Importance of socialization

• Essential for individual survival

  • lifelong process

• Essential for a society’s survival

  • transmission of values, norms, culture

• Nature vs. Nurture

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Biosociology maintains that human behavior in primarily the result of genetic influences and physiology. For example, male aggression has been linked to higher levels of the hormone testosterone. Therefore, biosociologists would say that males are inherently more aggressive than females and that this is a positive trait from an evolutionary standpoint because the more aggressive males would have been most likely to survive and acquire mates thus passing their aggressive genes along to their descendents. I suppose the gentle males all got wiped out….

Well that’s the nature viewpoint in a nutshell- the nurture viewpoint would not deny the impact of biology on behavior but proposes that human behavior is much more complex than can be explained by raging hormones and that the influence of socialization far out weighs the impact of biology. Males may have testosterone, but they learn to be aggressive and they can also learn to be compassionate.

Humans are social primates. You have read about Harlow’s experiments with monkeys and about the effects of social isolation on children.

The socialization process transmits society’s values, norms, and culture to the young. Without this society itself would cease.