incomplete reports on studies with focus on, sometimes, highly motived and selective behaviors.  He has been criticized for not publishing the empirical data in its entirety to meet the criterion of verifiability of his findings by others in all their aspects and to drive alternative models on the basis of the data.  His studies have not been fully repeated.  It has been also claimed that in Piaget’s studies the relationship between hypotheses and observations is not clear.  The critics argue that Piaget’s researches point to important issues and represent a rigorous psychological theory of cognitive development.  There is a high level of abstraction. One finds in Piaget’s studies, on the basis of Piaget’s observations of children’s behaviour but a clear connection between children’s thinking and Piaget’s abstractions is not well discernible.  The relationship between pure mathematical concepts Piaget arrives at on the basis of  his observations of children and cognitive development of children, has also been questioned.

 

 

  Piaget has been criticized for not taking into account, or for taking into account only minimally, the cross-cultural differences, differences within the same culture group, and individual differences, and differences between different age groups, in arriving at his stages of child developments.  His emphasis on logical inference on a poor or inadequate sample is considered rather excessive.  He has been criticized for adopting an ambivalent interactions view of development which, while recognizing the role of interaction with the environment, undermines, however, the role of social transmission and physical experience.  His characterization of development as predeterministic order has been questioned, as the order of stages of several items could be different across cultures, etc.  it has been pointed out that the transition to the abstract stage occurs at different ages both for different subject matter and for component sub-areas within a particular field.  Piaget has been accused of ignoring considerations such as ‘extent of intersituational generality and relative degree of intra- and inter-stage variability and relative degree of development.’ He has been criticized for adopting an ambivalent interaction view of development which, while recognizing the role of interaction with the environment, undermines, however, the role of social transmission and physical experience.  His characterization of development as predeterministic order has been questioned, as the order of stages of several items could be different across cultures, etc.  It has been pointed out that the transition to the abstract stage occurs at different ages both for different subject matter and for component sub-areas within a particular field.  Piaget has been accessed of ignoring considerations such as ‘ extent of intersituational generality and relative degree of intra- and inter-stage variability in delineating stages of development.’  He has also been said not to make/accept well established distinctions between reflex and non-reflex activity in early motor development.

  In spite of all these and many other criticism, and in spite of the criticisms in general of stage theories, Piagets’s contribution to an understanding of child development, and socialization in general, is stupendous.  Form the point of view of role of language in socialization, there is need to focus on the rate, patterning and regulation in socialization after language acquisition.  This has not been highlighted.  There is also a need to link the progressive decline in abilities past one’s prime of life with the progress of linguistic and other abilities in childhood.  This has not also been highlighted.  There is also a need to look into the Piagetian dogmatism which emphasized the influence of the environment and self-initiated action for acquisition of knowledge and which de-emphasized the focus on innateness.  Another important area that needs further focus is the constrains imposed by the cultural ethos on the socialization processes.

3.10. Field Theory and Socialization

  Within the field theory, socialization process is to be seen as movement within life space, impinging on the psychological environment prevailing within life space, as interplay of psychological forces within the psychological environment, all leading to or subjecting the child to a process of development which ultimately ends in the emergence of realism.  According to Kurt Lewin, the primary duty of a psychologist is to describe the life space of a person at that time in verbal, pictorial, or symbolic terms.  Life space is seen as the sum of all facts that directly influence and determine the person’s behaviour at a given time.  Causes of events include only the facts that have concrete consequences.  Explanation for any behaviour is to be sought in the dynamics of the immediate situation.  Does it mean that information acquired in the past has no role in the present behaviour?  Does it mean that the so-called social-cultural memory that comes to control behaviour in life has no role in behaviour and no part in the socialization process?  There is no denial of the role of  the past within the Lewinan theory.  But the past operates only through the present; a description of the present through verbal, pictorial or symbolic terms, hence, should give an adequate picture of the socialization processes at any given moment.

