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Social Science An Introduction to the Study of SocietyFIFTeenTh edITIon

Elgin F. Hunt • David C. Colander

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143

chapter 7

Culture is created by the individuals within that culture, but individuals’ personalities are shaped and molded by culture. In this chapter, we take a social psychology perspective and consider the relationship between the individual and society. Much of our discussion will center on personality. Personality is the total organization of the inherited and acquired characteristics of an individual as evidenced by the individual’s behavior. Culture’s role in shaping individual personality is major, whereas each individual’s infl uence on culture is usually slight. As individuals, people must accept their culture much as they fi nd it, and if they hope to lead satisfactory lives as human beings, they must adjust to it.

Th is dependence of the individual on culture sometimes makes culture appear to be an independent entity, something that has an existence and continuity regardless of the people who are its carriers. Th is impression is strengthened when we view culture his-torically and note that many of its basic elements persist generation aft er generation. Two hundred years ago, the English language in its essential characteristics was not very dif-ferent from what it is today. Yet, of all those who spoke English then, not a single person is now alive.

For some purposes, it is convenient to think of culture as if it had an independent, objective existence. In the fi nal analysis, however, this is untrue. All cultures have been cre-ated by people. When we analyze culture closely, we fi nd only a series of patterned reactions characteristic of the individuals who belong to a given group. It is people who hold beliefs, have attitudes, practice customs, and behave in conformity with patterns accepted by the group. Cultures are built up so slowly and gradually that it is seldom possible to isolate the contributions made by particular individuals. In a large society, the individual is only one among millions. Furthermore, most individuals accept the social situation in which they fi nd themselves and make little attempt to change it.

Psychology, Society, and Deviance

After reading this chapter, you should be able to: • Explain how culture and personality are related • Summarize the nature/nurture debate • State the importance of positive and negative reinforcement • Discuss Maslow’s hierarchy • Diff erentiate the id, ego, and superego • Explain how IQ is calculated and the problems with its use • Defi ne deviance and name fi ve sociological theories about

deviance

If I am not for myself, who will be? And if I am only for myself, who am I? And if not now, when?

—Rabbi Hillel

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144 chapter 7 Psychology, Society, and Deviance

The fact that people as individuals are shaped by their culture does not mean that they are deprived of all freedom to control their behavior, to choose their mode of life, or even to affect the conditions that surround them. Any general cultural pattern is flexible to a degree and permits some variations from the norms. In simple primitive societies, the permissible variations may be rather limited, but in modern complex societies they are great. However, in any society the average individual is seldom aware of the extent to which culture restricts freedom. Culture becomes so internalized—so much a basic part of personality—that most of the time people do not wish to behave in ways other than those culturally approved. Only in special situations do they become keenly aware of conflicts between their own desires and the kind of conduct that is socially permissible.

Socialization of the Individual Socialization plays a major role in the development of human personality. Th is does not mean that a child’s personality may not be greatly infl uenced by its biological inheritance and by contacts with the physical environment. For the most part, however, a child learns from people the patterns of behavior and the attitudes, beliefs, and expectations that moti-vate behavior. All of these are largely cultural in origin, and therefore, as a child grows and develops, his or her behavior refl ects to an ever-greater degree the culture of the society into which he or she was born.

Signifi cance of the Early Years of Childhood Th e experiences of the young child within the family group seem to have the greatest infl u-ence on the development of human personality. Very early a normal baby begins to recog-nize familiar faces, sense approval and disapproval, seek attention, and in other ways react to the social environment.

Our personalities develop in this early childhood. Although tremendous gaps exist in our knowledge, we have discovered some of the ways in which children learn. One of the leaders in this discovery was noted psychologist Jean Piaget who developed several widely accepted theories on the development of children. His first point is obvious: Very young children think differently from adults. For example, many children think their shadow is a living entity that follows them wherever they go. Similarly, imaginary friends fly around the room at night, and inanimate objects, from marbles to vacuum cleaners, have very human characteristics. Reality for them blends in with imagination.

As we grow older, most of us learn to separate reality from imag-ination. If, however, an individual lacks the right environment, he or she will not be able to do so and may go through an entire lifetime living in a semifantasy world.

Piaget fi nds it useful to divide a child’s life into four stages (shown in Figure 7.1 ). From birth to two years, a child is prima-rily concerned with learning about physical objects. From two to six or seven years, the youngster learns about symbols in lan-guage, dreams, and fantasy. Next, he or she begins to learn about abstract concepts such as numbers and the relationships between them. Finally, from ages twelve to fi ft een, the child masters purely logical thought and learns to understand double mes-sages, such as irony and double entendres.

In order to develop normally both emotionally and mentally, a child must be accepted and receive aff ection, but overprotection


Socialization of the Individual 145

and overaff ection are not desirable, for they tend to lead to dependency and immaturity. At the other extreme, parental rejection and lack of aff ection create feelings of insecurity and inferiority and oft en bring on compensatory reactions such as aggressive, rebellious, or dom-ineering behavior.

As young children grow, they come into contact not only with parents, brothers and sisters, and other members of the household, but also with outsiders such as neigh-bors and playmates. They acquire greater physical competence and greater skill in the use of language and continually make adjustments to new people and new situations. These early experiences leave nearly indelible impressions and influence the “set” of each one’s personality.

