Power of socialization Interview

based on your interview and your personal experience, discuss the role that individual played as an agent of socialization and explain how that individual affected your socialization and your values, beliefs, or goals. In your essay, include at least one direct quote from your interview and use at least three concepts from the Module 01 or Module 02 content; highlight these concepts in boldface. Examples of concepts include primary and secondary groups, gender socialization,

re-socialization, social class, roles, in-group, out-group, looking-glass self, group conformity, achieved or ascribed status, norms, values, and so forth.

Within society, groups have developed. There are two basic groups: Primary Groups that provide intimate face to face interactions, which include family and friends. Secondary Groups are much larger, more anonymous, and more impersonal. They are based on some common interaction or activity such as work or hobbies. To complicate the structure further, there are In-groups and Out-groups within the two basic groups. Simply put, In-groups are groups toward which people feel loyalty; Out-groups are groups toward which people feel antagonism. While there are many groups that can be discussed or studied, without understanding social interaction group structure is valueless because it is interaction that creates the group’s dynamics.
All the World is a Stage: the Elements of Social Structure
Within society, social structure consists of four main elements: class, status, role, and institutions. Social class is based on income, education, and occupational prestige. It influences not only our behavior but even our ideas and attitudes. Social status refers to the position that one occupies; that status can be ascribed or achieved. Ascribed status is inherited at birth such as race, sex, social class, male or female, daughter or son. Achieved status is earned or accomplished as the results of one action (i.e., spouse, friend, lawyer, doctor, member of lodge).
Roles are behaviors, obligations, and privileges attached to a status. The sociological significance of roles is that they lay out what is expected of people, allowing certain amounts of freedom based upon the position one is at, be it front stage or back stage. Front stage roles are those that people feel that others expect to see. Conversely, back stage roles are those that allow one to relax and be themselves. Goffman (1922-1982) called the way one uses roles dramaturgy, analyzing social life in terms of drama or the stage.
Social institutions are the organized, usual, or standard ways in which society meets its basic needs. Some good examples are the family, religion, education medicine, law and military, even the media is considered a social institution. These institutions help set the behavior and norms of society as required by its status.
Module 2 socialization and social interaction
Social scientists have long been interested in how groups can influence human behavior. Their research has found that group conformity, the process of complying with the norms or expectations of a particular group, is a powerful predictor of individual behavior in group settings. In the 1950s, Solomon Asch found that many of the undergraduate students who participated in his group conformity experiments would give an incorrect answer to a problem to avoid the potential discomfort of disagreeing with other members of their assigned group. Some group settings can be more influential than others. Philip Zimbardo’s experimental research in a prison-like setting showed how group conformity can lead to hostile, violent behavior. For an in-depth look at Zimbardo’s experiment and its impact on our understanding of group behavior and its effect on experimental research, click here.
Why is it that many people do not speak up in a group setting, even when they know the decisions being made are problematic or simply wrong? They may not want to openly object to the decisions of group leaders for fear of being viewed as disruptive, and they may worry about the consequences of not being viewed as a “team player.” Sociologists refer to the tendency to avoid “rocking the boat” in group settings as groupthink. Groupthink creates a situation where, in the desire to seek consensus, individual group members conform to the decisions of the group leaders or dominant members.