Lewin distinguished between the psychological and phenomenal environments.  While the latter is based on what a person perceives or believes what exists in the external world, the former is seen only in terms of its concrete effects on behaviour.  The former—the psychological environment—is, thus, a description of the external situation as it affects behaviour. Behaviour, in the Lewinian sense, consists of the change in the psychological environment, not in the physical.  The focus of psychological environment, not in the physical.  The focus psychological laws in Lewinian theory is on this change in the structure of psychological environment.  Lewin postulates the existence of psychological forces in the environment.  These psychological forces move the person from one psychological region to another.  A force has a point of application, a strength and a direction.  In addition to the identification of such forces,  Lewin asks for a knowledge of conditions they operate.  Thus, within Lewinian theory, the identification of psychological regions, movement from one region to another, the forces that instigate and guide such movement and the interplay of forces upon one another form the backdrop for the characterization of the socialization process.  The process itself, like any behaviour, is to be seen in its dynamics and as a process of conflict.

  The process of socialization is much more clearly conceptualized, within the Lewinan theory, in the characterization of what constitutes development.  Development is viewed as a process of differentiation.  Children become more differentiated as they develop.  Differentiation is viewed as an increase in the number of regions in the person.  This may be brought about in several ways.  While differentiation is an increase in the number of psychological regions, rigidification, another important ingredient of development, helps increase the strength of the boundaries between regions.  Both these processes are seen occurring simultaneously.  Some have suggested that rigidity increased with chronological age, while differentiation increased with mental age.

  Lewin distinguishes the following aspects of development.  Firstly, a growing child exhibits a variety of behaviour, emotional expressions, needs and interests, knowledge and social relations.  While some of these are dropped as part of this growing process, many more are added to his repertoire.  Secondly, the increase in repertoire is accompanied by a greater organizations the repertoire, guided by a governing purpose, a main theme or a leading idea.  The organization has certain features such as the composition of larger units through a series of sub parts leading to greater complexity in the structural whole of a behaviour unit, the hierarchical arrangement in which deahc level provides guidance to the level below, and the arrangement to carry out an activity in spite of interruptions, to carry out more than one activity simultaneously and ‘ a to devise a strategy that fits two different purposes.’ Third characteristic of the developmental process is the expansion in the psychological environment of the child in the area covered and the time span as regards the life space.  It appears to us, then, that, within the Lewinan theory, the current qualitative and quantitative status of the child as regards its life space is the measure of its socialization condition.  The life space of a young child has certain immediacy restraints, even when the psychological regions are already in the repertoire of child.  The life space of a young child also does not have psychological spaces for psychological environments for distant futures and long past events.  As the child grows up, the life space of the child as well as the space of free movement increase.  Note, however, that the Lewinian theory does not posit any necessary relation between the regions of the life space and the physical activities.  The quality of the psychological environment is to be determined on the basis of the quality of connections between regions.

  Fourthly, the growth of a child or the development process is characterized by a growing independence and interdependence.  The process of differentiation of one act from another is a mark of the increase in the independence of one action form others. The inter-dependence comes to the force when the activities of the child are organized into complex purposive patterns.  This inter-dependence may also be seen as a process of integration.

  Lewinian theory recognizes two types of inter-dependence—simple interdependence and organizational inter-dependence.  Easy mobility form one psychological region to another and the ease with which one psychological region influences another religion or the ease with which tension, etc., in one region spreads to another region of the same person is viewed as an illustration of the simple inter-dependence.  In this view, then, simple inter-dependence becomes an integral facet of the dynamics of behaviour.  The organizational interdependent, on the other hand, is viewed as a hierarchical organization of the life space, characterized by very many complex means and relationships in the psychological environment.

  The fifth characteristic of the developmental process is the emergence of realism, which is seen to increase with age.  Realism is seen as having a number of levels, or degrees of reality.  ‘Levels of realism’ is an important dimension of the life space.  Rigidity develops where realism is high; the organism does not allow itself to be easily influenced by what it wishes, it always makes a distinction between what it wishes and how things are.  Realism is not defined in terms of external reality, but only in terms of psychological properties.  Here is a concept within the Lewinian theory that requires a careful interpretation.  A spectrum of realities is recognized and a variety of sources for the same reality requires to be pointed.  In as much as it represents ‘the child’s acquiring the concept of an objective world external to himself’, the attainment of realism appears to be the ultimate state of the socialization process.

