Socialization Theories

Respond to this topic using a five paragraph format.  The lead paragraph should state your position on the topic and preview the points you intend to address.  Paragraphs 2, 3, and 4, are your body paragraphs. Each should address one of the three key points or topics you want to discuss and evaluate.  The final paragraph should restate your thesis and review the points you’ve made in the body paragraphs.
Utilizing information provided by your text, compare the insights into socialization provided by Charles Horton Cooley, George Herbert Mead, and Jean Piaget, in order to decide which theorist gives us the most useful insights into the development of the Self. 
Note: There is no absolute “right answer” to this essay. It’s up to you to apply your critical thinking to the assigned topic. It’s up to you to decide which theorist tells us the most about the process of socialization and why you think that’s the case. 

Socialization Theories

The process of socialization refers to the fact that we learn to become competent members of society. It is fundamentally centered upon the concept as to how self is developed. It provides an idea how the sense of self emerges while living in the society and interacting with others. The following paragraphs discuss three important theories of Socialization – Theory of Looking Glass-Self (Charles Horton Cooley), Theory of Social Self (George Herbert Mead) and Theory of Cognitive Development (Jean Piaget). Each of these theories are important in their own ways, but it is up to us who we want to associate ourselves with.
According to the American sociologist Charles Horton Cooley, if a person displays a sense of personal insecurity whenever he finds himself in the middle of a social construct then this state of mind is only driven by what he believes what people think about him. Cooley came up with a concept of the looking glass self, which tries to explain that a person’s self grows on the basis of his interactions with the others. The central idea with which Cooley put across his views underlines a person’s self-image. He believed that people tend to shape their self-concepts on the basis of their understanding as to how people perceive them (Coburn & Canfield, 1993). Our self-image reflects the responses and evaluations being made by others in our environment. Cooley theorized that the process has three steps: we always imagine how we appear, we imagine that what people would judge about us, and we imagine how a person feels about us. In so far Looking glass-self theory is concerned, I am of the view that this theory paves a way for a person to see or not to see himself in the consciousness of others who, he thinks, serve as mirrors for reflecting his own image to himself.
George Herbert Mead famously propounded the “Theory of Social Self”, which underlines the whole new meaning of self, me and I. He theorized that self consists of two elements self-awareness and self-image. Interestingly, this theory of self is completely so
 
cial and has no room for the biological development of self and personality. He believed that our notion of self, who we are and what our personality consists of etc. is constructed through interaction and being in the world and also through the reflection by interacting more and more with the others and it develops as we age and grow (Mead & Morris, 1974). It was Mead’s genius to see self completely as a social phenomenon not a biological one. Mead also theorized that there are three important elements that help in developing self – language, play and games. The two aspects of self are me and I. Me denotes attitudes, behaviors and others’ expectations. I denotes an individual’s identity in terms of response to me. So, I view this theory as a fascinating one because it addresses everyone in the form of cohesive social elements. 
Jean Piaget is one of the noted psychologists and sociologists, who famously proposed the theory of Cognitive Development as to how children grow and develop intellectually in their childhood. Piaget believed that children have a fundamentally different thinking as against the adults. He was so intrigued with the way children gave reasons for their wrong answers that he realized that their incorrect answers revealed very important aspects of their thinking. Piaget’s unparalleled achievement was that he was a pioneer in making a systematic study of cognitive development in which he incorporated detailed observational studies in order to find out cognition in children. He carried out a series of simple but ingenious observational tests for revealing their various cognitive abilities (Piaget & Inhelder, 1969). The results that Piaget got indicate that children think in strikingly different ways compared to adults. As far as my views about Jean Piaget’s theory are concerned, it is today an accepted notion that children think differently than adults, but it was a revolutionary idea at that time. So, I believe that this was an important observation and also inspired a lot of other theories to build their own theories on it.  
The three theories that we studied in the above passage became a bedrock for developing a social conscience and inspired sociologists around the world to work towards the betterment of society. Cooley explained the concept of looking glass-self in which he said that society is a person’s self-image. Mead provided a deep insight of self, me and I. Whereas, Piaget made his invaluable contribution towards the development of children by revealing that they think differently than adults. However, I for one, have found Jean Piaget’s theory as the one that provides the most useful insights into the development of the Self.  

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References

Coburn, R. & Canfield, J. (1993). The Looking-Glass Self: An Examination of Self-Awareness. The Philosophical Review, 102(1), 129. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2185670
Mead, G. & Morris, C. (1974). Mind, self, and society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Piaget, J. & Inhelder, B. (1969). The psychology of the child. New York: Basic Books.

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