Signifi cance of Differences in Individual Environment It is questionable whether any two individuals have precisely the same hereditary char-acteristics, though in the case of identical twins there is a close approximation to this situation. Certainly, no two individuals have exactly the same social environment. Some of the diff erences in individual environments are obvious to the most casual observer, but other diff erences are not so easy to see.

We are all aware that in a country such as the United States people often grow up in social environments that differ widely. To begin with, there are noticeable differ-ences in the language, attitudes, and customs of the people in different regions. Also, even in the same region there are differences between rural life and city life; and in a city of even moderate size there can be found a great variety of more or less distinct social groups. Among the more important of these groups are those set off from one

Birth–2 years oldConcern with physical objects

2 years old–6 years oldConcern with symbolism and fantasy

6 years old–12 years oldConcern with abstract concepts

12 years old–15 years oldConcern with logical thought and irony

Figure 7.1 Piaget’s four stages.


146 chapter 7 Psychology, Society, and Deviance

another by differences in income, social prestige, religion, nationality, or race. But dif-ferences in individual social environment go further than this. In any given social group, families are likely to differ significantly from one another in their modes of life, so that a child brought up in one family may have a quite different environment from that of a child reared in another.

All these diff erences are fairly obvious. It is not quite so obvious, but nonetheless true, that two children brought up in the same family at the same time may have quite dissimilar environments. Th is is because social environment depends not only on people, but also on the nature of personal relations with them. One child in a family may be loved by the par-ents, given every advantage, perhaps be overindulged, whereas another child may be dis-liked, neglected, even mistreated. Clearly, such children do not have at all the same environment, and the diff erences are likely to have deep and lasting eff ects on their mental and emotional development, on their personalities, and on their relations with other people in later years.

Effects of Extreme Isolation on Children Th e study of children who have been largely isolated from social contacts demonstrates the importance of socialization by showing what happens in its absence. It also considers the possibility of compensating in later years for development that failed to take place earlier at the normal time.

It is impossible to fi nd children who have been completely isolated from other human beings from the time of birth. Th e reason is simple. Th e human infant is so helpless that it cannot possibly survive without receiving some care from older people who understand its needs. However, cases have been reported of children who, in early life, have been partially or completely isolated from human contact over considerable periods. Th ese reports are of two types: (1) cases of feral children —children who have lived in a wild or untamed state with animals—and (2) cases of children kept isolated in a room, basement, or attic and given little attention except for being provided with food and drink. (Less extreme exam-ples of isolation occur with children who are merely neglected, or who are cared for, more or less impersonally, in institutions.)

Stories of feral children appeal to the imagination. Th ey are stories that have been told in all ages about children believed to have been cared for when very young by boars, wolves, bears, or other animals. Th ese stories have nearly always been spread by hearsay, and it is doubtful whether any of them are based on fact. Perhaps the oldest of such tales is about the legendary founders of Rome, the twins Romulus and Remus, who are said to have been abandoned as infants and suckled by a wolf. As you might have noticed, our history of the world skipped these legendary twins.

Th e one report that has some credibility is of two children found in a wolf den in India. Th ey could not talk, and they are reported to have run on all fours and in other respects to have exhibited animal-like behavior. Under human care, they responded very little to the attempts made to socialize and educate them, and both died at an early age. Most psychologists believe that they most likely suff ered from infantile autism, a condi-tion in which a child is unable to respond emotionally to others. Most psychologists believe these children, not very long before they were found, had been abandoned because they were autistic.

Th ough stories of feral children should be regarded with skepticism, there appear to be well-authenticated cases of children who for considerable periods of time have been locked in basements, attics, or upstairs rooms and isolated from almost all normal human con-tacts. One case involved a girl named Isabelle who, because she was illegitimate, was kept secluded in a dark room with her deaf-mute mother until she was six and a half years old. In another case, a girl named Anna was kept in a room alone until she was about six.


Personality and Its Development 147

In each of these cases, when the girl was discovered, her behavior in many respects resembled that of an infant or a wild animal. But Isabelle, when placed in a normal social environment and given special training, caught up rapidly. In a few years, she was mak-ing good progress in school and gave the impression of a bright, cheerful, energetic little girl. However, when Anna was placed in a normal environment, she made much less progress, and she was still considered mentally disabled when she died at the age of ten and a half.

We have no way of knowing why Anna failed to develop as much as Isabelle. Perhaps Isabelle’s close contact with her deaf-mute mother gave her a sense of being loved and secure, and thus she enjoyed a great advantage over Anna in her emotional development, or it may be that she received more expert attention aft er she was removed from isolation. It is also possible that Isabelle’s biological inheritance was superior to Anna’s.

In 1970, a thirteen-year-old girl, who was given the name Genie, was found. She had been tied up and kept in a room without human contact by her elderly parents, who were psychologically disturbed. She had been fed only milk and baby food and was never spo-ken to. She was incontinent, could not speak, and weighed only fi ft y-seven pounds. Aft er she was brought to a hospital, she learned to communicate, but, although her mother said that she had been normal at birth, Genie’s IQ was only 74 and her language ability never fully developed.

Personality and Its Development To have a full understanding of the relationship between individuals and society, it is help-ful to have a clear concept of the meaning of personality. It has been said that every human being is in some respects like all others, in some respects like some others, and in some respects like no others.

As we mentioned earlier, personality may be defi ned as the total organization of the inherited and acquired characteristics of an individual as evidenced by the individual’s behavior. It is the product of the interaction between an individual’s original biological

According to legend, the founders of Rome were human twins, Romulus and Remus, who were nurtured by a wolf.


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