 

  Another relevant Lewinian concept for the characterization of the socialization process is the concept of a selective gate keeper or  filter.  The function of the gate keeper is to determine the quality and kinds of situations an individual is to be confronted with.  The parent is a gate keeper of the child’s environment. In fact one should assume a variety of individuals and institutions in the external world to play the role of a gate keeper in the process of socialization of the child.  In identifying and describing functions of the gate keeper and in identifying and describing the specific kinds of experiences allowed, not allowed or partly allowed by the gate keeper, we would draw a picture of the socialization process within the theory, while drawing this picture on the basis of the role of the gate keeper, a proper modulation of the picture is called for, based on the internal dynamics of behaviour development detailed above.

  A practical exemplification of a method of research within the field theory is provided in Barker and Wright’s description of the psychological environment.  The same can be followed (and, in fact, is followed) in development studies and in the description of the socialization process.  In this method, episodes of a running behaviour are the units of description.  Episode is a running behaviour, rather a sequence of behaviour, all working towards the game goal.  The description of the episode may be done in several ways-identification of each of the episodes and the sub-episodes as self-initiated or externally initiated classification of the episodes and then parts according to the number and kinds of participants; description of the episodes and the constituents as gratifying, frustrating, need-filling, etc., description of the episodes on the basis of successful completion or otherwise; characterization of the episodes based on the power hierarchy and the contents of the interaction and so on.  The description is generally used to identify and describe and assess the function of the objects of the psychological environment on the behaviour of the child.

  The child’s environment is also described in terms of the behaviour setting. A behaviour setting prescribes or anticipates certain behaviour within that setting.  This setting is both spatial and temporal.  One behavioral setting may be distinct from another behavioral setting.  A setting is rather independent of the person, in the sense that one may enter and leave, but once in, the behaviour setting prescribes to some degree a measure of behaviour to be adhered to by the individual.  From  this prescription flows the constrains imposed on the individual in the particular setting.  One should, however, realize that behavior settings cannot be separated as distinct ones.  It appears to us that the notion of entering and leaving a setting requires further clarification, at least as far as young children are concerned.

  Barker and Wright had also foreseen these problems and had suggested that two setting are dependent to extent:

 

(i) the same people enter both settings,

(ii)   the same power figures or leaders are active in both settings,

(iii)   both settings use the same space,

(iv)   both settings occur at the same or close together in time,

(v) the same objects and equipment are used in both settings,

(vi)   the same action units span the two settings, and

(vii)   the same behaviour mechanisms occur in both settings.

Note that language interaction is not viewed as important at all there in an explicit manner.

  In every setting there may be six levels of participation.  These are (i) onlooker, (ii) audience or invited guest, (iii) member of the group, (iv) active functionary, (v) joint leader, and (vi) single leader.  The language consequences of each of these levels will be worth investigating.  Barker and Wright did not concern themselves with these.  They were interested in the description of participation by different age levels of children, etc.  They  were interested in the levels of participation of these age levels in communities of different sizes. From  the participant’s view such a characterization of participation would also give us an idea about the accessibility and inaccessibility of the various settings, claimed

Barker  and Wright.

  Inaccessibility in language interaction is revealed through the participant’s deliberate silence borne out of a conscious analysis or of an appreciation of his role in the current setting. It may be due to his inability to decipher as to what is going on.  It may be due to the successful  ‘silencing of his voice’ in several ways including use of authority and a manifest neglect of the individual.  these are apart from the influences of the sociazlition processes in individual may have gone through thus far and the individual’s personality as a speaker and as a listener.  It appears to us that the quality and quantity of language interaction would be a relevant and easy measure to determine to accessibility and inaccessibility of various settings.